3-086-371 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Funeral of Mr. Gladstone: removing the body from the funeral car on its arrival at the Abbey, 1898. 'From Photograph by Bolas...the plainest of funeral cars - a mere wheeled platform - drawn by two bay horses...the route [was] lined by thousands of sorrowing spectators and guarded by the Eton College Volunteers, who, as the body approached, presented arms - a last honour from his old school to Mr. Gladstone. The cortege appeared just on the stroke of eleven, but several hours previously the congregation within the Abbey had been assembling. Ticket-holders were admitted from half-past eight in the morning until ten o'clock. By that time many distinguished people had entered and taken their places'. British Prime Minister William Eward Gladstone (born 1809) died on 19 May 1898, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London on 26 May. From "Illustrated London News", 1898.