William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In office 11 February 1806 – 25 March 1807 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monarch | George III | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | William Pitt the Younger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | The Duke of Portland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Speaker of the House of Commons of Great Britain | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 5 January 1789 – 5 June 1789 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Charles Wolfran Cornwall | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Henry Addington | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | William Wyndham Grenville 25 October 1759 Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 12 January 1834 Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England | (aged 74)||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resting place | St Peter's Church, Burnham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville,
Background
Grenville was the son of the Whig Prime Minister
He was also related to the Pitt family by marriage since William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, had married his father's sister Hester. The younger Grenville was thus the first cousin of William Pitt the Younger.
Grenville was educated at Eton College; Christ Church, Oxford; and Lincoln's Inn.[1]
Grenville was the maternal great-grandson of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset and therefore a descendant of Lady Katherine Grey, a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
Political career
Grenville entered the
In 1791, he succeeded
Grenville left office with Pitt in 1801 over the issue of
Grenville did part-time military service at home as Major in the
In his years out of office, Grenville became close to the opposition Whig leader Charles James Fox, and when Pitt returned to office in 1804, Grenville sided with Fox and did not take part.[4]
Prime minister
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After Pitt's death in 1806, Grenville became the head of the "
The Ministry ultimately accomplished little and failed either to make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation, the later attempt resulting in the ministry's dismissal in March 1807. It had one significant achievement, however, in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.[4]
Post-premiership
In the years after the fall of the ministry, Grenville continued in opposition by maintaining his alliance with
In the postwar years, Grenville gradually moved back closer to the Tories but never again returned to the cabinet. In 1815, he separated from his friend Charles Grey and supported the war policy of Lord Liverpool. In 1819, when the Marquess of Lansdowne brought forward his motion for an inquiry into the causes of the distress and discontent in the manufacturing districts, Grenville delivered a speech advocating repressive measures.[4] His political career was ended by a stroke in 1823.
Grenville also served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1810 until his death in 1834.[1]
Legacy
Historians find it hard to tell exactly which separate roles Pitt, Grenville and Dundas played in setting war policy toward France but agree that Grenville played a major role at all times until 1801. The consensus of scholars is that war with France presented an unexpected complex of problems. There was a conflict between secular ideologies, the conscription of huge armies, the new role of the Russian Empire as a continental power, and especially the sheer length and cost of the multiple coalitions.
Grenville energetically worked to build and hold together the Allied coalitions and paid suitable attention to smaller members such as Denmark and the Kingdom of Sardinia. He negotiated the complex alliance with Russia and the Austrian Empire. He hoped that with British financing, they would bear the brunt of the ground campaigns against the French.
Grenville's influence was at the maximum during the formation of the
Dropmore House
Personal life
Lord Grenville married
Ministry of All the Talents
- Lord Grenville – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
- Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons
- The Lord Erskine – Lord Chancellor
- The Earl Fitzwilliam – Lord President of the Council
- The Viscount Sidmouth – Lord Privy Seal
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- William Windham – Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
- Viscount Howick – First Lord of the Admiralty
- Lord Henry Petty – Chancellor of the Exchequer
- The Earl of Moira – Master-General of the Ordnance
- The Lord Ellenborough – Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench
Changes
- September 1806 – On Fox's death, Lord Howick succeeds him as Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons. Lord Hollandsucceeds Sidmouth as Lord Privy Seal.
Honours
Arms
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Hereditary Peerage
- He was given a Hereditary Peerage in 1790 allowing him to sit in the House of Lords. He sat with the Whig PartyBenches. He took the title of 1st Baron Grenville. This title became extinct upon his death in 1834 as he had no surviving heir.
British Empire honours
- British Empire honours
Country | Date | Appointment | Post-nominal letters |
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Kingdom of Ireland | 1782 – 12 January 1834 | Member of the Privy Council of Ireland | PC (Ire) |
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | 1783 – 12 January 1834 | Member of the Privy Council of Great Britain |
PC |
Scholastic
- Chancellor, visitor, governor, and fellowships
Location | Date | School | Position |
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England | 1809 – 12 January 1834 | University of Oxford | Chancellor |
Memberships and fellowships
Country | Date | Organisation | Position |
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United Kingdom | 23 April 1818 – 12 January 1834 | Royal Society | Fellow (FRS) |
Notes
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11501. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 581.
- ^ "No. 13259". The London Gazette. 23 November 1790. p. 710.
- ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911, p. 582.
- History of Parliament Trust.
- JSTOR 4051594.
- ^ "Abolitionist's house escapes ruin". BBC News. 1 April 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
- ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3868
Further reading
- Ehrman, John. The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim (1969); The Reluctant Transition (1983); The Consuming Struggle (1996).
- Furber, Holden. Henry Dundas: First Viscount Melville, 1741–1811, Political Manager of Scotland, Statesman, Administrator of British India (Oxford UP, 1931). online
- Jupp, Peter. "Grenville, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759–1834)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2009) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11501
- Jupp, P. (1985), Lord Grenville, Oxford University Press
- Leonard, Dick. "William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville—Not Quite 'All the Talents'." in Leonard, ed, Nineteenth-Century British Premiers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 38-54.
- McCahill, Michael W. "William, First Lord Grenville." (2003) 22#1 pp 29-42
- Mori, Jennifer. Britain in the Age of the French Revolution: 1785-1820 (2014).
- Negus, Samuel D. "'Further concessions cannot be attained': the Jay-Grenville treaty and the politics of Anglo-American relations, 1789–1807." (Texas Christian University, 2013. PhD thesis) online
- Sack, James J. The Grenvillites, 1801–29: Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age of Pitt and Liverpool (U. of Illinois Press, 1979)
- Sherwig, John M. "Lord Grenville's plan for a concert of Europe, 1797-99." Journal of Modern History 34.3 (1962): 284–293.
- Temperley, Harold and L.M. Penson, eds. Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) (1938), primary sources online
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 581–582. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Baynes, T. S., ed. (1875–1889). Encyclopædia Britannica (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. .
- Barker, George Fisher Russell (1890). Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. . In
External links
- Media related to William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville at Wikimedia Commons
- More about William Wyndam Grenville, Lord Grenville on the Downing Street website.
- GrEco Project On Lord Grenville's Economics