In which author Daniel Gray salutes the forgotten heroes (sometimes) of Leih’s past: John Gladstone 1764-1851.

A merchant and politician, John Gladstone was actually born Gladstones, but dropped the ‘s’ in a pointless marketing exercise. Any rebranding of the Gladstone name would have to go further than the mere cosmetic; this Leither is infamous for his fierce support of slavery.
The eldest of 16 children, Gladstone left school in his early teens to work in the Edinburgh Roperie and Sailcloth Company, but his over-sized hands made the intricate work involved difficult. I didn’t even make that bit up. As if on a mission to work his way through as many beautiful sounding nineteenth century trades as possible, Gladstone then joined his father’s corn-chandling firm. His chief role was to trade in grain and vitriol, which agonisingly – because I love the Richard Littlejohn ethos of exchanging hate for money – is actually a sulphate.

Dark tales of a famous Leither with grim skeletons in his cupboard...

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Stationed in the Baltics, Gladstone greatly impressed the merchant Edgar Corrie who signed him up for a job in Liverpool where he possibly met William Emmerdale and James Eastenders. From 1786, Gladstone began taking ownership of sugar plantations in the West Indies, and then diversified into Virginian tobacco. He was, obviously, very much a health freak, but where there are bad teeth and dodgy lungs there is brass; between 1799 and 1828, the Gladstone fortune rose from £40,000 to £500,000.

Gladstone had a bitter break-up with Corrie as the eighteenth century turned into the nineteenth, and formed a partnership with his five brothers. In what would today be irritatingly called ‘diversifying the portfolio’, they moved into the glamorous world of real estate and shipping insurance, employing a young Michael Winner to extol the virtues of same.

In 1809, Gladstone fathered the future Prime Minister William Ewart, as you do, and became chairman of the Liverpool West Indian Association. In that position, he opposed the abolition of slavery and supported the rights of plantation owners. His own use of slave labour had begun several years earlier with the purchase of the Belmont estate, Demerara, and peaked with the 1826 acquisition of Vreedenhoop. There, some 430 slaves worked the land for Gladstone’s profit.

Resisting the tidal wave of public opinion, he remained steadfast in his support for slavery and deeply reluctant to invest in expensive British manufacturing. Gladstone had, though, received a fiery warning that the march of change could not be halted forever.

Bailing out the future P.M.
The Demerara Rebellion of 1823 was named not after someone’s refusal to put brown sugar on their Frosties, but a slave revolt. More than 10,000 people participated in an insurrection that shook the British Empire to its core in the former crown colony of Demerara-Essequibo. The leader of the uprising was one Jack Gladstone, so-called due to the practice of the enslaved adopting their masters’ surnames.

The rebel Gladstone, a cooper on the plantation and winningly charismatic, became aware of the growing clamour in Britain for the full abolition of slavery in its colonies. With his father Quamina, Jack led thousands of slaves in a widespread strike. A volley of frustration was let forth, but rarely over-spilled into violence. Unwilling to relinquish their grip, the troops of the Empire eventually overpowered the rebels. Ringleaders, including Quamina, were executed in their hundreds; Jack was sold and swiftly exiled to Saint Lucia. The spirit of their revolt, though, could not be quashed and a rusty nail had been hammered into slavery’s coffin. Unknowingly, Jack had taken the baton of Leither rebellion that John never looked like picking up.

In 1830, John Gladstone used a pamphlet entitled Statement on the Present State of Slavery to oppose abolition whilst finally acknowledging slave owners’ moral responsibilities. However, if the message of ‘his’ Jack had got through to the stubborn old man, he was employing selective hearing; when in 1833 slavery was abolished in the British Empire, John Gladstone set about winning gigantic compensation fees for slave owners, pocketing for himself a healthy £94,000. Presumably he used his star status to launch a campaign of daytime advertisements offering ‘no win no fee’ lawyers for Britain’s emaciated slave drivers.

There was, though, never any risk of the owners having to work themselves. In a name-changing exercise worthy of the former Member for Lancaster, Woodstock and then Berwick, Gladstone hit upon the idea of using ‘Indentured Servants’. Indentures were contracted to their masters for a fixed period, and received free clothing as part of the bargain, which is fine because a pair of trousers more than makes up for back-breaking pain and servitude.

When the British government outlandishly abolished slavery in the West Indies, Gladstone sold up and began investing in Bengalsugar. Through the 1840s, his wealth diminished as he bailed out his son the future Prime Minster, though he did leave behind the not inconsiderable sum of £745,000 upon his death in 1851. Oi! You at the back! Stop whispering ‘dirty money’…