Memorial Service: Sir William Gladstone, Bt

With memorial services postponed owing to COVID-19, I have gone back to a service held in 2018. With the threat to statues of the great Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone and the Scouts’ founder, Robert Baden-powell, this remains oddly topical.

You might think a Chief Scout could cook anything, in the most adverse conditions. This was not true of Gladstone, Chief Scout from 1972 until 1982, who was unable to boil an egg in his own castle.

‘He was a useless cook,’ his son Charles told friends at Sir William’s funeral at St Deiniol’s Church, Hawarden, in North Wales. ‘My sister Vicky told me the other day of a rare time when Mum was away and Dad was asked to cook for her. He settled on boiled eggs but left them in the pan so long that they exploded.’

Sir Charles, as he now is, told how his father was asked to contribute to a Scouts charity cookbook. ‘It was a serious book with various wellknown people’s recipes. His simply said: “Recipe for Fried Egg… Take an egg… Stand my assistant Ken in the sun until his bald head has heated to boiling point. Then give Ken a swift chop behind the knees so he goes down. Crack the egg on his head. Scrape off the egg when fried and serve.” ’

Before becoming Chief Scout, Sir William was headmaster of Lancing College, from 1961 until 1969. One of his former pupils, Sir Tim Rice, was at the funeral.

Sir Charles told how his father was made a Knight of the Garter by the Queen, an honour pointedly not given by Queen Victoria to his great-grandfather although he was her Prime Minister four times.

‘Dad did not really believe in social barriers,’ said his son. ‘Dad had a love of people. He was the opposite of a social snob. I think the thing he probably hated most was snobs.’

There were contributions from several of Sir William’s 15 grandchildren, from the Rector of Hawarden, Andrea Jones, the Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, and the Archbishop of Wales, John Davies.

Inviting friends to visit the castle, Charles said, ‘Perhaps if you look carefully at the castle walls today … you will see the hole caused by his 20 bore when he decided that the best way to remove a wasps’ nest was to shoot it.’