Herbert John Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone, was born on January 7, 1854, in London, England, son of William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), a UK Prime Minister (1868-1894).

He was a British Liberal politician. He was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, and lectured in history at Keble College, Oxford (1877–1880). In 1880, he entered politics as a private secretary to his father and the same year, Gladstone was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Leeds, a post he held until 1910. He served as Lord of Treasury (1881), Financial Secretary to the War Office (1886), Under-Secretary of the Home Office (1892–1894), First Commissioner of Works (1894–1895), Chief Whip to the Liberal Party (1899–1906), and Home Secretary (1905–1910). In 1910, he was appointed 1st Governor-General of South Africa and also the High Commissioner. Gladstone was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and raised to the peerage as Viscount Gladstone, of the County of Lanark, in 1910. Upon his return from South Africa in 1914, he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and spent much of the First World War being involved with various charities, e.g., the War Refugees Committee and the South African Hospital Fund. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1917.

In 1901, he married Lady Dorothy Mary Paget (1876–1953). He died on March 6, 1930, in Ware, Hertfordshire, England.