Grenville William

Grenville, William, Lord (1759-1834), youngest son of George Grenville, entered Parliament in 1782, and was the same year appointed Chief Secretary under his brother, Earl Temple, who was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

In 1783 he became Paymaster-General under his cousin William Pitt, and also a Privy Councillor.

He afterwards held a commissionership on the Board of Control (India), and the vice-presidency of the Board of Trade, and in 1789 was elected Speaker, but resigned a few months later on accepting the office of Secretary of State. In 1790 he also became President of the Board of Control, and in the same year was created a peer, and took the leadership of the Government in the Upper House. In 1791 he became Foreign Secretary. As such he in the following year introduced the Alien Bill, and in 1793 the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill. In 1795 he passed through the Treasonable Practices Bill and the Seditious Meetings Bill, and in 1799 moved the resolutions for the Irish Union in a four hours' speech. As the measure prepared by himself and Pitt for the emancipation of the Irish Catholics was rejected "by the king, they both resigned early in 1801. In his opposition to Addington, Grenville was associated with Fox, and he refused to join Pitt in 1804 because the king would not agree to the inclusion of that statesman in the Cabinet. The cousins had long had divergencies of views on some political questions, and they never afterwards acted together. In 1806 Grenville became head of the Ministry of All the Talents, with Fox as Foreign Secretary. Though the Administration was not as a whole successful, it passed the Bill to abolish the slave trade early in 1807. It did not long survive, as the king not only refused to. assent to a Bill for enabling Catholics to hold commissions in the army and navy, but even tried to extort from his ministers a promise that they would never again offer him advice upon the Catholic question.

Overtures to Grenville and his friends to join the Tory Ministry were several times made by the Regent, but their views on Emancipation and other questions prevented the favourable reception of them. Lord Grenville during the next few years continued to lead a section of the Opposition which, while opposing the home and financial policy of the Government, gave their foreign policy a general support. After 1823 he retired altogether from public life. Lord Grenville had all the good qualities of his father, and also his defects of manner, but was, perhaps, a better speaker. He was one of the statesmen who earliest adopted the principles of Adam Smith, and was an able advocate of many social reforms. In foreign affairs he was in favour of a policy more warlike than that of which the majority of the Whigs approved.