The Earl Grey | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Earl Grey byThomas Phillips (1820) | |
| Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Leader of the House of Lords | |
| In office 22 November 1830 – 9 July 1834 | |
| Monarch | William IV |
| Preceded by | The Duke of Wellington |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Melbourne |
| Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | |
| In office 24 September 1806 – 25 March 1807 | |
| Prime Minister | The Lord Grenville |
| Preceded by | Charles James Fox |
| Succeeded by | George Canning |
| Leader of the House of Commons | |
| In office 24 September 1806 – 31 March 1807 | |
| Prime Minister | The Lord Grenville |
| Preceded by | Charles James Fox |
| Succeeded by | Spencer Perceval |
| First Lord of the Admiralty | |
| In office 11 February 1806 – 24 September 1806 | |
| Prime Minister | The Lord Grenville |
| Preceded by | The Lord Barham |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Grenville |
| Member of theHouse of Lords | |
| Hereditary peerage 15 November 1807 – 17 July 1845 | |
| Preceded by | The 1st Earl Grey |
| Succeeded by | The 3rd Earl Grey |
| Member of Parliament forNorthumberland | |
| In office 14 September 1786 – 14 November 1807 | |
| Preceded by | Lord Algernon Percy |
| Succeeded by | Earl Percy |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1764-03-13)13 March 1764 |
| Died | 17 July 1845(1845-07-17) (aged 81) Howick, Northumberland, England |
| Party | Whig |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 16, includingHenry,Charles,Frederick, andEliza Courtney (illegitimate) |
| Parent |
|
| Relatives | House of Grey (family) |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Signature |  |
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845) was a BritishWhig politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. His government enacted theReform Acts of 1832, which expanded the electorate in the United Kingdom, and theSlavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in theBritish Empire.
Born into a prominent family inNorthumberland, Grey was educated atEton College and theUniversity of Cambridge. While travelling in Europe on aGrand Tour, his uncle secured his election as member of parliament (MP) forNorthumberland in a 1786 by-election. Grey joined Whig circles in London and was a long-time leader of thereform movement. He briefly served asFirst Lord of the Admiralty and asforeign secretary in theMinistry of All the Talents from 1806 to 1807 and then remained in opposition for nearly 24 years. He was asked to form a ministry byWilliam IV in 1830, following the resignation ofWellington.
As prime minister, Grey oversaw the passage of the Reform Act 1832, which redistributed parliamentary seats and standardised and extended the franchise in England and Wales. It was accompanied by theScottish Reform Act and theIrish Reform Act of the same year. Grey's government also enacted the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which outlawed the practice of slavery in theBritish Empire. Grey resigned as prime minister in 1834 following cabinet disagreements over policy in Ireland, and he subsequently retired from politics.
After an affair with the marriedDuchess of Devonshire, which resulted in a daughter who was brought up by Grey's parents, Grey marriedMary Ponsonby and had fifteen children. His name is associated withEarl Grey tea.
Grey was born atFallodon on 13 March 1764 into a landowningNorthumberland family. He was the second, but eldest surviving, son ofCharles Grey and Elizabeth Grey ofCounty Durham. His father was a soldier who attained the rank of general and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Grey in 1801 and Earl Grey in 1806.[1]At the age of six, Grey was sent to a school inMarylebone, where he spent a miserable three years. He then went toEton College, where he met future political allies, includingSamuel Whitbread, andWilliam Henry Lambton. He did not remember his time at Eton with great affection, and did not send his own sons there.George Heath, a master (and later headmaster) at Eton, recalled how Grey "was as he now is, able in his exercises, impetuous, overbearing &c...". In 1781, Grey went up toTrinity College, Cambridge, which was more congenial to him. He did not take a degree, which was not uncommon in those days.[2]: 8–9 At university, he acquired the skills in oratory that would distinguish him in Parliament.[1] Grey's education was completed by aGrand Tour, in which he travelled to southern France, Switzerland and Italy.[3]: 10–11
During his childhood and youth, Grey had spent time with his unmarried uncle, Sir Henry Grey, atHowick Hall. In 1801, Grey and his family would take up residence at Howick Hall, and he inherited the estate when his uncle died in 1808.[1] Sir Henry, a baronet and former MP, managed to get his nephew elected in theNorthumberland by-election of 1786.[2]: 9 Grey returned from his Grand Tour and took up his seat in theHouse of Commons in January 1787, aged 22.[3]: 11 While his father and uncle were supporters of the government ofWilliam Pitt, and he had been returned as the member for Northumberland without expressing any political allegiance, Grey soon entered Whig circles in London and became a follower ofCharles Fox.[2]: 9-10 He frequented theprince regent atCarlton House, was a member of the Whig clubBrooks's, and embarked on an affair with theDuchess of Devonshire.[4] His maiden speech in theHouse of Commons in February 1787 was an attack on Pitt'sCommercial Treaty with France. The speech was greeted with applause;Henry Addington wrote: "I do not go too far in declaring that in the advantage of figure, voice, elocution, and manner, he is not surpassed by any member of the House" and lamented the fact that the speech had firmly placed Grey in the ranks of the opposition.[3]: 15 [2]: 17
In April 1792, Grey was one of the founders of theSociety of the Friends of the People, a group of 147 people including 28 MPs and three peers that campaigned for parliamentary reform.[2]: 40 As a member of the committee who ran the society, Grey was careful to advocate moderation in calls for reform in order to distance themselves from the actions of French revolutionaries and to protect themselves from accusations of insurrection. The society’s manifesto said that its aim was to "reinstate the constitution upon its true principles" and indicated that Grey would move for reform in the next parliamentary session. On 6 May 1793, Grey duly moved that a petition of the society, which outlined the abuses of the electoral system and called for parliament "to regulate the right of voting upon a uniform and equitable principle", should be put before a parliamentary committee. Following a debate, the motion was defeated by 282 votes to 41, in spite of a supporting speech by Fox.[3]: 75-6 Grey, together with Fox and their supporters, also mounted challenges to the government's repressive measures against radicals, which culminated in the1794 Treason Trials, and called for peace with France. In the 1796general election Grey was returned unopposed.[5]
In May 1797, a second motion for electoral reform was lost by 256 votes to 91.[1] During the debate, both Grey and Fox indicated that, if the motion was not carried, they and their supporters would secede from parliament and only attend to vote on important measures.[3]: 96-7 The secession, which Grey came to regret, lasted about three years, leaving Grey free to return to Howick, where he and his wife lived as guests of his uncle.[3]: 103 In the 1799 session, he returned to parliament for the debates concerning Ireland, his marriage toMary Ponsonby, who was from an Irish liberal family, having given his a particular interest in Irish affairs. By November 1800 he was participating more fully in debates in parliament, and was joined by Fox in March 1801.[3]: 104
In 1801, Grey's father accepted a peerage from the new prime ministerHenry Addington and became Baron Grey, much to the dismay of Grey, as he had hoped to have a long career in the House of Commons rather than having to move to theHouse of Lords on inheriting the peerage.[3]: 146 That same year, Grey's uncle offered Howick as a permanent residence to Grey and his growing family.[3]: 108 Grey became increasingly attached to Howick and notoriously reluctant to make the journey to London to attend to political affairs.[3]: 111 When Pitt returned to power in 1804, he made approaches toLord Grenville, who was by this time aligned with the Whigs, and Grey, who was now in support of the war againstNapoleon following the breakdown of thepeace of Amiens, to join a coalition government. Both refused to join the cabinet without Fox, andKing George III was adamant that Fox could not be included, so the approaches came to nothing.[1]
The death of Pitt in January 1806 led to the formation of a new coalition of Whigs and Tories, led by Grenville and including Fox and Addington. It was dubbed the "ministry of all the talents" byGeorge Canning, who was not part of it.[1] Grey was appointed Lord of the Admiralty, where he drew up proposals for increased pay for seamen and officers in the navy, as well as improvements atGreenwich Hospital and increases in navy pensions.[2]: 105 In April 1806, Grey's father was granted an earldom and Grey took the title Lord Howick. As it was a courtesy title, he was able to remain in the House of Commons.[1] On the death of Fox in September 1806, Grey becameforeign secretary, leader of the House of Commons and leader of the Whigs.[3]: 149 Almost as soon as Grey became foreign secretary, the already faltering peace negotiations with Napoleon collapsed.[3]: 150
The ministry resigned on 15 March 1807 over the question ofCatholic emancipation. Grey had introduced a bill to allow Catholics to hold commissions in the army but withdrew it following the king’s opposition. The king then asked ministers to pledge that they would not raise the issue of Catholic emancipation again. Rather than accept the king’s demand, the ministry resigned.[1] The last act of the ministry was to see the bill to abolish the slave trade through parliament. Grey delivered the principle speech in support of the bill in the House of Commons on 23 February 1807 and it was passed by 283 votes to 16. TheSlave Trade Act 1807 received royal assent on 25 March 1807.[3]: 158-9
Following the resignation of Grenville's ministry in March 1807, the king asked theDuke of Portland to form a ministry and parliament was dissolved soon afterwards. Grey did not stand for election, as theDuke of Northumberland had put his sonEarl Percy up for election and Grey could not afford the costs of a contested election.[3]: 161 He remained in parliament asLord Thanet offered him hispocket borough ofAppleby, which he resigned in July 1807 in favour of theDuke of Bedford’sTavistock. In November 1807, his father died and he was elevated to the House of Lords as the second Earl Grey.[3]: 162 His father's estate of Fallodon was inherited by his brother George, as Grey stood to inherit Howick from his uncle, who died in 1808.[1] The House of Lords was generally not well attended, and, with such a small audience, Grey's oratory had little impact.[3]: 163-4 After his first speech in the House of Lords in January 1808, he wrote despairingly to his wife that it was impossible he "should ever do anything there worth thinking of". Although he remained the leader of the Whigs during their spell of nearly twenty-four years in opposition, he did not maintain an active leadership and on more than one occasion offered to retire.[1]
Without a strong leader in the House of Commons, the party became divided. Grey's brother-in-lawSamuel Whitbread and his followers advocated peace with Napoleon, which the majority of the Whigs and Grenvillites disagreed with. In 1809, Grey refused to join Whitbread in his support ofMary Anne Clarke, who had brought charges of corruption against theDuke of York.[3]: 164-7 In September 1809,Spencer Perceval, with the king's permission, approached Grey and Grenville with a view to having them join his ministry. They rejected the offer. Further approaches were made by the prince regent in 1811 and 1812; they were likewise rejected. In November 1820, Grey made a powerful speech in support ofQueen Caroline, having followed the proceedings in the House of Lords in which her husband,George IV, tried to divorce her. The speech led to the king harbouring an animosity against Grey and imposing a veto on him entering into government.[1] In 1829, Grey was largely responsible for seeing the bill for theCatholic Emancipation Act 1829, introduced byWellington andRobert Peel, through the House of Lords.[1]
Following the death of George IV and the accession ofWilliam IV in 1830, ageneral election was held in which the Duke of Wellington retained a majority. On 15 November 1830, the day beforeHenry Brougham was due to introduce a motion for reform, the government lost a vote on thecivil list. Wellington resigned the following day and the king immediately asked Grey to form a ministry.[6][3]: 239-40 Grey took office on 22 November 1830 and put together his ministry. All but one of the thirteen members of his cabinet were peers or heirs to a peerage, while junior positions were awarded to members of his family, including his sonHenry Grey, something that attracted the attention of the satirical print-makers of the day.[7]
The first cabinet meeting of the new administration was taken up with discussion of theSwing riots, agrarian disturbances in the south and east of the country.[2]: 263 The harsh suppression of the riots left what Trevelyan described as "as stain on the singularly pure reputation" of Grey, although it wasLord Melbourne who, as home secretary, was largely responsible for the measures.[3]: 252-3
The ministry next set about establishing the reform of parliament, which Grey had pledged when he came into power. In December 1830, a subcommittee of four cabinet members (Viscount Duncannon,Baron Durham,Sir James Graham, andLord John Russell) was appointed to draw up a draft bill.[1] The report, with the king’s consent, was put before parliament as the first reform bill on 1 March 1831.[1][3]: 267 The bill passed its first reading in the House of Commons by only one vote. When an opposition amendment was passed by eight votes, Grey asked the king to dissolve parliament and call a general election.[1] The1831 general election saw a resounding victory for the government, reflecting popular support for parliamentary reform. A second reform bill was passed in the House of Commons, but did not have a smooth passage in the House of Lords. In May 1832, the government threatened to resign unless the king would create new Whig peers to see the bill through. The king declined, accepted the resignation of Grey and his cabinet, and asked Wellington to form a ministry. In the face of public hostility and the refusal of Peel to join him, Wellington advised the king to recall Grey. He then withdrew his supporters from the House of Lords so that the bill could pass without the need to create additional peers. TheReform Act 1832 became law on 7 June 1832.[1] Similar acts followed for Ireland and Scotland, where, in addition, the Royal Burghs (Scotland) Act 1833 gave electors the right to elect town councils.[3]: 273
The Reform Act redistributed parliamentary seats in the boroughs by abolishing almost all therotten and pocket boroughs and giving seats to towns which had previously had no representation, including industrial towns. The voting qualifications in the boroughs were standardised, giving voting rights to male occupiers of property (including offices, warehouses or shops as well as houses) with a rental value of at least £10 a year, provided they were resident ratepayers. In the counties, where the franchise had been based on a fifteenth century statute giving a vote to owners of land worth 40 shillings or more a year, the franchise was extended to copyholders of property with an annual rental value of at least £10, and £50 leaseholders. As a result of the act, the electorate in English boroughs increased by an estimated 61 per cent, while that of English counties increased by an estimated 29 per cent. The increase, however, was not consistent, and some boroughs and counties saw a decrease in the size of their electorate as a result of the act. Over England as a whole, there were 614,654 registered voters after the act.[8] The act enshrined in law the principle that only men could vote, while previously women had voted on very rare occasions. Most working class men were still excluded from the franchise.[9]
In 1831, the government passed the Truck Act 1831 (also known as the Money Payment of Wages Act), which prohibited the system oftruck wages, where workers were paid in commodities rather than money. The bill had been introduced byEdward Littleton, MP for Staffordshire.[10]
TheSlavery Abolition Act 1833 received royal assent in August 1833. Following on from theSlave Trade Act 1807 which had been passed by the previous Whig government in 1807, it made slavery illegal in theBritish Empire.[3]: 360 Grey's ministry also passed aFactory Act which put restrictions on the hours children could work in mills and established afactory inspectorate.[3]: 361 TheGovernment of India Act 1833 ended the monopoly of theEast India Company on trade with China and transformed it from a commercial to an administrative body. One clause specified that all offices within the Company should be open to natives of India regardless of religion or race.[3]: 360 Shortly before the end of Grey's ministry, the House of Commons passed the bill which became thePoor Law Amendment Act 1834. The New Poor Law was designed to impose harsh conditions on those in need of poor relief and reduce the cost of their maintenance to rate-payers. Parishes were formed into "unions", each with a workhouse. The able-bodied poor would no longer be afforded outdoor relief but be forced to enter the workhouse.[3]: 361-2
The cabinet suffered deep divisions over Irish affairs, which would eventually bring the ministry down.Lord Anglesey, theLord Lieutenant of Ireland, preferred conciliatory reform, including the partial redistribution of the income from thetithes to theCatholic Church, and away from the establishedChurch of Ireland, a policy known as "lay appropriation". Thechief secretary for Ireland,Lord Stanley preferred coercive measures.[2]: 288-93 In May 1834 Stanley, along with three other members of the cabinet, resigned over the decision to appoint a Commission to enquire into the revenues of the Church of Ireland.[2]: 305 Grey no longer had the stamina to hold the fractured cabinet together, telling his wife that he felt "depressed and totally deprived of all energy and power, both physical and mental".[1] WhenLord Althorp,chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the Whigs in the House of Commons, resigned in July 1834, Grey sent the king his own resignation.[1]
Following his resignation, Grey attended numerous dinners and meetings held in his honour. A tour of Scotland in September included a dinner held inEdinburgh, where he made a speech in which he stressed the conservative nature of the Reform Act and called for future changes to be gradual "according to the increased intelligence of the people, and the necessities of the times".[2]: 309 Retiring to Howick, he at first kept up a keen interest in politics and the ministry Melbourne, who had replaced him as prime minister.[1] In April 1835, he declined an offer to return to government.[3]: 367
By the time he retired, only one of his children, Georgiana, was still at home, although the rest of his children and his grandchildren would return to Howick on long visits. Amongst friends who visited wasThomas Creevey, who left an account of evenings spent in conversation in the library or playing cribbage. In 1840, he attended the funeral procession of his son-in-law, the Earl of Durham. Grey’s final years were marred by ill health. He died on 17 July 1845 and was buried inChurch of St Michael and All Angels in Howick. His widow survived him by sixteen years.[3]: 367-8 [1]
Before his marriage, Grey had an affair with the marriedGeorgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, whom he met atDevonshire House. In 1791, the Duchess of Devonshire became pregnant with Grey's child, and she was sent to France, where, in February 1792, she gave birth to their daughter,Eliza Courtney, who was raised by Grey's parents at Fallodon.[1] Courtney marriedRobert Ellice.[11]
On 18 November 1794, Grey marriedMary Elizabeth Ponsonby (1776–1861), only daughter ofWilliam Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly and Louisa Molesworth.[12] They had the following 16 children:[13]
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Writing inHistory Today in 1951,D. H. Pennington described how Grey's supporters praised him for his "honesty, openness and humanity", while his enemies condemned him for his "laziness and vanity".[4]
Grey's first biographerG. M. Trevelyan, based his work on Grey's private papers, and described theReform Act 1832 as having "saved the land from revolution and civil strife and made possible the quiet progress of theVictorian era..."[16] HistorianMichael Brock, in his book about the Reform Act, wrote that the passing of the Act "by peaceful means was a great and beneficent feat of statemanship".[16] Later opinion sees Grey as a more conservative figure than depicted in Trevelyan's work, with, for example, 1992 biographerJohn W. Derry saying: "His ideas about representation and reform were those of an eighteenth century Whig, not a nineteenth century liberal or a twentieth century democrat".[16]
Grey is commemorated byGrey's Monument in the centre ofNewcastle upon Tyne, which consists of astatue of Grey standing atop a 40 m (130 ft) highcolumn.[17] The monument was struck by lightning in 1941 and the statue's head was knocked off.[18]Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, which runs south-east from the monument, is also named after Grey.[19]
Durham University'sGrey College is named after Grey, who supported the Act of Parliament that established the university in 1832.[20]
His name is associated withEarl Grey tea, although it is unlikely he had any connection with it.[21]
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forNorthumberland 1786–1800 With:Sir William Middleton, Bt Thomas Richard Beaumont | Succeeded by Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by Parliament of Great Britain | Member of Parliament forNorthumberland 1801–1807 Served alongside:Thomas Richard Beaumont | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forAppleby May 1807 – July 1807 Served alongside:James Ramsay Cuthbert | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forTavistock July 1807 – November 1807 Served alongside:Lord William Russell | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | First Lord of the Admiralty 1806 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Foreign Secretary 1806–1807 | Succeeded by |
| Leader of the House of Commons 1806–1807 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 22 November 1830 – 9 July 1834 | Succeeded by |
| First Lord of the Treasury 1830–1834 | ||
| Leader of the House of Lords 1830–1834 | ||
| Party political offices | ||
| None recognised before | Leader of the British Whig Party 1830–1834 | Succeeded by |
| Whig Leader in the Lords 1830–1834 | Succeeded by | |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Earl Grey 1807–1845 | Succeeded by |
| Baronetage of Great Britain | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet (of Howick) 1808–1845 | Succeeded by |
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