Sir Thomas Gladstone, 2nd Baronet (25 July 1804 – 20 March 1889)[1] was a Tory politician from Liverpool, who returned to the ancestral seat in the Highlands to become a country squire.

[7] He defended his father's credentials and inherited values, in a speech that was mostly an inaudible defence of Liverpool's corrupt local electoral practices.

Having rejected nomination for both Nottingham and Orkney, he chose the town of Leicester from 1835 to 1837, when the death of William IV necessitated a general election.

Gladstone's focus of attention fell upon the cost of duty on spirits and fire insurances; he presented petitions to have these taxes lifted.

But in the House on 30 July Patrick Stewart MP submitted his own as-yet unproven report that Tom Gladstone was guilty of bribery and electoral malpractice.

[11][not specific enough to verify] Tom was rapidly disillusioned with party politics: in contrast to his brother's immediate success in the House of Commons, he diverted his attention to making his estate works.

Sir John, their father, was incensed by Tom's ungenerous attitude to his promising sibling; ten years earlier he had resented his interference in being forced to vote for William at the poll.

But as head of the family he was on his father's death ultimately responsible, for example for installing his sister, Helen, in a Roman Catholic convent in 1847 at Leamington.

[3]: 79, 96 Always somewhat overshadowed by the towering political achievements of his intellectual brother, Thomas was passed over for a peerage, and managed to fail in the inheritance of the Hawarden estate.

On 12 January 1880, he arrived in Cologne with his wife, Lady Louisa, to find that his sister Helen was gravely ill; four days later, she died.