Search by category
Search through the Index of Volume stories and blogs
The latest news and views from Gladstone's Library.
First Visit to an Archives
by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 02nd March 2023
In mid-August 2022, I travelled from Northern Ireland to Hawarden to stay at Gladstone’s Library. The purpose of my week-long visit was to conduct primary research for my forthcoming dissertation on the intellectual origins of William Ewart Gladstone’s support for Irish Home Rule. Yet, as an undergraduate Politics student (or rather, as an untrained historian), I felt somewhat daunted by the task that lay before me of searching through one restricted-access file after another for snippets of insight into Gladstone’s political thought. I hope that by sharing my experience at Gladstone’s Library I can reassure others who may feel similarly about the prospect of archival research that it is actually quite straightforward and rewarding.
Gladstone, Geology, and Genesis in the 1880s

by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 02nd March 2023
'William Ewart Gladstone, not known for a conspicuous interest in geology, nonetheless starred in one of the period’s last prominent squabbles over the scientific accuracy of the Book of Genesis'.
A blog post by archives researcher Dr Richard Fallon (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, University of Birmingham)