Gladstone with log and gold faced axe

Gladstone with log and gold faced axe, registry lozenge, Birmingham 1876, 5.5cm. Hawarden Castle with locket. Gladstone's appointment in 1868 to Prime Minister was notified to him while he was at Hawarden Castle and in the process of felling a tree. The axe and tree took on allegorical significance due to a speech in which he compared the Irish situation to a notoriously poisonous tree called the Upas tree. (2)