Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807
"Lord Grenville" redirects here. Not to be confused with
Lord Granville
.
This article is about the Prime Minister. For the sixteenth-century English privateer and explorer, see
Richard Grenville
.
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville
,
PC
,
PC (Ire)
,
FRS
(25 October 1759 – 12 January 1834) was a British
Pittite Tory
politician who served as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the
Whigs
for the duration of the
Napoleonic Wars
. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the
abolition of the slave trade
in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with
France
or to accomplish
Catholic emancipation
and it was dismissed in the same year.
Background
[
edit
]
Grenville was the son of the Whig Prime Minister
George Grenville
. His mother,
Elizabeth
, was the daughter of the Tory statesman
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet
. He had two elder brothers:
Thomas
and
George
. He was thus uncle to the
1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
.
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
[
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]
Grenville entered the
House of Commons
in February 1782 as member for the
borough of Buckingham
.
He soon became a close ally of the prime minister, his cousin
William Pitt the Younger
. In September, he became secretary to the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
, who was his brother
George
. He left the House the following year and served in the government as
Paymaster of the Forces
from 1784 to 1789. In 1789, he served briefly as
Speaker of the House of Commons
before he entered the cabinet as
Home Secretary
and resigned his other posts.
He became
Leader of the House of Lords
when he was raised to the peerage the next year as
Baron Grenville
, of
Wotton under Bernewood
in the
County of Buckingham
.
[3]
In 1791, he succeeded
Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds
as
Foreign Secretary
. Grenville's decade as Foreign Secretary was dramatic with the
Wars of the French Revolution
. During the war, Grenville was the leader of the party that focused on the fighting on
Continental Europe
as the key to victory and opposed the faction of
Henry Dundas
, which favoured war at sea and in the colonies.
Grenville left office with Pitt in 1801 over the issue of
George III
's refusal to assent to
Catholic emancipation
.
Grenville did part-time military service at home as Major in the
Buckinghamshire Yeomanry
cavalry in 1794 and as lieutenant-colonel in the South Buckinghamshire volunteer regiment in 1806.
[5]
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.
Prime minister
[
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]
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After Pitt's death in 1806, Grenville became the head of the "
Ministry of All the Talents
", a coalition between Grenville's supporters, the
Foxite
Whigs, and the supporters of former Prime Minister
Lord Sidmouth
, with Grenville as
First Lord of the Treasury
and Fox as Foreign Secretary as joint leaders. Grenville's cousin
William Windham
served as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and his younger brother,
Thomas Grenville
, served briefly as First Lord of the Admiralty.
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.
Post-premiership
[
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]
In the years after the fall of the ministry, Grenville continued in opposition by maintaining his alliance with
Lord Grey
and the
Whigs
, criticising the
Peninsular War
and, with Grey, refusing to join
Lord Liverpool
's government in 1812.
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.
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
[
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]
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
Second Coalition
. His projections of easy success were greatly exaggerated, and the result was another round of disappointment. His resignation in 1801 was caused primarily by
George III
's refusal to allow Catholics to sit in Parliament.
[6]
Dropmore House
[
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]
Dropmore House
was built in the 1790s for Lord Grenville. The architects were
Samuel Wyatt
and
Charles Tatham
. Grenville knew the spot from rambles during his time at
Eton College
and prized its distant views of his old school and of
Windsor Castle
. On his first day in occupation, he planted two cedar trees. At least another 2,500 trees were planted. By the time he died, his
pinetum
contained the biggest collection of
conifer
species in Britain. Part of the post-millennium restoration is to use what survives as the basis for a collection of some 200 species.
[7]
Personal life
[
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]
Lord Grenville married
Anne
, daughter of
Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford
, in 1792. The marriage was childless and he produced no legitimate offspring during his lifetime. He died in January 1834, aged 74, when the barony became extinct.
[8]
Ministry of All the Talents
[
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]
Changes
- September 1806 – On Fox's death, Lord Howick succeeds him as Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons.
Thomas Grenville
succeeds Howick at the Admiralty. Lord Fitzwilliam becomes Minister without Portfolio, and Lord Sidmouth succeeds him as Lord President.
Lord Holland
succeeds Sidmouth as Lord Privy Seal.
Honours
[
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]
Arms
[
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]
Coat of arms of William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville
|
- Crest
- A Garb Vert
- Escutcheon
- Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Vert on a Cross Argent five Torteaux Gules (Grenville); 2nd, Or an Eagle displayed Sable (Leofric, Earl of Mercia); 3rd, Argent two Bars Sable each charged with three Martlets Or (Temple)
- Supporters
- On the dexter side a Lion per fess embattled Gules and Or and on the sinister side a Horse Argent seme of Eaglets Sable with both supporters collared Argent banded Vert charged with three Torteaux counterchanged
- Motto
- Repetens exempla suorum
(Following the example set by our forebears)
|
Hereditary Peerage
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]
- He was given a
Hereditary Peerage
in 1790 allowing him to sit in the
House of Lords
. He sat with the
Whig Party
Benches. 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
[
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]
- British Empire honours
Scholastic
[
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]
- Chancellor, visitor, governor, and fellowships
Memberships and fellowships
[
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]
Country
|
Date
|
Organisation
|
Position
|
United Kingdom
|
23 April 1818 – 12 January 1834
|
Royal Society
|
Fellow (FRS)
|
Notes
[
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]
- ^
a
b
Jupp, P. J. (21 May 2009) [2004]. "Grenville, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759?1834), prime minister".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/11501
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
"No. 13259"
.
The London Gazette
. 23 November 1790. p. 710.
- ^
Fisher, David R.
"GRENVILLE, William Wyndham (1759-1834), of Dropmore Lodge, Bucks"
.
History of Parliament Trust
.
- ^
Davis, Richard W. (1997). "Wellington and the "Open Question": The Issue of Catholic Emancipation, 1821?1829".
Albion
.
29
(1): 39?55.
doi
:
10.2307/4051594
.
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
[
edit
]
- 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
-
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 581?582.
- Baynes, T. S., ed. (1875?1889).
"William Wyndham Greenville, Lord Grenville"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
(9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Barker, George Fisher Russell (1890).
"Grenville, William Wyndham"
. In
Stephen, Leslie
;
Lee, Sidney
(eds.).
Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
External links
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