Mary Gladstone

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Mary Gladstone (1847–1927), was a political secretary, writer, and political hostess.

Gladstone was the daughter of the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and achieved notability as her father's advisor, confidante, and private secretary. She attained political influence by controlling access to her father.

The Gladstones were an eccentric family. Today her father is as well known for his often suspect work amongst prostitutes as for his three terms as Prime Minister. Her aunt, her father's sister, became demented following her conversion to Roman Catholicism, and subsequently used tracts written by Protestant theologians as lavatory paper, an act which incensed the zealously Anglican William Gladstone. Mary Gladstone's mother Catherine, also an eccentric, was once observed taking meat out of sandwiches and placing it in her decolletage.

Mary Gladstone grew up against this background of eccentricity, her father's favourite, a plain girl, studious but with little serious education. After a few infatuations with disinterested men she resigned herself to life as a spinster. In 1880, on becoming Prime Minister for a third term at the age of 70, William Gladstone created her one of his Downing Street secretaries. Thus began her political career. She became the door to her father, a powerful position, in which she delighted.

On 2 February, 1886, at the age of 38, Mary Gladstone suddenly astounded her friends by marrying a curate, Harry Drew, ten years her junior. Following her father's final retirement in 1894 her political influence waned. Although a great friend of her father's successor as premier, Lord Rosebery, she was never again able to wield influence. A diarist, she kept copious notes of her father's meetings and conversations, in addition to her own observations of late 19th-century political events. Her archives "The Mary Gladstone Papers" (some of which were published in 1930 under the title Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew), Her Diaries and Letters ) are a much used source of many 20th and 21st century biographies of leading figures of the day.