William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville

Political career

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 September 1784 his cousin, William Pitt the Younger, informed Grenville that the King had asked him pointedly when he would return from his Continental tour. Pitt replied that he would return in six weeks, and therefore six weeks later George III asked Pitt, once more to become First Minister. This time he agreed. When in office Pitt drew Grenville closer giving him a position and experience at debating for the administration in the Commons. After a number of years learning his craft, and being used by Pitt in diplomatic missions abroad, Pitt planned for Grenville to replace Lord Sydney as Home Secretary but the King's illness halted any movement. Now Pitt was concerned about his tenure as Minister, but the unexpected death of the House of Commons Speaker, Charles Wolfran Cornwall, meant that Grenville could be elected as Cornwall's replacement. In the Speaker's chair Grenville would be a support to Pitt, who was attempting to stall legal proceedings for a Regency as long as he could. This was in the hope that the King would recover. Grenville therefore served briefly as Speaker of the House of Commons before he entered the cabinet as Home Secretary, in place of Lord Spencer 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.

In 1791, Grenville was again moved by Pitt into another office. This time he succeeded Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds as Foreign Secretary. Grenville was manoeuvred into position by Pitt when Leeds resigned over Pitt's change in policy regarding Russia. Although not happy with the change, as Grenville preferred to remain in the less demanding Home Office, he submitted to Pitt's wishes and dutifully obeyed his cousin and exchanged the Home office seals for the Foreign Department. 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's focus led him to dispatch agents such as William Wickham to the Continent to collect information and engage with Royalists to counter the Revolution.

Whilst acting as Foreign Secretary Grenville grew close to George III. The Secretary supported a vigorous war against the French and was not in favour of making peace on terms which he considered beneath Britain's honour. Siding with the King, who wanted war to continue unless the Bourbons were restored in France, Grenville became an obstacle to Pitt's desire to make peace with France in 1797. As Foreign Secretary negotiations with foreign powers went through Grenville, including peace negotiations. Pitt was not happy with this arrangement when he saw that Grenville's despatches to the British diplomat in France, James Harris Earl Malmesbury were unnecessarily harsh and uncompromising. Pitt therefore sent secret despatches of his own to Malmesbury hoping that in this way the negotiations for peace would be successful. George Canning, who was devoted to Pitt, had been made an under-secretary in the Foreign Department with the task to intercept despatches to Malmesbury for Pitt and send Pitt's messages, secretly to the diplomat. This disagreement in views continued whenever peace with France was discussed.

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.

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

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 latter 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

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.

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 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.

His personal acquaintance, Captain George Vancouver, named Point Grenville in what is now Washington state after him in 1792.

Dropmore House

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.

Personal life

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, at which point the barony became extinct.

Ministry of All the Talents

• Lord Grenville – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
• Charles James Fox – 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
• The Earl Spencer – 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. 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

Arms

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

Scholastic

Chancellor, visitor, governor, and fellowships

Memberships and fellowships