A Refuge for Liberal Values Beneath a Stern Victorian Gaze
" he said, noting that the statesman prized "deep study and doing your proper research and in some depth, so
that you would get all the nuances." Evidence of scholarship is all around in this imposing library, built in the first years of the 20th century in Gothic style on the site of the more basic structure — the "Tin Tabernacle" — that Gladstone built in 1889 to house his 32,000 books. that I can’t think of any single thing that is more un-Gladstonian,
The library’s warden must be a member of the clergy, and there is a regular communion service at 8 a.m., though Mr. Francis said
that there was "no expectation that people go," and described this as "old-fashioned Anglicanism that goes on like the breathing of the house." Mr. Francis remembered being "terribly scornful" that his predecessor stayed in the job for 21 years, yet he is now at the start of his own second decade in the post and seems destined to outdo the record.
Sitting in his book-lined office, Mr. Francis, whose formal title is warden, said
that as a committed internationalist, Gladstone would have been "very upset" about Britain’s exit from the European Union.
