Charles_Grey,_2nd_Earl_Grey

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834

"The Earl Grey" redirects here. For other holders of the title, see Earl Grey.

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845) was a British Whig politician.[1] He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the House of Lords from 1830 to 1834. As prime minister, Grey introduced the Representation of the People Act of 1832, which expanded the electorate in the British Empire, and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire.[2]

Quick Facts The Right HonourableThe Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Leader of the House of Lords ...
Arms of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

Born into a prominent Whig family in the north of England, Grey was educated at Eton College before attending the University of Cambridge without obtaining a degree. He then travelled extensively and became a MP in 1786 for Northumberland. Grey was a long-time leader of the reform movement. He briefly served as Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of All the Talents. Grey would serve in the opposition for almost two and a half decades.[3] Following the passing of George IV and the ascension of William IV to the throne, the Tory government of Wellington was defeated in the 1830 general election and led to the Whigs, under Grey's leadership, forming a new government.[4][5]

He presented his first petition to extend the electoral franchise of voting as a member of parliament in 1792, and as prime minister he ultimately legislated the Representation of the People Act of 1832, which extended the franchise of voting in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and which was accompanied by extensions of the electoral franchise in Scotland and Ireland with the Scottish Reform Act of 1832 and the Irish Reform Act of 1832.[6] The Representation of the People Act of 1832 granted the right to vote to a broader segment of the male population by standardising property qualifications, extending the franchise to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more.

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 abolished slavery in the British Empire. The legislation ordered the British government to purchase the freedom of all slaves in the British Empire, in the way of compensated emancipation, and by outlawing the further practice of slavery in the British Empire. He resigned as prime minister in 1834 over disagreements in his cabinet regarding Ireland, and he retired from politics. Scholars rank him highly among British prime ministers, as he defused civil strife and enabled Victorian progress.[6] He is widely regarded as the namesake of Earl Grey tea.[7]

Early life

Grey was born at Howick Hall, Northumberland, England on 13 March 1764 to a influential established noble family.[8] The Greys held a moderate estate significantly smaller than the powerful Dukes of Northumberland but still influential in the county. The family’s ancestral roots extended back to the 14th century and their principal home had long been at Howick, a former peel tower perched along the rugged coast between Alnmouth and Dunstanburgh Castle. He was the second son of Lieutenant-General Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey and his wife Elizabeth, Countess Grey.[9][10] He had four brothers and two sisters.born shortly after the death of his elder brother. With his bachelor uncle Sir Henry Grey as the baronet of Howick,[9] Charles stood to inherit the family’s principal estates, though Fallodon later passed to a younger brother. Relations between Charles and his parents were occasionally tense. His father, a strict soldier who served in the American Revolutionary War, expected obedience and discipline, which Charles resisted with nervous stubbornness. Though intelligent, Charles struggled constantly under the pressures of this demanding household.[10]

Grey's early education began at the age of six when he was sent to a school in Marylebone.[11] There he was lonely, sickly, and suffered a traumatic experience when a nurse at Tyburn took him to witness an execution, an event that haunted him into adulthood.[12] He was educated at Richmond School, Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.[13][14] At Eton, he met many future political allies and contemporaries, including Richard Wellesley, Samuel Whitbread, and William Lambton.[15] His headmaster described him as “able in his exercises, impetuous, [and] overbearing,” a personality that would come to define his later political character.[12] He improved his public speaking and developed a unique style of oratory that became his trademark in Parliament.[8] Academic pursuits held little interest for him there, and though he wrote warmly about the freedom of university life, he expressed frustration that non-mathematicians were considered unimportant. Like many of his contemporaries, he left without taking a degree, showing no signs of pursuing a professional career. Instead, he embarked on a European tour, partially funded by his uncle.[16]

The Grand Tour, as it was called, was taken by Grey as a testament marking the third part of a gentleman's education. He first travelled alone through Southern France, Switzerland and Italy, but later continued his travels with Henry, Duke of Cumberland. A letter from Grey described his visits to Palladino's Theatre in Vicenza, the Roman amphitheatre in Verona and the city of Mantua. According to biographer G. M. Trevelyan, the Grand tour "helped to develop in him that excellent habit of mind whereby he always regarded foreign countries, not as pawns in the diplomatic game, but as places inhabited by human beings with rights and aspirations of their own."[17]

Early political career

Member of Parliament

While Grey was still abroad on his European tour, an unexpected vacancy arose in the parliamentary representation for Northumberland, shortly after his twenty-second birthday. Seizing the opportunity, his influential uncle, Sir Henry, moved quickly to secure his nephew’s nomination.[16] Grey was elected to Parliament for the Northumberland constituency on 14 September 1786, aged 22 years old. He took his seat in the parliamentary session of January 1787. 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. He attended and joined Whig party organisations such the Brooks's Club and Devonshire House.[18] He was the youngest manager on the committee for prosecuting Warren Hastings.[19] On February 21, 1787, Grey rose and gave his maiden speech in the House of Commons in opposition to Tory Prime Minister William Pitt's commercial treaty with France that ratified in the Eden Agreement.[20] He delivered the speech during a major national debate and his speech rejected the expected deference of a first-time speaker, condemning the Treaty in unequivocal terms.[21]

A painting of Grey in the 1790s by Henry Bone.

Two months after his maiden speech, Grey supported the opposition's motion on the Prince of Wales' debts, criticising Pitt's vague allusions to undisclosed matters. These referred to the Prince's illegal 1785 marriage to Maria Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic, which threatened his place in the line succession to the throne. When the issue resurfaced in 1787, the Prince asked Grey to make a statement in the House to mitigate the fallout. Grey refused and informed Fox, resulting in his loss of favour at Carlton House and deepening the Whig party's mistrust of the Prince. Grey's third appearance in Parliament, in May 1787, concerned a motion for an inquiry into alleged corruption in the Post Office. The issue stemmed from Lord Tankerville, Grey's relative and neighbour, who had been dismissed by Pitt and sought public vindication. Though Grey initially wished to avoid involvement, Tankerville’s insistence left him no choice but to raise the matter in the House. Despite framing the issue as a public concern and avoiding party motives, Grey clashed with Pitt, was reprimanded by the Speaker, and ended the session with a reputation for brilliance overshadowed by impetuosity.[22]

Grey was also notable for advocating parliamentary reform and electoral reform. During the French Revolution and the revolutionary ideals of liberty, freedom and equality became widespread across Europe and beyond. In Britain, the demand for universal suffrage inspired Pitt to enact legislation against sedition and revolutionary activities deemed as being against British values of democracy. Pitt's later tenure was dubbed by his enemies as "Pitt's Terror". Charles James Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, allies and mentors of the young Grey, denounced the government's actions for suppressing reform movements due to association with revolutionary ideals. By the early 1790s, Grey had adopted the political stance that would define much of his public life. He acknowledged that the traditional eighteenth-century constitutional balance and aristocratic power were being undermined by emerging social forces. Ultimately, Grey's long political career was devoted to preserving Whig influence in a time when traditional aristocratic authority was in decline. He sought to adapt the party to changing times by promoting reforms that maintained social order and upheld the leadership of the existing noble class.[23]

In 1792, Grey was the driving force of a petition presented to Parliament in favor of reforms aimed at restoring "the freedom of election and a more equal representation of the people in parliament, and securing to the people a more frequent exercise of their right of electing their representatives," as a 1884 book described it.[24] In his drive for egalitarian representation, he sought to extend the democratic franchise, and he favored Catholic emancipation. Although the 1792 petition produced no change, his reform was finally achieved 40 years later with his enactment of the Reform Act of 1832. On 6 May 1793, Grey moved for parliamentary reform, supported by petitions like one from the radical Sheffield Constitutional Society. He and others, including Fox and Sheridan, defended the petitioners’ right to express grievances, emphasizing the people’s right to representation. In his speech, Grey distanced himself from French revolutionary ideas, advocating moderate reform to restore confidence in the constitution. He argued that reform was always dismissed as either unnecessary in peace or dangerous in crisis, thus never achieved. Citing historical precedents, he warned against repression and called for reform as "the best system of government, and most conducive to the happiness of the country."[25]

In 1792, Grey and other partisan Whigs sought to reclaim the liberal centre of the party amidst growing political polarisation. They feared that moderate reformers would be forced to choose between radical revolution and authoritarian repression. To counter this, they aimed to distance themselves from both the radicalism of Thomas Paine and Burkean conservatism. On 11 April 1792, they established the Society of the Friends of the People, which aimed to reform Parliament, preserve Whig influence, and undermine Pitt’s conservative government.[26]

Foreign secretary, 1806–1807

On the death of Pitt, which left the King was helpless enough to appoint William Grenville as prime minister and employ Fox in government, thus forming the Ministry of All the Talents. The government was a collection of supporters of Grenville and Fox, Whigs and opposition Tories.[27] In 1806, Grey became First Lord of the Admiralty, and he was a part of the Ministry of All the Talents (a coalition of Foxite Whigs, Grenvillites, and Addingtonites).[28]

Following Fox's death later that year, Howick took over both as foreign secretary and as leader of the Whigs. The ministry broke up in 1807 when George III blocked Catholic Emancipation legislation and required that all ministers individually sign a pledge, which Howick refused to do, that they would not "propose any further concessions to the Catholics".[29]

Years in opposition, 1807–1830

In Charon's Boat (1807), James Gillray caricatured the Whig administration, with Grey as Charon, rowing the boat

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. In 1811, the Prince Regent tried to court Grey and his ally William Grenville to join the Spencer Perceval ministry following the resignation of Lord Wellesley. Grey and Grenville declined because the Prince Regent refused to make concessions regarding Catholic emancipation.[30]

On the Napoleonic Wars, Grey took the standard Whig party line. After being initially enthused by the Spanish uprising against Napoleon, Grey became convinced of the French emperor's invincibility following the defeat and death of Sir John Moore, the leader of the British forces in the Peninsular War.[31] Grey was then slow to recognise the military successes of Moore's successor, the Duke of Wellington.[32] When Napoleon first abdicated in 1814, Grey objected to the restoration of the Bourbons' authoritarian monarchy; and when Napoleon was reinstalled the following year, he said that the change was an internal French matter.[33]

In 1826, believing that the Whig party no longer paid any attention to his opinions, Grey stood down as leader in favour of Lord Lansdowne.[34] The following year, when George Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool as prime minister, it was, therefore, Lansdowne and not Grey who was asked to join the Government, which needed strengthening following the resignations of Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington.[35] When Wellington became prime minister in 1828, George IV (as the Prince Regent had become) singled out Grey as the one person he could not appoint to the Government.[36]

Prime Minister (1830–1834)

Further information: Whig government, 1830–1834

In 1830, following the death of George IV and the resignation of the Duke of Wellington on the question of Parliamentary reform, the Whigs finally returned to power, with Grey as prime minister. In 1831, he was made a member of the Order of the Garter.[37]

In 1832, Grey enacted the Representation of the People Act of 1832, which expanded the electorate in the United Kingdom. The legislation granted the right to vote to a broader segment of the male population by standardizing property qualifications, extending the franchise to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more.

Painting of Grey as prime minister in 1831 by Frederick Richard Say.

In 1833, Grey enacted the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire. The legislation ordered the British government to purchase the freedom of all slaves in the British Empire, in the way of compensated emancipation, and by outlawing the further practice of slavery in the British Empire.

Grey also contributed to a plan to found a new colony in South Australia: in 1831 a "Proposal to His Majesty's Government for founding a colony on the Southern Coast of Australia" was prepared under the auspices of Robert Gouger, Anthony Bacon, Jeremy Bentham and Grey, but its ideas were considered too radical, and it was unable to attract the required investment.[38] In the same year, Grey was appointed to serve on the Government Commission upon Emigration (which was wound up in 1832).[39]

In 1831 two acts were introduced concerning Truck wages. The first repealed all existing enactments on the subject, "and the second provided that workmen in a number of the principal industries must receive payment in the current coin of the realm."[40]

In 1834, the cabinet was divided over Catholic emancipation. Lord Anglesey, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, preferred conciliatory reform, including the partial redistribution of the income from the tithes to the Catholic Church, and away from the established Church of Ireland, a policy known as "appropriation".[41] The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Stanley, however, preferred coercive measures. At this gridlock, Grey resigned as prime miniser in 1834 and nominated Lord Melbourne as his successor.[42]

Personal life

Before his marriage, Grey had an affair with the married Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. Grey met Cavendish while attending a Whig society meeting in Devonshire House. In 1791, the Duchess of Devonshire became pregnant with Grey's child, and she was sent to France, where she gave birth to their illegitimate daughter, who was raised by Grey's parents.[43][44][45] Their daughter was named Eliza Courtney (20 February 1792 – 2 May 1859[citation needed]). She married Robert Ellice.[46]

Marriage and children

On 18 November 1794, Grey married Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby (1776–1861), only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly and Louisa Molesworth.[47] They had the following 16 children:

  • a stillborn daughter (1796)[48]
  • Louisa Elizabeth Grey (7 April 1797 – 26 November 1841). She married John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, on 9 December 1816. They had five children, including Charles William, Grey's favourite grandson, who died young.
  • Elizabeth Grey (10 July 1798 – 8 November 1880). She married John Crocker Bulteel on 13 May 1826. They had five children.
  • Caroline Grey (30 August 1799 – 28 April 1875). She married Captain George Barrington on 15 January 1827. They had two children.
  • Georgiana Grey (17 February 1801 – 13 September 1900)
  • Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (28 December 1802 – 9 October 1894). He married Maria Copley on 9 August 1832.
  • General Charles Grey (15 March 1804 – 31 March 1870). He married Caroline Farquhar on 26 July 1836. They had seven children, including Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey.
  • Admiral Sir Frederick William Grey (23 August 1805 – 2 May 1878). He married Barbarina Sullivan on 20 July 1846.
  • Mary Grey (2 May 1807 – 6 July 1884). She married Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax, on 29 July 1829. They had seven children.
  • William Grey (13 May 1808 – 11 February 1815), who died at the age of six.
  • Admiral George Grey (16 May 1809 – 3 October 1891). He married Jane Stuart (daughter of General Sir Patrick Stuart) on 20 January 1845. They had eleven children.
  • Thomas Grey (29 December 1810 – 8 July 1826), who died at the age of fifteen.
  • Rev. John Grey MA, DD (2 March 1812 – 11 November 1895), Canon of Durham, Rector of Houghton-le-Spring. He married Lady Georgiana Hervey (daughter of Frederick William Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol) in July 1836. They had three children. He remarried Helen Spalding (maternal granddaughter of John Henry Upton, 1st Viscount Templetown) on 11 April 1874.
  • Rev. Francis Richard Grey MA (31 March 1813 – 22 March 1890), Hon. Canon of Newcastle, Rector of Morpeth. He married Lady Elizabeth Dorothy Anne Howard, daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle on 12 August 1840.
  • Captain Henry Cavendish Grey (16 October 1814 – 5 September 1880)
  • William George Grey (15 February 1819 – 19 December 1865). He married Theresa Stedink on 20 September 1858.

Later years and death

Grey spent his last years in contented, if sometimes fretful, retirement at Howick with his books, his family, and his dogs. The one great personal blow he suffered in old age was the death of his favourite grandson, Charles, at the age of 13. Grey 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.[49] He was buried in the Church of St Michael and All Angels there on the 26th in the presence of his family, close friends, and the labourers on his estate.[50]

Legacy

His biographer G. M. Trevelyan argues: "In our domestic history 1832 is the next great landmark after 1688 ... [It] saved the land from revolution and civil strife and made possible the quiet progress of the Victorian era..."[51]

Grey's Monument in Newcastle upon Tyne

Grey is commemorated by Grey's Monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, which consists of a statue of Lord Grey standing atop a 40 m (130 ft) high column.[52] The monument was damaged by lightning in 1941 and the statue's head was knocked off.[53] The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro, located directly underneath.[54] Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, which runs south-east from the monument, is also named after Grey.[55]

Grey is the namesake of Durham University's Grey College, as when Grey was prime minister in 1832, he supported the Act of Parliament that established the university.[56]

Grey is widely regarded as the namesake of Earl Grey tea, a blend which uses bergamot oil to flavour the brew.[57]

References

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Primary sources

  • Smith, E. A. (17 May 1990). Lord Grey, 1764-1845 (1st ed.). Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0198201632.
  • Trevelyan, George Macaulay (1 January 1952). Lord Grey of the Reform Bill: The Life of Charles, Second Earl Grey (3rd ed.). London: Longman Green et al London. ISBN 978-0837145532. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  • Brock, Michael G. (15 June 2011). The Great Reform Act. Hutchinson & Co. ISBN 0091159113.

Further reading

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