MRS GLADSTONE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1725, 17 April 1888, Page 3

MRS GLADSTONE.

A recent sketch of Mrs Gladstone, the wife of England’s ex-Premier, says she was born in 1812, and came of an excellent family, being the daughter of Sir Eichard Glynne. Even as a girl she showed marked capacities for leadership, and was always the head and front of all plans originated in the nursery or schoolroom. Her disposition has always been calm and reposeful, and though she has never been greatly given to ■ enthusiasm, when she once becomes interested in any matter she devotes herself to it with a quiet persistency that is generally effective in producing the desired result. She is extremely independent, and little influenced by wealth or position; in fact, the

imperiousness of her temperament leads her to prefer for the most part people to whom she herself represents those qualities. She greatly prefers being courted to courting, and during her husband’s incumbency of the Premiership she came in contact with royalty as little as was consonant with the necessities of the position. Ambitious as she is for him, she is better pleased to be at Hawarden, their country seat, than anywhere else in the world. Mrs Gladstone has interested herself very actively in the

condition of the cottagers round about Harwarden and has stimulated a taste for the planting of shrubs and flowers by offering rewards for the best display. In the schools she has introduced teachers who instruct the children in sewing, embroidery, cooking, and various handicrafts suited to boys. She is extremely charitable, n.nrl it is told of her that during the

Lancashire cotton famine she employed fifty men laying out roads and otherwise improving the Hawarden Park at a salary that kept their families from want until the troubles

at the mills were at an end. She had founded at Clapham an industrial school for hoys and a home for aged incurables, which are both under her direct supervision and are both model charities. On one occasion a young woman whom she had helped came and asked her what service she could do in return to show her gratitude. In reply, Mrs Gladstone said, ‘ Do something for somebody else. A kind word, a bit of practical advice, a helping hand, even if there is not much in it, will always be doing something for me, and more than that my child, will be doing something for yourself and something for your God.’ Mr Gladstone has always found in this strong, well-rounded woman, his greatest support and reward.