William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville

William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, PC, PC (Ire), FRS (25 October 1759  12 January 1834), styled as Lord Grenville from 1790, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, though he was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars.


The Lord Grenville

Grenville by John Hoppner, c.1800
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
11 February 1806  25 March 1807
MonarchGeorge III
Preceded byWilliam Pitt the Younger
Succeeded byThe Duke of Portland
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office
8 June 1791  20 February 1801
Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt the Younger
Preceded byThe Marquess of Camarthen
Succeeded byThe Lord Hawkesbury
Home Secretary
In office
5 June 1789  8 June 1791
Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt the Younger
Preceded byThe Lord Sydney
Succeeded byHenry Dundas
Speaker of the House of Commons
In office
5 January 1789  5 June 1789
Preceded byCharles Wolfran Cornwall
Succeeded byHenry Addington
Member of Parliament
for Buckinghamshire
In office
1784–1790
Preceded byThe Earl Verney
Succeeded byJames Grenville
Member of Parliament
for Buckingham
In office
1782–1784
Preceded byRichard Aldworth-Neville
Succeeded byCharles Edmund Nugent
Personal details
Born
William Wyndham Grenville

(1759-10-25)25 October 1759
Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, England
Died12 January 1834(1834-01-12) (aged 74)
Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England
Resting placeSt Peter Churchyard,
  Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Political party
Spouse(s)
(m. 1792)
Parents
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
Signature

Background

Grenville was the son of Whig prime minister George Grenville. His mother Elizabeth was the daughter of Tory statesman Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet. He had two elder brothers Thomas and Georgehe was thus uncle to the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.

He was also related to the Pitt family by marriage; William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, had married his father's sister Hester, and thus the younger Grenville was the first cousin of William Pitt the Younger.

Grenville was educated at Eton College; Christ Church, Oxford; and Lincoln's Inn.[1]

Political career

Grenville entered the House of Commons in February 1782, as member for the borough of Buckingham.[2] 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 at the time 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.[2] 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] The next year, in 1791, he succeeded the Duke of Leeds as Foreign Secretary. Grenville's decade as Foreign Secretary was a dramatic one, seeing the Wars of the French Revolution. During the war, Grenville was the leader of the party that focused on the fighting on the continent as the key to victory, opposing 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.[4]

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, siding with Fox, did not take part.[4] Following 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, failing either to make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation (the later attempt resulting in the ministry's dismissal in March, 1807). It did have one significant achievement, however, in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.[4]

In the years after the fall of the ministry, Grenville continued in opposition, 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 post-war 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.[6]

Legacy

Historians find it hard to tell exactly what separate roles Pitt, Grenville, and Dundas played in setting war policy with 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 Russia 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, paying suitable attention to smaller members such as Denmark and Sardinia. He negotiated the complex alliance with Russia and Austria. He hoped that with British financing they would bear the brunt of 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 due primarily to the king's refusal to allow Catholics to sit in Parliament.[7]

Dropmore House

A caricature of Saartjie Baartman, Lord Grenville, and Richard Sheridan by William Heath

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 Grenville 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.[8]

Personal life

Lord Grenville married the Honourable Anne, daughter of Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, in 1792. The marriage was childless. He died in January 1834, aged 74, when the barony became extinct. Lady Grenville died in June 1863.[9]

Ministry of All the Talents

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

Hereditary Peerage

  • 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

British Empire honours
Country Date Appointment Post-nominal letters
 Kingdom of Ireland1782  12 January 1834Member of the Privy Council of IrelandPC (Ire)
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland1783  12 January 1834Member of the Privy Council of Great BritainPC

Scholastic

Chancellor, visitor, governor, and fellowships
Location Date School Position
 England1809  12 January 1834University of OxfordChancellor


Memberships and fellowships

Country Date Organisation Position
 United Kingdom23 April 1818  12 January 1834Royal SocietyFellow (FRS)

Notes

  1. "Grenville, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759–1834), prime minister". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11501. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  2. Chisholm 1911, p. 581.
  3. "No. 13259". The London Gazette. 23 November 1790. p. 710.
  4. Chisholm 1911, p. 582.
  5. Fisher, David R. "GRENVILLE, William Wyndham (1759-1834), of Dropmore Lodge, Bucks". History of Parliament Trust.
  6. "Grenville, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759–1834), prime minister". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11501. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  7. Jupp, 2009.
  8. "Abolitionist's house escapes ruin". BBC News. 1 April 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
  9. Lundy, Darryl (2 December 2008). "William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville". thepeerage.com. Retrieved 18 March 2014.

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
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville, Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. 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. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Political offices
Preceded by
Richard FitzPatrick
Chief Secretary for Ireland
1782–1783
Succeeded by
William Windham
Preceded by
Edmund Burke
Paymaster of the Forces
1784–1789
Succeeded by
The Lord Mulgrave
The Marquess of Graham
New office Vice-President of the Board of Trade
1786–1789
Succeeded by
The Marquess of Graham
Preceded by
Charles Wolfran Cornwall
Speaker of the House of Commons of Great Britain
1789
Succeeded by
Henry Addington
Preceded by
The Lord Sydney
Home Secretary
1789–1791
Succeeded by
Henry Dundas
President of the Board of Control
1790–1793
Preceded by
The Duke of Leeds
Leader of the House of Lords
1790–1801
Succeeded by
Lord Hobart
Foreign Secretary
1791–1801
Succeeded by
Lord Hawkesbury
Preceded by
The Duke of Newcastle
Auditor of the Exchequer
1794–1834
Succeeded by
The Lord Auckland
Preceded by
William Pitt the Younger
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
11 February 1806  25 March 1807
Succeeded by
The Duke of Portland
Preceded by
Lord Hawkesbury
Leader of the House of Lords
1806–1807
Succeeded by
Lord Hawkesbury
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
James Grenville
Richard Aldworth-Neville
Member of Parliament for Buckingham
1782–1784
With: James Grenville
Succeeded by
James Grenville
Charles Edmund Nugent
Preceded by
The Earl Verney
Thomas Grenville
Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire
17841790
With: Sir John Aubrey 1784–1790
The Earl Verney 1790
Succeeded by
The Earl Verney
James Grenville
Academic offices
Preceded by
The Duke of Portland
Chancellor of the University of Oxford
1809–1834
Succeeded by
The Duke of Wellington
Peerage of Great Britain
New creation Baron Grenville
1790–1834
Extinct
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