Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey KG PC, 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. His government also saw the abolition of
slavery in the British Empire. In addition to his political achievements,
he has come to be associated with Earl Grey tea.
Early life Descended from a long-established
Northumbrian family seated at Howick Hall, Grey was the second but eldest
surviving son of General Charles Grey KB and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of
George Grey of Southwick, co. Durham. He had four brothers and two sisters. He
was educated at Richmond School, followed by Eton and Trinity College,
Cambridge, 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 for the
Northumberland constituency on 14 September 1786, aged just 22. 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 was the youngest manager on the committee for prosecuting Warren
Hastings. The Whig historian T. B. Macaulay wrote in 1841:
"At an age when most of those who distinguish themselves in life are still
contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a
conspicuous place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was
wanting that could set off to the height his splendid talents and his unblemished
honour. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to be ranked with the
veteran statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons, at the
bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are
gone, culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in the
vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which has
passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with
delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to
the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some
estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost."
Grey was also 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 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.
Great Reform Act In 1830, when the Duke of Wellington
resigned on the question of Parliamentary reform, the Whigs finally
returned to power, with Grey as Prime Minister. His term 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, particularly since
he knew that the King was at best only a reluctant supporter of reform. Unlike
most politicians, he seems to have genuinely preferred a private life;
colleagues remarked caustically that he threatened to resign at every setback.
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 organised 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". It was the speech of a conservative statesman.
Retirement 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.
He was buried in the church there on the 26th in the presence of his family,
close friends, and the labourers on his estate.
Commemoration Earl Grey tea, a blend which uses
bergamot oil to flavour the beverage, is named after Grey. 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 high column. The monument was once
struck by lightning and Earl Grey's head was seen lying in the gutter in Grey
Street. The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and
Wear Metro,, located directly underneath. Grey Street in Newcastle
upon Tyne and Grey College, Durham are also named after Grey.
Personal life Grey married Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby,
only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby and Hon. Louisa
Molesworth in 1794. The marriage was a fruitful one; between 1796 and 1819 the
couple had ten sons and six daughters: [a daughter] Grey
Lady Louisa Elizabeth Grey; married John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, him of the
Durham report Lady Elizabeth Grey; married John
Crocker Bulteel. Their daughter, Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel, is one of the
great-great-great-grandmothers of Diana, Princess of Wales, through her marriage
with Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke Lady Caroline Grey; married Capt. The
Hon. George Barrington Lady Georgiana Grey; never married
Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey, eldest son, who became a politician like his
father General Sir Charles Grey, father of
Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey Admiral Sir Frederick William Grey
Lady Mary Grey; married Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax
Hon. William Grey Admiral The Hon. George Grey
Hon. Thomas Grey Rev. Hon. John Grey
Francis Richard Grey married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of George
Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and Georgiana Cavendish.
Hon. Henry Cavendish Grey Hon. William George Grey
Relationship with Georgiana Cavendish Because Mary was frequently pregnant
during their marriage, Grey would travel alone and would have affairs with other
women. Before he married Mary, his engagement to her nearly suffered
because of his affair with Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. A
young Grey met Georgiana sometime in the late 1780s to early 1790s while
attending a Whig society meeting in Devonshire House. Grey and Georgiana
became lovers and in 1791, she became pregnant. Grey wanted Georgiana to leave
her husband the duke to go and live with him instead, but the duke told Georgiana
if she did, she would never see her children again. Instead, Georgiana was
sent to France where she gave birth to a daughter on 20 February 1792 in
Aix-en-Provence whom she named Eliza Courtney. She and the child came back to
England in September 1793 and Georgiana entrusted the child to Grey's parents,
who raised her as though she were his sister.
Both Georgiana and Charles spent time with their daughter, who was informed of
her true parentage some time following Georgiana's death in 1806. She married
General Robert Ellice. Her maternal aunt, Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of
Bessborough visited the Greys in 1808 and later wrote of her strange
observations in which she stated "he seems very fond of her". Eliza later
named her youngest child Charles. She also named her eldest daughter
Georgiana. Lord Grey's Ministry, November 1830 –
July 1834 Lord Grey — First Lord of the Treasury
and Leader of the House of Lords Lord Brougham — Lord Chancellor
Lord Lansdowne — Lord President of the Council
Lord Durham — Lord Privy Seal Lord Melbourne — Secretary of State for
the Home Department Lord Palmerston — Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs Lord Goderich — Secretary of State for
War and the Colonies Sir James Graham — First Lord of the
Admiralty Lord Althorp — Chancellor of the
Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
Charles Grant — President of the Board of Control
Lord Holland — Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Duke of Richmond — Postmaster-General
Lord Carlisle — Minister without Portfolio
Changes June 1831 — Lord John Russell, the
Paymaster of the Forces, and Edward Smith-Stanley, the Chief Secretary for
Ireland, join the Cabinet. April 1833 — Lord Goderich, now Lord
Ripon, succeeds Lord Durham as Lord Privy Seal. Edward Smith-Stanley
succeeds Ripon as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. His successor as
Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the Cabinet. Edward Ellice, the
Secretary at War, joins the Cabinet. June 1834 — Thomas Spring Rice succeeds
Stanley as Colonial Secretary. Lord Carlisle succeeds Ripon as Lord Privy
Seal. Lord Auckland succeeds Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty. The Duke of
Richmond leaves the Cabinet. His successor as Postmaster-General is not
in the Cabinet. Charles Poulett Thomson, the President of the Board of Trade, and
James Abercrombie, the Master of the Mint, join the Cabinet.
In popular culture Charles Grey is portrayed by Dominic
Cooper in the 2008 film The Duchess, directed by Saul Dibb and starring Keira
Knightley and Ralph Fiennes. 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.
He is also a character in Black Butler Book of Murders.
Notes References
The Encyclopædia Britannica; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature
and General Information. New York: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1910.
googlebooks Accessed 10 May 2008 Mosley, Charles.. Burke's Peerage &
Baronetage, 106th edition E. A. Smith, "Grey, Charles, second Earl
Grey", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,
2004. E. A. Smith, Lord Grey, 1764–1845
G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Grey of the Reform Bill 413pp; full text online·
"10 Downing Street website, PMs in history". Retrieved 26 July 2006.
External links Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in
Parliament by the Earl Grey More about Earl Grey on the Downing
Street website. Works by or about Charles Grey, 2nd Earl
Grey in libraries Archival material relating to Charles
Grey, 2nd Earl Grey listed at the UK National Archives
Portraits of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey at the National Portrait Gallery, London