'Rescue work'
As a founding member of a Tractarian-minded, high-church Anglican brotherhood called 'The Engagement'24, Gladstone was expected to undertake some form of regular charity work - what he referred to as 'rescue work'. In the mid-1840s he concerned himself chiefly with The House of Charity (or House of St. Barnabas-in-Soho as it was renamed in 1961) which existed to provide a short-term place of refuge for the homeless and destitute. It was run by Anglicans and beneficiaries had to commit to daily church attendance. By 1848, Gladstone's involvement with the charity had become “too time-consuming”.25
Philanthropy was common in the Nineteenth Century as the more fortunate felt a moral, often Christian, obligation to help the 'deserving poor'. Gladstone was certainly one of those 'do-gooders'. His obsession with prostitutes is well-documented: Gladstone mentions more than two hundred fallen women in his diaries.26 He sought, primarily, to rehabilitate them - sometimes paying for their education or emigration, finding them appropriate employment, or suitable marriages. However, it has also been argued, by H.C.G. Matthew and others, that Gladstone courted temptation and craved exposure to sexual stimulation.27 Related episodes of self-flagellation are also recorded in the diaries, thought to have been a physical form of penance whenever his longings for the women were such that they warranted chastisement.
Gladstone contributed 12-14% of his income to28, and raised funds for, a number of charitable causes including hospitals and voluntary societies, but he had a particular involvement with education. Whilst serving as President of the Board of Trade he was in the habit of absconding to teach in the Bedfordbury ragged school29 and, as Prime Minister in 1870, he oversaw the introduction of an Education Act which made school attendance compulsory for children up to ten years old.
