Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet

The Right Honourable Sir George Grey Bt
sketch by George Richmond (1809-1896)
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 23 June – 30 August 1841
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Viscount Melbourne
Preceded by	The Earl of Clarendon
Succeeded by	Lord Granville Somerset
Home Secretary
In office 8 July 1846 – 23 February 1852
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Lord John Russell
Preceded by	Sir James Graham, Bt
Succeeded by	Spencer Horatio Walpole
In office 8 February 1855 – 26 February 1858
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by	The Viscount Palmerston
Succeeded by	Spencer Horatio Walpole
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 22 June 1859 – 25 July 1861
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by	The Duke of Montrose
Succeeded by	Edward Cardwell
Home Secretary
In office 25 July 1861 – 28 June 1866
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Viscount Palmerston The Earl Russell
Preceded by	Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bt
Succeeded by	Spencer Horatio Walpole
Personal details
Born	11 May 1799
Died	9 September 1882 (aged 83)
Nationality	British
Political party	Whig Liberal
Spouse(s)	Anna Sophia Ryder
Alma mater	Oriel College, Oxford

Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet, PC (11 May 1799 – 9 September 1882) was a British Whig politician. He held office under four Prime Ministers, Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Palmerston, and notably served three times as Home Secretary.

Background and education

Grey was the only son of Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet, third son of Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, and younger brother of Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. His mother was Mary Whitbread, daughter of Samuel Whitbread. Grey was educated privately and at Oriel College, Oxford. Originally intending to become a priest, he instead chose law as his profession, and was called to the bar in 1826. He began a successful legal practice, but soon turned to politics.

Political career, 1832–1853

Grey was elected to parliament as a Whig for Devonport in 1832, and quickly made his mark in the House of Commons. He did not hold office in the Whig administration of his uncle Lord Grey, but when Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister in 1834, he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The government fell in December of that year, but returned to power in May 1835, when Grey resumed the post of Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (succeeding William Ewart Gladstone). He retained this office until 1839, when he was made Judge Advocate General. The same year Grey was also admitted to the Privy Council. He was then briefly Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1841, with a seat in the cabinet for the first time. However, the Whigs were defeated in the general election of that year.

The Whigs returned to power in July 1846 under Lord John Russell, who appointed Grey Home Secretary, the first of his three spells in this position. In 1846, Grey, "himself a zealous advocate of hydropathy"^[1] succeeded in getting passed The Baths and Washhouses Act, which promoted the voluntary establishment of public baths and washhouses in England and Wales. A series of statutes followed, which became known collectively as "The Baths and Wash-houses Acts 1846 to 1896".^[2][a] This was an important milestone in the improvement of sanitary conditions and public health in those times.^[1] He decided to leave his seat at Devonport, partly owing to the baths scandal, returning instead for his native Northumberland North in a 1847 by-election, from the family seat at Fallodon, which he had recently inherited from his uncle, Henry Grey.

The new baronet sat throughout the parliament in active support of Lord John Russell, until the collapse of the ministry after the scandal of the Durham Letter, and controversial Ecclesiastical Titles bull. Traditional Whigs were protestant, among them Grey, but the liberality of authorising a catholic hierarchy changed the nature of party politics. Grey's first tenure at the Home Office notably saw him deal with relief efforts to the victims of the Irish Potato Famine and trying to subdue the Irish rebellion of 1848. The latter year also saw the peak of the Chartist movement, which staged a massive rally in London in April. In 1847, Grey had left his old constituency in Devonport. He remained Home Secretary until the 1852 general election, when, despite enjoying widespread popularity, he lost his seat.

Political career, 1853–1874

Grey remained out of parliament until January 1853, when he was returned for Morpeth. He at first refused to join the coalition government of Lord Aberdeen, but in June 1854 he accepted the post of Colonial Secretary. The coalition fell in February 1855, and the Whigs returned to office under Lord Palmerston. Grey was appointed to his old office of Home Secretary, which he retained until the government resigned in February 1858. The Conservative administration under the Earl of Derby which took office only lasted until June the following year, when Palmerston again became Prime Minister. Grey was now appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but in 1861 he became Home Secretary for the third time. The government fell in 1866, and Grey was not to hold office again. Before the 1874 general election, he was overlooked as the Liberal candidate for Morpeth in favour of miners' leader Thomas Burt. This marked the end of Grey's public life and he spent the remainder of his life in retirement at his Fallodon estate in Northumberland. In 1873 Grey took his grandson, Edward on a tour of Scotland. The train they were travellers in, pulled in at the tiny village halt of Kingussie in the Highlands, where they were met on the platform by none other than William Gladstone.

Family

Grey married Anna Sophia Ryder, eldest daughter of Rt Rev Hon Henry Ryder, Bishop of Lichfield, a son of the Earl of Harrowby. They had one son, George Henry Grey (1835–1874). As his only son had predeceased him, he was therefore succeeded in the baronetcy by his grandson, Edward. He was also to become a prominent Liberal politician, and served as Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, when he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Grey of Fallodon.

George Grey was an affectionate family man, a good sense of humour and quickness of mind. He was widely welcomed by a wide variety of friends. A devoted grandfather of seven, he often accompanied out riding, even until eighty years old. Ever an enthusiastic sportsman he encouraged his family to play tennis. He was a keen reader of the classics, with a great knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; Shakespeare's plays, Walter Scott's poetry were part of their education. To the end he was conscientious of his children's welfare dying with them around him at the end aged eighty-three.^[3] His eldest grandson, Edward inherited the estate at Fallodon, near Alnwick. His son and heir was:

• George Henry Grey
• Charles Samuel Grey

See also

• Earl Grey
• Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Notes

a.' ^{^} Online searches for reference to the relevant acts have so far yielded listings from the London Gazette.^[4] See also the Parliamentary Archives website.^[5]

References

1. Metcalfe, Richard (1877). "Chapter IV Re-Introduction of the Turkish Bath, with Observations on the Vapour Bath". in Sanitus Sanitum et omnia Sanitus. Vol.1. London: The Co-operative Printing Co. p. 101. S.a. pp. 11–12, 16. Retrieved 2009-11-04. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
2. "'Action of Baths on the Human System': Sub-section in 'Baths' article". 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (1911encyclopedia.org). Retrieved 2009-11-05.
3. Creighton, Memoir, pp.58-9 and 126-7; Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years, vol.II, app. A, p.280-1
4. "London Gazette listings for 'Baths and Wash-houses Act'". London Gazette. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
5. "Parliamentary Archives search portal for listings of 'Baths and Wash-houses Act'". Portcullis – Gateway to Parliamentary Archives. Retrieved 2009-11-05.. Typing (or copying-and-pasting) the phrase: Baths and Wash-houses reliably yields 10 lisings, including that for the original 1846 act and its amendment of the same year, along with other results.

Bibliography

• Dr.Creighton, A Memoir of Sir George Grey, Longmans & Co., 1901

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir George Grey