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Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Charles Grey 2nd Earl Grey
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(born March 13, 1764, Falloden, Northumberland, Eng. — died July 17, 1845, Howick, Northumberland) British politician, leader of the Whig Party, and prime minister (1830 – 34). Grey entered Parliament in 1786 and soon became prominent among the aristocratic Whigs, led by Charles James Fox, in opposition to William Pitt's conservative government. In 1806 Grey became first lord of the Admiralty in Lord Grenville's government, and, when Fox died the same year, Grey became foreign secretary and leader of the Foxite Whigs. In 1807 the dismissal of the ministry and the loss of his seat for Northumberland because of his Catholic sympathies left Grey with a distaste for office. From 1815 to 1830 he was more patron than leader of the divided Whig opposition. In 1830 he became prime minister with popular backing for parliamentary reform. After considerable debate and conflict, he won adoption of the Reform Bill of 1832.

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British History: Charles Grey
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Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845). Prime minister. Son of General Sir Charles Grey of Fallodon, Northumberland, Grey entered Parliament in 1786 as a member for Northumberland. Grey inherited Howick in 1808, from which he could rarely be tempted to attend to his duties as leader of the Whig Party after Fox's death.

A headstrong young man, Grey was attracted to Fox and his circle and joined the opposition to Pitt. He distinguished himself from the outset as a brilliant orator in the House of Commons, but in 1792 he committed himself to parliamentary reform, helping to found the Association of the Friends of the People. He hoped to use the reform movement to advance his career but the step split the Whigs, aristocratic grandees like the duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam being frightened by the prospect of the spread of the French Revolution. They joined Pitt in 1794, while Fox and Grey led the rump of the party in opposition.

After the peace of Amiens and the subsequent resumption of war against Napoleon the Whigs formed a coalition with the group led by Lord Grenville, but their conservatism meant that Grey had to give up active support of reform. In the ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ (1806-7) Grey served as 1st lord of the Admiralty and after Fox's death succeeded him as foreign secretary. After the fall of the ‘Talents’, Grey tried to steer a middle course between radicalism and conservatism.

In 1807 Grey inherited the peerage which, to his dismay, Addington had conferred on his father in 1802. For the remainder of his life he sat in the House of Lords, where his oratorical gifts were less effective. Though he never quite abandoned the position of leader of the Whig opposition, the party suffered from a lack of positive direction. He consistently advocated catholic emancipation and gave important assistance to Wellington in achieving it in 1829.

In 1830 George IV's death removed the royal veto on Grey and at the same time the demand for parliamentary reform revived in the country. Wellington's refusal to consider it broke up his administration and William IV sent for Grey, at the age of 66, to form the ministry which was to pass the Great Reform Act. This was Grey's major achievement. He proposed it on the same principles which he had professed in 1792, the need to satisfy the demand of the respectable classes for greater representation while denying power to the mass of the people. He was able to persuade William IV to maintain a reluctant support for the measure and, finally, to promise to create enough new peers, if necessary, to force the bill through the House of Lords. His cabinet was a coalition of interests rather than a united party, and in 1834 when its divisions over the Irish church question became public Grey resigned, with relief at ending his burdensome duties. He spent the rest of his life in retirement at Howick.

Wikipedia: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
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The Right Honourable
 The Earl Grey 
KG PC

Earl Grey as painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, ca. 1828.
In office
22 November 1830 – 16 July 1834
Monarch William IV
Preceded by The Duke of Wellington
Succeeded by The Viscount Melbourne
Born 13 March 1764(1764-03-13)
Fallodon, Northumberland, England
Died 17 July 1845 (aged 81)
Howick House, Howick, Northumberland
Political party Whig
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Lord Grey, ca. 1820.

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845), known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the primary architects of the Reform Act 1832. In addition to his political achievements, Earl Grey famously gives his name to an aromatic blend of tea.

Contents

Grey's life

Descended from a long-established Northumbrian family seated at Howick Hall, Grey was the second but eldest surviving son of General Sir Charles Grey KB (1729–1807) and his wife, Elizabeth (1743/4–1822), daughter of George Grey of Southwick, co. Durham. He had four brothers and two sisters. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge,[1] acquiring a facility in Latin and in English composition and declamation that enabled him to become one of the foremost parliamentary orators of his generation. Grey was elected to Parliament at the age of 22 in 1786. He became a part of the Whig circle of Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the Prince of Wales, and soon became one of the major leaders of the Whig party. Grey was noted for advocating Parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. His affair with the Duchess of Devonshire, herself an active political campaigner, did him little harm although it nearly caused her to be divorced by her husband.

In 1806, Grey, by then Lord Howick owing to his father's elevation to the peerage as Earl Grey, became a part of the Ministry of All the Talents (a coalition of Foxite Whigs, Grenvillites, and Addingtonites) as First Lord of the Admiralty. Following Fox's death later that year, Howick took over both as Foreign Secretary and as leader of the Whigs.

The government fell from power the next year, and, after a brief period as a Member of Parliament for Appleby from May to July 1807, Howick went to the Lords, succeeding his father as Earl Grey. He continued in opposition for the next 23 years.

Reform Act

In 1830, the Whigs finally returned to power, with Grey as Prime Minister. His Ministry was a notable one, seeing passage of the Reform Act 1832, which finally saw the reform of the House of Commons, and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. As the years had passed, however, Grey had become more conservative, and he was cautious about initiating more far-reaching reforms. In 1834 Grey retired from public life, leaving Lord Melbourne as his successor.

Grey returned to Howick but kept a close eye on the policies of the new cabinet under Melbourne, whom he, and especially his family, regarded as a mere understudy until he began to act in ways of which they disapproved. Grey became more critical as the decade went on, being particularly inclined to see the hand of Daniel O'Connell behind the scenes and blaming Melbourne for subservience to the radicals with whom he identified the Irish patriot. He made no allowances for Melbourne's need to keep the radicals on his side to preserve his shrinking majority in the Commons, and in particular he resented any slight on his own great achievement, the Reform Act, which he saw as a final solution of the question for the foreseeable future. He continually stressed its conservative nature. As he declared in his last great public speech, at the Grey Festival organized in his honour at Edinburgh in September 1834, its purpose was to strengthen and preserve the established constitution, to make it more acceptable to the people at large, and especially the middle classes, who had been the principal beneficiaries of the Reform Act, and to establish the principle that future changes would be gradual, "according to the increased intelligence of the people, and the necessities of the times".[2] It was the speech of a conservative statesman.[3]

A group of naked British Whig politicians, including three Grenvilles, Sheridan, St. Vincent, Moira, Temple, Erskine, Howick, Petty, Whitbread, Sheridan, Windham,and Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, crossing the river Styx in a boat named the Broad Bottom Packet. Sidmouth's head emerges from the water next to the boat. The boat's torn sail has inscription "Catholic Emancipation" and the center mast is crowned with the Prince of Wales feathers and motto "Ich Dien". On the far side the shades of Cromwell, Charles Fox and Robespierre wave to them. Overhead, on brooms, are the Three Fates; to the left a three-headed dog. Above the boat three birds soil the boat and politicians.
In Charon's Boat (1807), James Gillray caricatured the fall from power of the Whig administration, with Howick taking the role of Charon rowing the boat.

Retirement and commemoration

Grey spent his last years in contented, if sometimes fretful, retirement at Howick, with his books, his family, and his dogs. He became physically feeble in his last years and died quietly in his bed on 17 July 1845, forty-four years to the day since going to live at Howick[4]. He was buried in the church there on the 26th in the presence of his family, close friends, and the labourers on his estate.[3]

Earl Grey tea is named after Grey, a blend which uses bergamot oil to flavour the beverage. He is commemorated by Grey's Monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, which consists of a statue of Lord Grey standing atop a 41 m (130 ft) high column. The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro located directly underneath. Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne is also indebted to Lord Grey for its name. Grey also gave his name to Grey College, Durham.

Marriage and affairs

Grey married Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby (1776–1861), only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby and Hon. Louisa Molesworth in 1794. The marriage was a happy and fruitful one; between 1797 and 1819 the couple had eleven sons and five daughters:

  • Louisa Elizabeth Grey (1797-26 November 1841) married John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham
  • Elizabeth Grey (10 July 1798- 8 November 1880) married John Bulteel
  • Caroline Grey (30 August 1799-28 April 1875) married Capt. the Hon. George Barrington
  • [a son] Grey (1800-1800)
  • Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (28 December 1802- 9 October 1894), eldest son, who became a politician like his father
  • General Sir Charles Grey (15 March 1804-31 March 1870), father of Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey
  • Admiral Frederick William Grey (23 August 1805- 2 May 1878)
  • Mary Grey (1807- 6 July 1884) married Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax
  • Admiral George Grey (16 May 1809- 3 October 1891)
  • [a son] Grey (1810-1810)
  • Rev. Hon. John Grey ( 2 March 1812-11 November 1895)
  • Rev. Hon. Sir Francis Grey (31 March 1813-22 March 1890)
  • Hon. Henry Cavendish Grey (16 October 1814- 5 September 1880)
  • [a son] Grey (1815-1815)
  • [a daughter] Grey (1817-1817)
  • Hon. William George Grey (15 February 1819-19 December 1865)

Mary was frequently pregnant and during his absences in London or elsewhere Grey had a series of affairs with other women. The first, most notorious, and most significant, which antedated his engagement to his future wife, was with Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, whom he met at Devonshire House – the centre of Whig society in London in the 1780s and 1790s – shortly after his arrival in the capital as a young recruit to the House of Commons. Impetuous and headstrong, Grey pursued Georgiana with persistence until she gave in to his attentions. She became pregnant by Grey in 1791, but she refused to leave her husband the duke, and live with Grey, when the duke threatened that if she did so she would never see their children again. She went abroad with Elizabeth Foster, and on 20 February 1792 at Aix-en-Provence, gave birth to a daughter who was given the name Eliza Courtney. After their return to England in September 1793 the child was taken to Fallodon and brought up by Grey's parents as though she were his sister. This affair was a significant step in the process by which he became a member of the Whig party, led by Charles James Fox.[3]

Lord Grey's Ministry, November 1830 – July 1834

Lord Grey atop the Grey's Monument, looking down Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne
Inscription on Grey Monument (click image to enlarge)


Changes

In fiction

Charles Grey is portrayed by Dominic Cooper in the 2008 film The Duchess, directed by Saul Dibb and starring Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley. The film is based on Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.

He is also a secondary character in Emma Donoghue's 2004 book Life Mask.

Notes

  1. ^ Grey, Charles in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
  2. ^ Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 17 September 1834.
  3. ^ a b c Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  4. ^ GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1845 XXV 130 ALNWICK

References

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
The Lord Barham		 First Lord of the Admiralty
1806		 Succeeded by
Thomas Grenville
Preceded by
Charles James Fox		 Foreign Secretary
1806 – 1807		 Succeeded by
George Canning
Leader of the House of Commons
1806 – 1807		 Succeeded by
Spencer Perceval
Preceded by
The Duke of Wellington		 Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
22 November 1830 – 16 July 1834		 Succeeded by
The Viscount Melbourne
Leader of the House of Lords
1830 – 1834
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Charles Grey		 Earl Grey
1807 – 1845		 Succeeded by
Henry Grey
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