GRENVILLE, George (1712-1770), an English statesman, second son of Richard Grenville and Hester Temple, afterwards Countess Temple, was born October 14 th, .1712. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, and in his twenty-fifth year was called to the bar. The habits of industry, the technical knowledge, and the intellectual discipline which he acquired in connexion with his legal training were of great advantage to him in his political career, and for a considerable period sufficiently compensated for the absence of every oratorical gift except inexhaustible fluency, and of all but the merest rudimentary qualities of statesmanship. He entered Parliament in 1741 as member for Buckingham, and continued to represent that borough till his death in 1770. In December 1744 he became a lord of the admiralty, in June 1747 a lord of the treasury, and in 1754 treasurer of the navy and privy councillor. He remained in office in 1761, when his brother Lord Temple and his brother-in-law Pitt resigned upon the question of the war with Spain, and in the administration of Lord Bute he was entrusted with the leadership of the House of Commons. In May 1762 he was appointed secretary of state, and in October first lord of the admiralty; and in April 1763 he became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. The most prominent measures of his administration were the prosecution of Wilkes and the passing of the American Stamp Act, which led to the first symptoms of alienation between America and the mother country. During the latter period of his term of office he was on a very unsatisfactory footing with the young king George III., who gradually came to feel a kind of horror of the interminable persistency of his conversation, and whom he endeavoured to make use ...of as the mere puppet of the ministry. The king made various attempts to induce Pitt to come to his rescue by forming a ministry, but without success, and at last had recourse to the marquis of Rockingham, on whose agreeing to accept office Grenville was dismissed July 1765. He never again held office, and died 13th November 1770. In 1749 he was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, by whom he had a large family. His son, the second Earl Temple, was created Marquis, and his grandson Duke, of Buckingham.
A contemptuous application by Pitt to Grenville of the lines “Gentle Shepherd, tell me where,” caused him to be dubbed the “gentle shepherd” for the remainder of his life; and this would seem to indicate a deficiency in the personal characteristics which insure any high degree of general respect. Exemplary in the observance of all the decencies of private life, and upright and honourable in all his political relations, he yet possessed none of those attractive or commanding qualities which are sometimes found an advantageous substitute for strict moral integrity, and which the possessor of moral integrity cannot afford to despise. He was moreover under the dominion of an ambition ludicrously out of proportion to his abilities, and the self-confidence with which he pursued his own purposes can be attributed only to the narrow range of his political vision. Though few excelled him in a knowledge of the forms of the House or in mastery of administrative details, his tact in dealing with men and with affairs was so defective that there is perhaps no one who has been at the head of an English administration to whom a lower place can be assigned as a statesman. The Grenville Papers, being the Correspondence of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple,K.G., and the Right Hon. George Grenville, their Friends and Contemporaries, was published at London in 1852.
GRENVILLE, William Wyndham Grenville, Lord (1759-1834), English statesman, son of the preceding, was born 25th October 1759. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and for some time studied at the Inns of Court, but never practised at the bar. In February 1782 he was elected a member of parliament for the county of Buckingham, and in the September following he became secretary to his brother the marquis of Buckingham, who had been named lord-lieutenant of Ireland. On the overthrow of the cabinet of Lord Shelburne in the following year he returned to England, and in December he was appointed by his cousin Pitt paymaster-general of the forces. In 1789 he was chosen speaker of the House of Commons, but he vacated the chair in the same year, and was transferred to the Upper House with the title of Lord Grenville, on being appointed secretary of state. He exchanged this office in 1791 for that of secretary of foreign affairs, being regarded by Pitt as the person best fitted to carry out his policy in reference to France. Along with Pitt he resigned office in 1801, on account of the king declining to grant any concessions to the Catholics; and when Pitt, on accepting office in 1804, did not stipulate for Catholic emancipation he declined to join his ministry, and entered into a close alliance with Fox. On the death of Pitt in 1806 he became the nominal head of the Government of “All the Talents,” whose military projects resulted very unsuccessfully, but which deserves to be remembered with honour on account of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Its influence was, however, considerably weakened by the death of Fox; and as the king in March 1807 demanded from Grenville an assurance that he would initiate no measures for the relief of the Catholics he and his colleagues found it necessary to resign. His colleagues were not unanimous in approving of his conscientiousness, and Sheridan expressed the opinion of more than himself when he remarked: “I have known many men knock their heads against a wal 1 , but I never before heard of a man collecting bricks and building a wall for the express purpose of knocking out his own brains against it.” Lord Grenville never again held office. He continued to be one of the principal supporters of Catholic emancipation, and during the remainder of his political career generally voted with the Whigs, although in 1815 he separated himself from Lord Grey and supported the warlike policy of Lord Liverpool. In 1819, when the marquis of Lansdowne brought forward his motion for an inquiry into the cause of the distress and discontent in the manufacturing districts, Grenville delivered an alarmist speech in which he advocated the adoption of severely repressive measures. He died at his residence, Dropmore, Buckinghamshire, 12th January 1834.
Though the talents of Lord Grenville were not of a high order, his straightforwardness, great industry, political knowledge, firmness of mind, and moderate opinions secured him considerable political influence. He can also lay claim to be enrolled among those English statesmen who have distinguished themselves in literature. Besides editing the letters of the earl of Chatham to his nephew Thomas Pitt, afterwards Lord Camelford, he printed for private circulation an edition of Homer with annotations, and also a small volume entitled Nugoe Metrical consisting of translations into Latin from Greek, English, and Italian. In 1809 he was chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford. He married in 1792 Anne Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford, but had no issue, and the title became extinct.
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