A Crisis of Faith, Scary Popes, and William Gladstone

Abstract

William Gladstone presided as Prime Minister of Great Britain on four separate occasions between 1868 to 1894. Gladstone was preoccupied both personally and politically with religion, and his personal faith journey reflected the larger crisis of faith occurring in Britain in the nineteenth century as secularism and urbanization began to erode the place of faith in common life. Many scholars have referred to this period as the “Victorian Crisis of Faith.” This paper examines his personal diaries and extensive writings to understand his zest for religion, primarily regarding the supposed papal aggression of 1850 in Great Britain and his personal faith crises. The significance of this paper is that it highlights how both personally and politically this key leader was working to understand the role of religion in public life in nineteenth-century Great Britain.