Louis Greig

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Sir Louis Leisler Greig
Glasgow Academy & Merchiston Castle School
UniversityUniversity of Glasgow
Occupation(s)Stockbroker, surgeon, royal equerry
Rugby union career
Position(s) Forward
Amateur team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
United Services Portsmouth
 ()
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1905–1908
1903
British and Irish Lions
 5
3		 0
0

King George VI
.

Rugby union

Greig was a successful rugby player, and was capped for Scotland and the British Lions when they took their 1903 British Lions tour to South Africa.[1] He took part in all three Tests against South Africa as well as some of the provincial matches.

Biography

Grieg was born in

Glasgow Academy and Merchiston Castle School before studying medicine at the University of Glasgow. Academically gifted, Greig was also an excellent rugby union and tennis player. After a few years practicing as a junior doctor in the Gorbals, he joined the navy in 1906 and won the gold medal during his training at Haslar
.

In 1909, Greig entered officer training at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, where he met Prince Albert, later George VI. He lived at Thatched House Lodge at the time. He served as a mentor for the gauche and diffident prince, and the two served together in HMS Cumberland, where he was posted as a surgeon. He was transferred to the Royal Marines in 1914, and was captured at the fall of Antwerp, spending eight months as a prisoner of war. Earlier his elder brother Robert C Greig of Capelrig, Renfrewshire had founded the firm of RC Greig stockbrokers of Glasgow and London, and his elder sister Constance had married John Scrimgeour, stockbroker in London.[1]

Released by a prisoner exchange, Greig married Phyllis Scrimgeour (a cousin of John Scrimgeour) on 16 February 1916, by whom he had three children:[3]

Greig joined the company of

Wimbledon, an event which brought Greig's influence with the Prince into public light.[citation needed
]

He continued to mentor and advise the Prince (created

Balkans and consequently resigned his equerryship. However, he was created a Gentleman Usher in Ordinary on 1 March 1924. Greig's subsequent life was uneventful. He successfully joined J&A Scrimgeour (a firm connected with his wife) as a stockbroker. [citation needed
]

He went into a brief eclipse under King

Ham, Surrey.[5]

Political activities

Greig formed a friendship with the Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald. He played a small role in the formation of the National Government in 1931, and was appointed KBE on 3 June 1932, in which year he was also appointed Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park.

He was a vocal opponent of appeasement. He told the Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon ‘We are pushing our armament programmes as rapidly as we can, because in Europe as it is today we believe in the strong man armed’.

He helped a number of Jewish families find asylum in Britain. Painter Joseph Oppenheimer would have found it impossible to leave Germany without his help and that of Sir John Lavery.

Sources

  • Bath, Richard (ed.) The Scotland Rugby Miscellany (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007;
    ISBN 1-905326-24-6
    )
  • Biography of Louis Greig - Louis and the Prince - by grandson Geordie Greig, published in 1999 by Hodder and Stoughton
    ISBN 0-340-72883-3
  • Goodwin, Terry Complete Who's Who of International Rugby (Cassell, 1987;
    ISBN 0-7137-1838-2
    )
  • Ziegler, Philip (2004). "Greig, Sir Louis Leisler (1880–1953)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/72391. Retrieved 6 August 2007. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.) (subscription required)

References

  1. ^ a b Bath, p117
  2. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/72391. Retrieved 30 January 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ "Greig Family Tree". Retrieved 7 August 2007.[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ Tomlinson, Richard (20 December 1992). "They also serve, who only ush". The Independent.
  5. ^ "Flying Lions: Louis Greig". World Rugby Museum. 18 February 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2020.

External links

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