GREY, see Henry, Henry (1802-1894).

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820-1832, ed. D.R. Fisher, 2009
Available from Cambridge University Press

Constituency

Dates

1826 - 1830
1830 - 1831
1831 - 1832
17 Sept. 1841 - 17 July 1845

Family and Education

b. 28 Dec. 1802, 1st. s. of Charles Grey†, 2nd Earl Grey, and Mary Elizabeth, da. of William Brabazon Ponsonby† of Bishop’s Court, co. Kildare; bro. of Hon. Charles Grey*. educ. by Rev. James Morton 1809-18; Trinity Coll. Camb. 1818. m. 9 Aug. 1832, Maria, da. of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd bt., of Sprotborough, Yorks., s.p. styled Visct. Howick 1807-45; suc. fa. as 3rd Earl Grey 17 July 1845; KG 1863; GCMG 1869. d. 9 Oct. 1894.

Offices Held

Under-sec. of state for war and colonies Nov. 1830-Apr. 1833; for home affairs Jan.-July 1834; sec. at war Apr. 1835-Aug. 1839; PC 18 Apr. 1835; sec. of state for war and colonies June 1846-Feb. 1852.

Ld. lt. Northumb. 1847-77.

Biography

Howick was named after his childless great-uncle, Sir Henry Grey, to whose Northumberland estate of Howick his father, leader of the Foxite Whigs, succeeded in 1808. A highly intelligent, difficult and obstinate boy (qualities that, according to the Whig lawyer Henry Brougham*, he used to ‘great harm’ as an ‘underling’ in his father’s administration), he lacked the warmth and good looks of his next brother Charles, their father’s favourite. It was also Howick’s misfortune that his tall, slender form, ‘carroty hair’ and slight lameness were readily caricatured.1 He was tutored privately under close parental supervision before going up to Cambridge, where, as president of the Union in 1822, his debating companions included Thomas Babington Macaulay* and Winthrop Mackworth Praed*.2 Certain that the personal antipathy of George IV (who never forgave him for fathering a child with the duchess of Devonshire), precluded his return to office, Grey looked to Howick from an early age to realize his ambitions; and directly the ‘insanity’ of the sitting Whig Thomas Wentworth Beaumont manifested itself in August 1823, he initiated negotiations to bring him in for Northumberland at the earliest opportunity.3 Howick was three months short of his majority and touring Switzerland with Charles when alerted to the scheme, of which he wrote:

I hardly know whether I ought to be pleased or not at the effect which you tell me this event may produce on my own prospects ... but at the same time I cannot but feel considerable diffidence in myself and consequently a good deal of uneasiness at the idea that there is a possibility of my being called so soon into a situation where so much will be required of me.4

Making his acquaintance in August 1824, John Cam Hobhouse* ‘thought little of him when I first saw him’, but gradually appreciated his ‘original and decisive turn of mind’, liberal opinions and ‘perhaps future distinction’.5 Howick’s aloofness towards the squires at Newcastle-upon-Tyne races that month and the magistrates and county gentry the following year annoyed his Whig sponsors in Northumberland and blighted his prospects. The squires and ship owners also disliked his flirtation with political economy, and his parents’ residence at Dartmouth during his mother’s illness reduced his chance of success. Beaumont’s repeated refusal to stand down and the intrigues of rival candidates added to the uncertainty.6 In the absence of his father and with his brother-in-law John Lambton* too ill to advise him, on 2 Feb. 1826 Howick declared his candidature for the Northumberland seat unexpectedly made vacant by the death of the Tory Charles John Brandling. He thus embarked on what, in view of his pre-poll ‘retirement’ the following week, proved to be a costly but successful attempt to prevent the return of the Canningite Henry Thomas Liddell*, by supporting the anti-Catholic Tory Matthew Bell*. The by-election also gave Howick a platform to launch his canvass for the general election in June, and enabled his friends to check the aspirations of the former Member and Whig renegade Sir Charles Monck of Belsay Hall.7 Overawed at the prospect of making his first major public speech at the nomination at Alnwick, 21 Feb., he wrote to Grey, 14 Feb.:

My great difficulty is what to say with regard to my political opinions, as there are so few questions of any importance on which one can commit oneself without inconvenience. I fear it is impossible to express an opinion in favour of parliamentary reform in however guarded a manner. The Catholic question it would also I think be dangerous to touch upon. I have seen in canvassing very strong indications of a general feeling that something should be done for the slaves in the West Indian islands. Would there be any objection to my avowing a similar opinion? I think I might also say something in favour of the commercial policy which ministers seem inclined to adopt, though this must also be done with caution, not to alarm the farmers and landlords about the corn laws.8

Initial reports of his reception, ‘statesmanlike’ neutrality and speech, in which he defended the ‘constitution of 1688’ and advocated Catholic emancipation, moderate reform and an abolition of slavery ‘consistent with the rights of property and the well-being of the slaves’, were encouraging.9 However, as James Abercromby* predicted, 17 Mar., and George Tierney* later confirmed, his prospects were poor, and plans were laid to seat him elsewhere.10 Tierney fretted over the cost to Grey and Howick’s want of energy, but deemed him an eager young man ‘who possesses many requisites for a debater in Parliament’, and said he would ‘not be surprised if he succeeds in the House’.11 Contrary to his agents’ predictions, the doubts expressed by Charles, who assisted with the canvass, were realized, and Howick was easily defeated in a four-cornered contest at the general election. The first to retire, he spent £19,213 in addition to his by-election costs, and the whole was financed by the sale of Ulgham Grange for £40,000 in 1827.12 Lord Darlington meanwhile had returned him for Winchelsea, where Thomas Creevey* deputized.13

Howick, whose conduct was monitored closely for Grey by his brother-in-law Edward Ellice*, who had lost his Coventry seat,14 made what Abercromby termed ‘rather a bad beginning’ by differing from Brougham and the Whig leaders and voting in Hume’s minority on the address, 21 Nov. 1826.15 He explained to his father, who in reply criticized Brougham and warned him against Hume, that

I was a good deal puzzled how to vote, as after the House was cleared for the division Brougham said that he should vote against Hume’s amendment and afterwards propose that which Mr. Grattan had intended to move. It appeared to me that it would have been better not to move any, as it was universally agreed that there was nothing objectionable in the address, but if any addition was to be made to it I most decidedly preferred Hume’s as I did not see why the House should pledge itself to take into consideration one or two of the topics he brought forward and not others, as they appear to me to be all of great importance, and as he explained that by the words ‘free trade in corn’ he only meant that the importation should not be prohibited though it might be subject to a duty, I did not think his amendment went to bind us to any particular line of conduct hereafter. Most people, however, were of opinion as you may see by the numbers. We were only 24 for the first amendment and 58 for the second.16

Pressed by Grey to attend constantly and ‘serve a regular apprenticeship till you have made yourself thoroughly master of all the forms and proceedings of the House’, he formed a close friendship with Charles Wood*, who in 1829 became his brother-in-law. Like Ellice, Howick was one of Grey’s most reliable political informers during his frequent absences from London, and the regular recipient of his advice.17 An inhibited speaker, rarely satisfied with his performance, he ‘took advantage of a sparsely attended House to say a few words against the vote for the military college’, 20 Feb. 1827, ‘principally to get over the awkwardness of a first appearance’ and because he felt that there was ‘no more necessity for having officers educated at the public expense than lawyers or clergymen’. Grey wrote that his observations were ‘very proper’ and ‘sensible’.18 His vote against the award to the duke of Clarence, 16 Feb., however, troubled Grey, who was concerned at the political capital made of the issue while the succession to Lord Liverpool as premier was uncertain. Heeding his advice, Howick declined to vote on the issue, 3 Mar., and stated that he ‘did not choose to join in what I thought a useless and vexatious opposition with Hume and his associates’.19 He took a particular interest in the 26 Feb. debate on Lord Althorp’s proposal for a standing committee on election petitions and, encouraged by Grey, learnt much about tactics and procedures as the Whig Sir Francis Blake’s* nominee on the Berwick-upon-Tweed committee.20 He divided for Catholic relief, 6 Mar., but the anti-Catholic majority that day, Burdett’s speech and inaccurate reporting of the debate dismayed him.21 More of a free trader than Grey, who complained to Princess Lieven that he voted ‘in every division with les hommes des principes’, he ‘contended that fluctuating duties work ill for the landed interest’ and resisted pressure from Ellice and Lambton to toe the line on the corn laws.22 ‘Convinced that a much meaner approach to a sound system’ was necessary than what ministers proposed, he praised Whitmore’s resolutions, which Grey deplored, and divided with him for a 50s. pivot price, 9 Mar. To Grey’s relief, he disputed Whitmore’s tenet that ‘landlords had been repaid (for their investment) by the high price of grain’.23 He voted against increased protection for barley, 12 Mar., and for the staggered introduction of a fixed 10s. duty, 27 Mar. He voted in the minorities for inquiry into Leicester corporation, 15 Mar., the spring guns bill, 23 Mar., and the Lisburn Orange magistrates, 29 Mar. He voted with Tierney to delay supplies during the ministerial uncertainty, 30 Mar., and again on the Irish estimates and chancery arrears, 5 Apr. Privy to Grey’s fears that the Whigs would be seduced and betrayed by Canning, he fully acquiesced in his decision to remain in opposition during Canning’s premiership, although his intended mentor Lord Lansdowne and Tierney took office and Lambton returned from Italy to support them.24 As yet Darlington’s endorsement of Canning did not jeopardise his seat.25 Adopting a high profile when the new ministry was tested, he was a teller for the minority for removing bankruptcy jurisdiction from chancery, 11 May, and voted for the disfranchisement of Penryn, 28 May. Grey was ‘very glad’ to learn that he had spoken and voted in the minority of ten for repeal of the stamp duty on small publications, 31 May, a motion which by invoking the Six Acts was deliberately calculated to ‘distress’ the Whigs.26 He did not interrupt his continental tour on account of Canning’s death in August 1827 and was expected to oppose the Goderich ministry, which Grey’s erstwhile allies adhered to and to whom Lambton owed his elevation to the peerage as Baron Durham.27

Howick wrote to Grey from Paris in January 1828 for clarification of the confused ministerial situation and, acting on his advice, he refrained from deliberate hostility to the Wellington ministry until after the Huskissonite secession in May.28 He naturally voted against them for repeal of the Test Acts, 26 Feb., for which he presented a petition, 18 Mar.; and he presented a petition, 25 Apr., and voted for Catholic relief, 12 May. On East Retford, which he agreed merited disfranchisement, 10 Mar., he maintained that the problem of bribery was widespread and had to be dealt with, for it was notorious that nine-tenths of borough Members were ‘returned by bribes of money or money’s worth’. He made his support for the disfranchisement bill conditional on the failure of the sluicing amendment and voted accordingly, 21 Mar. He also opposed its revival, 2 June, and objected to changes in its details, 27 June. Speaking that day, he toyed with the notion of giving its seats to the county instead of the hundred, but instead he took up a suggestion in Lord John Russell’s speech and proposed an amendment transferring them to Yorkshire, which he lost by 95-17. His views on corn law reform were unchanged and, warning of the dangers of ‘extreme protection’ and ‘gambling speculations on the price of corn’, he voted for the gradual introduction of a fixed 10s. duty, 29 Apr. When Lord Cleveland (Darlington) afterwards criticized his vote against the award to Canning’s family, 13 May, and bade him refrain from hostility towards the ministry, Grey fully endorsed his decision to offer to vacate his seat and approved the ‘honourable compromise’ whereby he kept it.29 Joining in the opposition’s criticism of the finance committee of which he had been a member, on 16 May he complained that they had been asked to consider revenues before establishments and attacked the master of the mint Herries and chancellor of the exchequer Goulburn, whose estimates he now criticized; Herries accused him of ‘constitutional ignorance’. He clashed with Calcraft before voting against the civil list pensions, 20 May, supported inquiry into the circulation of small bank notes, 3 June, and seconded Hume’s amendment to the promissory notes bill, 16 June. He spoke and voted in condemnation of the Buckingham House expenditure, 23 June, to reduce the salary of the lieutenant-general of the ordnance, 4 July, and against the grant for North American fortifications, 7 July 1828, when he harassed ministers in a vain attempt to delay the vote on the Canadian waterways grant.

Howick toured Scotland during the recess.30 He was shooting at Woburn in January 1829 when he learnt of Wellington and Peel’s decision to concede Catholic emancipation.31 Cleveland directed him to ‘abstain from supporting any question which could be described as an attack upon or hostile to the government, except as to the affairs of Ireland’, and he was glad to find Lord Holland, whom he met at the Fox dinner, 7 Feb., ‘apparently less indisposed towards the duke than I feared’.32 He attended the House almost daily, paid social calls most mornings, enjoyed the theatre and frequented Brooks’s, to which he had been admitted, 10 Feb. 1824, and the Travellers’ Club, where he often dined and played billiards or cards. He considered the emancipation proposed ‘as complete and satisfactory as one could possibly wish’, admired Peel’s speech on introducing it, 5 Mar., and was relieved when the opposition meeting at Burdett’s that day resolved not to oppose the attendant franchise bill:

Whatever objections I may have to the principle on which it is done and the manner of doing it, I am inclined to believe that the result will be the obtaining a more independent body of electors in Ireland and that it is not impossible it may lead to the substitution of a more reasonable qualification than the present technical freehold in England. It seems at least a favourable opportunity of exposing the absurdity of the existing system.

He paired for emancipation, after failing to dissuade George Moore from moving factiously for adjournment, 6 Mar., and quibbled at the Ultras’ delaying tactics before pairing again, 9, 17, 20 Mar. Supporting the franchise bill that day, he found that he could make ‘little or no use’ of his prepared draft and complained that the only part of his speech listened to was his impromptu response to Lord George Cavendish Bentinck. Already ill with a severe cough, he was treated by Sir Henry Halford two days later and was absent from the House until June. Sounded meanwhile as a candidate for Cambridge University (where he went to support the Whig William Cavendish*), he told Ellice that he wished ‘nothing to do with it, as, in the first place I am convinced I should have no chance of success, in the next, though my present seat is not very secure or altogether satisfactory, I should gain little by the change, as it is not likely with my opinions I will remain long in public life without offending such a body of constituents as the senate of Cambridge’. On 2 June he presented a petition for inquiry into the English universities and the established church in Ireland, divided for Lord Blandford’s reform proposals and, ‘quite put out by the inattention of the House’, tried to repeat what he could recall of his March 1828 speech before voting against issuing the East Retford writ. Bored and unwell, he went to Ascot races, 18 June, and attended the Fox dinner at Greenwich on the 27th. He cancelled his planned continental tour on medical advice because of a severely ulcerated throat and returned to Howick, where he read widely, worked on a new speech and resolutions on East Retford and infuriated his father by applying to the duke of Northumberland’s agent for permission to shoot at Long Houghton and Renington. Leaving Alnwick on 16 Dec. 1829 with his sister Georgiana, he attended Rainhill locomotive trials, toured the commercial and manufacturing districts of Liverpool, Manchester, the Black Country and Birmingham and visited Lord Dacre at The Hoo and the duke of Bedford at Woburn, whence he returned to London with Lord John Russell, 3 Feb. 1830.

Cleveland’s adhesion to the ministry, hinted at in June 1829, was confirmed, 12 Jan. 1830, and Howick’s tenure at Winchelsea remained in doubt until a compromise permitting him to sit unimpeded until the general election was effected a few hours before the address was moved, 4 Feb.33 With Grey now a contender for office to bolster the ailing administration, Howick was ‘very much at a loss how to vote, as I did not wish to give a triumph to the enemies of government, while I could not pretend to deny the universality of distress’. Refusing to be ruled by Durham, he divided ‘with government’, after first expressing broad agreement with Althorp, who opposed them, and stating that he would defer judgement until the details of the ministerial retrenchment proposals were known. He cautioned against clamouring for a depreciation of the currency or the appointment of a finance committee. Denis Le Marchant† held him responsible, by example, for ‘saving the government from a signal defeat’.34 Following the advice of his uncle Grey of Falloden to ‘speak continually on all trifling questions in the House of Commons’, he gained in confidence that session, and to his father’s delight became ‘fully launched’ as one of the best prospects among the young Whigs.35 Determined to move his East Retford resolutions despite Grey’s misgivings, he was prevented from doing so by his late arrival in the House, after the amendment proposing the transfer of its seats to Birmingham had been moved, 11 Feb. He nevertheless delivered much of his intended speech, which questioned the justification for treating it as an individual disfranchisement case rather than a general bribery and corruption issue, before voting for the amendment, pressed for a select committee on bribery as a step towards reform, and failed (by 55-154) to prevent the introduction of the disfranchisement bill, which he criticized as ex post facto law.36 Elated by his performance, he defended the landed interest when the Essex distress petition was presented next day and ridiculed the Colchester Member Daniel Whittle Harvey’s plea for rent-control legislation. Newly fitted with ‘artificial teeth’, he seconded Hume’s resolutions for tax reductions with a short critique of finance committees and currency reform, 15 Feb.37 Advocating ‘nothing but a thorough reform’, he voted for Blandford’s proposals, 18 Feb., but he privately ridiculed them as ‘a mere schoolboy’s declaration with a few good sentences in it’ and ‘a tissue of nonsenses’. He voted to reduce the army estimates ‘against my original intention, principally on account of an excellent speech of Labouchere’s’, 19 Feb. Writing to Grey that day, Althorp, to whom Howick had confided his dislike of Huskisson, noted his ‘rapid improvement ... readiness in reply and perfect command of words [that] are putting him on the first scale of debating speakers’.38 He voted for the enfranchisement of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb., inquiry into Newark’s petition of complaint against the duke of Newcastle, on which he regretted speaking, 1 Mar., and Russell’s reform motion, 28 May.39 Unwell with a cold, he paired for the transfer of East Retford’s seats to Birmingham, 5 Mar., and divided silently against the disfranchisement bill, 15 Mar. 1830.

At Grey’s request he attended the Whig meetings at Althorp’s rooms on 3 and 6 Mar. which invited Althorp to become leader ‘for one definite object, namely the reduction of expenditure and of taxation’ and resolved not to unite with another party. He recorded that ‘very little was done as a great many of those who were present were irreconcilably adverse to a property tax, without which it does not appear to me that much can be done’.40 Perturbed when Grey justified opposition to the tax, warned of the danger of proceeding without Huskisson and detailed Brougham and Althorp’s shortcomings as party leaders, he discussed politics at length with Wood and called on Lord Fitzwilliam, 11 Mar.41 He harried ministers on the estimates, 8, 9 Mar., and was a speaker and minority teller for Graham’s motion criticizing the recent appointment of a treasurer of the navy, 12 Mar., when Canningite resentment at the veiled attack on the incumbent Thomas Frankland Lewis* ensured that Peel had the ‘best of the debate’. Howick, failing to comprehend this, wrote: ‘I thought myself better than I ever did before, but I suppose it was not so, as not a soul paid me the slightest compliment and I have generally had more than I deserved.’42 He deemed Goulburn’s financial statement, 15 Mar., ‘upon the whole satisfactory’ and a ‘good beginning’, and resented having to listen to Davenport’s ‘tiresome and stupid’ speech on the state of the nation, to which he was expected to reply, 16 Mar. Doing so, he repeated his 4 Feb. statement that the ministry were ‘upon the whole ... entitled to our thanks’, criticized Davenport’s obsession with the currency, which he conceded was ‘neither economical nor secure’, and angered Herries by declaring that the banking system required investigation. He joined in the general clamour before voting against the navy estimates, 22 Mar., and for inquiry into tax revision, 25 Mar., and paired against the Bathurst and Dundas pensions, 26 Mar. Being busy in committee on the Glasgow railway bill, where he was hampered by his ignorance of Scottish law, he spoke only briefly in justification of his vote to abolish the office of lieutenant-general of the ordnance, 29 Mar. 1830. He paired for inquiry into the management of crown land revenues next day and stayed at Woolbeding, The Hoo and Hatfield during the Easter recess.

Undeterred by speculation that Wellington was strengthening the ministry, he divided against reforming Irish vestries, 27 Apr., for information on British interference in Terceira, 28 Apr., and for economies, 30 Apr., 3 May, but he deplored Hume and O’Connell’s repeated attacks on the estimates, 30 Apr. 1830. He attended at Althorp’s, 1 May, and afterwards discussed the currency and political economy, on which Alexander Baring coached him, with Charles Poulett Thomson at Brooks’s. To his relief Grey, who returned to London on 5 May after a ten-month absence, was ‘getting quite as much inclined to oppose the duke as I can be’. He criticized the grants for colonial churches and the Canadian legislature, 10 May, voted for reductions in official salaries, 10, 11 May, and to repeal the Irish coal duties, 13 May, when he was peeved to find that his like-minded colleagues Fazakerley, Milton, Poulett Thomson, Ridley and Michael Angelo Taylor had voted for them on principle, as had been his own intention before hearing Althorp and Acland’s counter arguments. Grey, now contemplating heading a Whig-Huskissonite coalition, was prepared in the event of office to offer him a lordship of the treasury, which pleased him greatly, notwithstanding his preference for the post of under-secretary at the home office. Preoccupied with the hackney coach committee, he voted silently for returns of privy councillors’ emoluments, 14 May, and in his journal criticized the gross exaggerations in its mover Graham’s speech, which ‘nine tenths of the public’ would believe. His hostility to the government had increased and he approved Brougham’s proposal to obstruct money votes, although he deplored the precedent it set by ‘taking the only nights in the week the ministers have for public business’. He voted for Jewish emancipation, 17 May, and to abolish the death penalty for forgery, 24 May, 7 June, and held ministers directly responsible for its defeat in the Lords, 20 July. His ‘half-prepared’ speech on Labouchere’s resolutions on the civil government of Canada had been in train since he ordered papers on 5 Mar., and he was bitterly disappointed with his fudged and lacklustre performance, which added nothing to the debate, 25 May. He succeeded in engaging Peel in discussion on the grants for South American missions, 7 June, and consular services, 11 June, and resolved to take the sense of the House on them again. He revised his speech on the currency with Wood and Hammick before speaking against Attwood’s proposals, 8 June, but could add little on depreciation to what Herries and Baring said and so concentrated on their differences on the Promissory Notes Act and pressed for its repeal. On 14 June he voted to cut the grants for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and failed by a disappointing 46-145 to halve that for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels. He wrote afterwards that he had been ‘too busy playing billiards at the Travellers’’ to revise his speech and ‘totally threw away the very best opportunity of making an effective speech ... that year’ by delivering a ‘weak and confused statement’. He considered Huskisson’s ‘excellent’ speech on the sugar duties ‘fatal to the ministry’, 21 June, and rebuked O’Connell for promoting instability by suggesting that the Irish people should apply to the banks for gold, 24 June. He deliberately avoided legal debates, but regretted his inability to speak effectively against the increased recognizances proposed under the libel law amendment bill, 9, 20 July. Speculation about Grey’s appointment to office and a junction with the Huskissonites revived following the king’s death, and Howick was heartened by the increased opposition attendance at Althorp’s, 4 July 1830, when they resolved to go into outright opposition next Parliament should Wellington ‘do no better’. At the meeting he disputed Althorp’s decision to proceed with Robert Grant’s motion on the regency on the 6th without forcing a division and infuriated Brougham, who had a bill prepared. He wrote of the ensuing debacle, in which ‘we were only 93 to 246’, that Brougham’s speech was ‘most clever and amusing though not much to the purpose, certainly not such a display as to warrant his leading us into such a scrape in order to satisfy his vanity by making it’. At the general election he took an interest in developments in Durham and in Northumberland, where Beaumont replaced Liddell, saw suggestions that he should stand for Southwark, Surrey or Hull quashed by his father, and was substituted by Fitzwilliam for his uncle Frederick Ponsonby at Higham Ferrers, which was ‘better than being out of Parliament, though a disagreeable way of coming in, as I cannot bear turning him out’.43

Brougham’s speeches following his Yorkshire victory and presumption in speaking for the Whigs in The Result of the General Election and Country Without a Government annoyed Howick, although he conceded the need to co-operate with the disaffected Tories and Huskisson to overthrow the ministry. Despite his previous criticism, he viewed Huskisson’s death on 15 Sept. 1830 as ‘a great loss at the moment’. Aware through Holland and Grey of the obstacle it presented to recruiting Lord Palmerston* and Lord Melbourne, who had ‘little confidence in Althorp and less in HB’, he welcomed Palmerston’s rejection of an overture from Wellington in October and acted afterwards with Graham to test the reaction of the Huskissonites and the Whig hierarchy to Brougham’s moderate reform scheme. The Whigs at Althorp’s backed it, 31 Oct., but in private on 6 Nov. Howick, as his father’s emissary, and Graham agreed that it would ‘never answer’. They sounded Althorp and Palmerston and were instrumental in persuading Brougham next day that to succeed he should move for inquiry only and delay doing so until 16 Nov., three days after the next Whig muster.44 On 2 Nov., Howick stated that he would have considered the address ‘very satisfactory had it not been for the passage relating to Belgium and the absence of anything about reform’. Privately, he considered Althorp’s reply ‘injudicious’, Blandford’s amendment ‘almost as long as a pamphlet and still more absurd’ and O’Connell’s speech impressive. On 5 Nov. he drew out Peel by reiterating his opinion that ministers had resisted reform and underestimated the likelihood of war in the Netherlands. When the Whigs went into outright opposition following the cancellation of the king’s visit to the City, 8 Nov., he considered it only a matter of time before Wellington was ‘turned out either by a vote or by the king’, and he attributed his defeat on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, to which he contributed, and announced personally to Grey, Durham and Holland, to Tory votes.45 Lampooned as one of Grey’s family administration, with his uncles Ellice and Ponsonby and brothers-in-law Barrington, Durham and Wood, he was passed over for the war office and became deputy, at £2,000 a year, to the amenable Lord Goderich at the colonial office: ‘a place which though there is an immense deal to do and I am rather afraid of it I think I shall like very much as the business is some of it of an important and interesting kind’.46

Speaking officially for the first time, 6 Dec., he confirmed his 1827 vote against the Canadian waterways grant on announcing its continuation, and warned Hume, who requested returns on colonial pensions, against relying on the editor of the Sydney Monitor’s inaccurate statistics, 23 Dec. 1830. He presented and endorsed anti-slavery petitions, 7 Dec. 1830, and wrote optimistically to Charles that day of their father’s prospects of securing reform and preventing an Anglo-French war, but predicted strong opposition in the Commons after Christmas.47 His defence of the chancellor Althorp’s decision to end the protective tariff on Cape wine, 14 Feb. 1831, which he repeated at subsequent meetings with the wine merchants, did little to allay their hostility to the measure and the ministry, and Althorp may have stifled his interventions on the budget.48 He introduced his Canada bill confidently and with candour, 18 Feb., drawing heavily on the review of Canadian papers he had prepared in opposition. His conduct towards Goderich’s predecessor Murray, whose 1829 and 1830 bills had been timed out, was conciliatory throughout and he avoided apportioning blame for the breakdown in relations between the colonial legislatures and Parliament and the archaic methods of fixing and financing official salaries. He proposed adding 14 members to the Canadian legislative council, forbade the judges from interfering with its operations and provided for pensions and salaries by means of a civil list until the Canadians had complete budgetary control. Responding to the clamour generated by the ‘Swing’ riots, he sounded his colleagues and members of the 1827 committee preparatory to introducing a bill to facilitate subsidized emigration, 22 Feb.49 Fierce opposition inside and outside Parliament ensured that it became a casualty of the dissolution.50 He presented papers on slavery and manumission, 10, 25, 28 Mar., and pressed Buxton to postpone his abolition motion, 29 Mar. When it came on, 15 Apr. 1831, he rejected a suggestion that the matter be taken over by the colonial office, criticized the Jamaican legislature and their Acts and declared against precipitate abolition, as not in the best interests of the slaves, and likewise against letting the proprietors’ compensation claims stand in the way of emancipation. He stated that an order in council similar to Canning’s in 1823 was in preparation, but gave nothing away when Peel pressed for details. The West India merchant Thomas Gladstone* thought it ‘disgraceful that such principles should activate a person in his office and acting in the House as a principal’. Brougham, claiming to represent the abolitionists, was also disappointed; but to the Quaker John Gurney, who discussed it with Grey, Howick’s speech deserved ‘praise for its honesty and feeling as well as its talent’, although ‘the old premier seemed to think that his son had been carried by his zeal rather too far’.51

Howick predicted that the popular clamour for reform would frighten opposition into accepting the ministerial bill as an alternative to revolution, and although he acknowledged that the scale of the changes proposed on 1 Mar. 1831 had astounded even the Whigs, he remained optimistic of its success.52 He intervened to support Russell, 3 Mar., and, using his East Retford notes, replied at length three days later to Warrender’s ‘measure of spoilation’ speech with what William Ord* termed ‘an impudent one’, in which he conceded that reform was popularly sought ‘as a means of providing against misgovernment and extravagance’, but said it could ‘afford no immediate relief’.53 Warning of the ‘ruinous consequences’ of rejecting the measure, he added:

The real wisdom ... of this plan consists in its apparent boldness. I admire it because it leaves nothing behind it for future strife or future concession; whereas had it been framed on a contrary principle, and left half of these rotten boroughs in existence, or taken only one Member from each of them, instead of a final settlement, we should have had ... a payment on account ... a short and hollow truce.

He presented favourable petitions from Stockport and Alnwick, 15 Mar. Greville noted that he was now in high spirits and pleased with the popularity of the bill in Northumberland, where the Whigs invited him ‘to propose himself (at the proper time)’ and formed an association ‘for the purpose of bringing him in free from expense’.54 He anticipated that the single vote majority for the second reading, 22 Mar., would make it impossible to carry the bill in that Parliament, took heart from ministers’ reception at the Guildhall banquet, 4 Apr., the success of the younger William Chaytor, a reformer, at the Durham by-election and the furore generated by Wellington’s anti-reform speech. With his tenure at Higham Ferrers in doubt, he also hoped to profit from hostility in Northumberland to the anti-reformer Bell, although he was unwilling to ‘burn my fingers with another contest’.55 He silenced the critics of the northern coal owners’ cartel, 28 Mar. At the dissolution he solicited the support of Portland, the Whig grandees Carlisle and Tankerville and the first lord of the admiralty Graham as custodian of Greenwich Hospital interest, and announced his candidature for Northumberland, where, standing jointly with Beaumont, he saw off a challenge mounted by the duke of Northumberland through Bell, whose retirement left them unopposed.56 The Newcastle barrister James Losh complained that his ‘address is cold, very cold, if his manners prove as much so when he arrives he will damage us greatly’.57 Cautioned specifically by Grey against using ‘any of the vulgar and hackneyed terms of rotten boroughs, borough mongerers, etc.’, he stated on the hustings, 9 May:

For four long years was the miserable question of East Retford ... suffered to hang on, detaining public business, leading to the breaking up of one administration, and greatly weakening another, and all for the purpose of determining whether certain persons had been guilty of an offence which is of every day practice. When we entreated them to institute a similar examination into every borough in the kingdom, and not to waste their time on an isolated case ... we pleaded in vain ... But happily we failed in our endeavours, and I rejoice that we did so because to those two discussions and the repeated exposure of the effects of the system, I attribute much of the feeling for reform which now exists in the country.

He censured Members who had failed to vote to transfer East Retford’s seats to Birmingham yet now claimed to be ‘moderate reformers’, and defended the provisions of the bill.58 When Lord Stormont called him to account in the House, 21 June 1831, for failing to intervene when the ‘sovereignty of the people’ was toasted before ‘the king’ at his election dinner, he blamed his supporters’ ignorance on ‘a matter of form’. Ponsonby, for whom he had neglected to find a seat, berated him in an acrimonious correspondence over the next eight months and protested at being treated like a ‘sucked orange’.59

The 1831 Parliament proved to be a testing and formative one for Howick, who in addition to dealing with the slavery question was charged with preparing and handling bills reforming commerce and the colonial legislatures. He clashed frequently with the Worcester Member Robinson, an expert on the Newfoundland trade, who harried him over the government’s proposals for the legislature, 27 June, when he admitted that ministers had no plans to tackle slavery that session. Admonished by anti-reformers and radicals for failing to demonstrate reductions in his departmental budget, 1 July, he was obliged to defend each sum voted, 8, 18, 25 July, when opposition made the grant to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels their particular target. He revived the Canada revenue bill unchanged, 27, 28 June, and carried its third reading without a division, 19 Aug. Forced to speak on slavery by Burge, whose request for returns he resisted, 17 Aug., he defended his department and the government’s conduct, cited evidence to support his view that circumstances were now right for the emancipation of crown slaves in Mauritius and refuted suggestions that emancipated slaves would become chargeable on the colonies. He presented the Mauritius petition for reduction of the duty on West Indian sugar, 18 Aug., and rejected a request for papers on the compensation paid to Lescene and Escoffery, two coloured free men expelled from Jamaica, but he failed to kill the issue when it was revived in committee of supply, 22 Aug. With pressure to carry the reform bill mounting, he could disguise neither his irritation nor poor knowledge of the fisheries and French rights when Robinson proposed a constitutional legislative assembly for Newfoundland, 13 Sept., forcing Althorp to intervene to suggest the concession of a select committee. He defeated the West India lobby’s request for inquiry into the impact of the Sugar Refinery Act by only 125-113, 28 Sept., and in a bid to regain the initiative and stave off future defeat, he conceded inquiry into West Indian colonies only and sat on the select committee appointed on 6 Oct. He was a government teller for the sugar refinery bill when it was carried (by 130-96), 7 Oct., and (49-12) on the 13th. Advised by Wood to say nothing that might revive the church patronage issue and excite the bishops, he expressed sympathy for but evaded discussion on the Assembly of Lower Canada’s petition complaining of the mode of selecting legislative councils, stating only that his department had the matter in hand, 14 Oct.60

He naturally divided steadily for the reintroduced reform bill, but spoke only to express irritation at the time-wasting tactics of its opponents, 11 Aug. He cited the precedent of East Retford in justification of the government’s decision to issue a new writ for Liverpool and claimed that the reform bill rendered further inquiry superfluous and that bribery prosecutions should be referred to the courts, 8 July. When the Irish government was implicated in corruption at the Dublin election, he embarrassed Grey and prompted calls for his resignation by refusing to vote in the majority by which inquiry was stifled, 23 Aug., but he divided with his colleagues later that day against the censure motion.61 He of course voted for Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct., and was prepared to see reform forced through with new peerages and made more extensive and radical. He approved his father’s decision to keep him in the Commons (and was to refuse a similar offer in 1839).62 He divided for the revised reform bill at its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, and being ‘sick of town’, spent the Christmas break shooting with Littleton in Staffordshire.63 In 1832 he voted silently with his colleagues on reform, the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 16, 20 July, relations with Portugal, 9 Feb., and the navy civil departments bill, 6 Apr.

Briefed thoroughly beforehand by the colonial office clerk Hay, he fended off criticism from Hume and others of his departmental budget, 7, 17, 22 Feb. 1832, persuaded Goderich to refer the contentious issue of Canadian church patronage to the cabinet and discussed schemes to reform the colonial agencies with his colleague Thomas Hyde Villiers* of the India board.64 Faced with renewed pressure from Burge and Lord Chandos to act to combat the severity of the Jamaican insurrection and West Indian distress, 17 Feb., 7, 9, 15, Mar., 13 Apr., he could do little more than appeal to the order in council of 5 Nov. 1831 and other papers currently before the House and repeat the mantra that relief was conditional on the recalcitrant assemblies obeying the orders. He was lucky to survive a close (148-134) division on the sugar duties bill, 7 Mar., but Althorp’s interventions and his own commanding speech, which drew heavily on Canning and Huskisson’s dispatches, secured its passage by 169-27 on the 23rd. He resigned with his colleagues and prepared to defend his Northumberland seat when the reform bill’s defeat in the Lords on 7 May put a ministry headed by Wellington in contemplation, and plans were also laid that month to return him for Northumberland North at the first post-reform election.65 As the threat to the reform bill evaporated and reports of colonial distress increased he was tested in the House almost daily on slavery, the New South Wales legislature bill, which the radicals exploited to revive the complaints against the former governor Charles Darling, 25 June, 5, 23 July, and the crown colonies relief bill, which as he had cautioned when directed to announce it as a ‘vague statement of intent’ in December 1831, risked ‘if not defeat, a victory which will not be a great deal less injurious to government’.66 When on 22 May Althorp asked him to persuade Fowell Buxton to put off his motion for the immediate appointment of a select committee on slavery, he resisted doing so on private and public grounds, convinced of the merits of a mixed committee of West Indians and abolitionists, and replied, 23 May:

If we cannot agree with him now as to the form of his motion, there will be still less chance of our being able to do so later in the session, when it will be absurd to propose an inquiry and he will therefore if he brings forward the subject at all be compelled to ask the sanction of the House to some distant proposition ... My own situation I feel to be peculiarly embarrassing. Not only do I entertain the strongest opinion that it is the duty of the government and of Parliament to take the earliest possible measures for putting an end to a system which I cannot doubt to be one of the most shocking cruelty and injustice, but I am also publicly pledged to this opinion in a way which must prevent my retracting or disguising it. In a debate last year I expressly stated that if I should be convinced that immediate emancipation would be safe, that it would conduce to the interests of the slaves themselves, I should hold it to be the bounden duty of this country to adopt that measure without the delay of a single day, leaving it to be settled afterwards in what proportion the loss should fall upon this country and upon the colonists. The motion which Buxton proposes does not go one step beyond this ... A division in which Buxton should be on one side and the government on the other would thus be no less embarrassing to myself than I believe it would be injurious to the government. The best way ... would in my opinion be to agree upon the terms in which a committee might be moved for tomorrow, the other to get the motion postponed till next session.67

He was party to Althorp’s vain attempt on the morning of the 24th to badger Buxton into agreeing to postponement. His independently minded speech that evening, which Buxton praised as ‘capital and giving such a testimony to the speech of last year as delighted me’, advised against precipitate action, but expressed confidence that inquiry would yield a solution, attributed the lack of progress since 1823 to previous ministerial procrastination, maintained that slave mortality had decreased and sugar exports increased in the crown colonies which, unlike Jamaica, had obeyed the order in council, and recommended the appointment of a committee ‘not to establish the evils of slavery but to plan for its abolition’.68 He was named to it, 30 May. Finding that distress petitions from the crown colonies contradicted his speech that day, he changed tack and placed his confidence in his department’s proposals for colonial legislatures, which he brought in on 7 June. He also presented an anti-slavery petition from Alnwick that day and quashed an attempt to institute inquiry into the alienation of crown lands in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. He crushed by 65-26 a proposal to give New South Wales a system of representation, 28 June. His defence of the colonial estimates, 23 July, was competent on all points save the grant for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels, which, as he had directed with cabinet backing the previous November, was discounted preparatory to abolition. Sorely tested in committee on the crown colonies relief bill, 3 Aug., by the colonial agents, to whom no ‘formal’ relief was promised, and the radicals, who maintained that the principle of the 5 Nov. 1831 order in council was being undermined, he defended his department’s actions, highlighted the selective use of documents and statistics by the bill’s critics on both sides and maintained that aid was justified although acceptance of emancipation was ‘patchy’. He carried the division (by 51-20), but was again bombarded with questions when the report was brought up on the 8th. He married Sir Joseph Copley’s daughter Maria the following day and took no further part in proceedings on the bill, which received royal assent, 16 Aug.69 He had supported the Monkwearmouth railway bill at his constituents’ request, 14 Feb., and presented petitions from the Northumberland magistracy and quarter sessions against the locally unpopular general registry bill, 22 Feb. 1832, and tried that day to allay its critics fears that only Members favourable to it would be appointed to the committee.70 Talk of making him secretary at war revived when the Irish secretary Smith Stanley threatened resignation; but the Conservative Charles Arbuthnot* observed that ‘it is thought he could not venture upon a new election for Northumberland and his temper is so bad that Lord Grey would hardly dare to put him at the war office’.71

Howick almost certainly colluded with the Conservative Lord Ossulston to secure an unopposed return for Northumberland North at the 1832 general election, when he refused to spend or stand jointly with the Liberal John Culley, and was outshone by Ossulston’s proposer Liddell on the hustings.72 Temperamentally unsuited to working in the shadow of Smith Stanley, who replaced Goderich as his principal in January 1833, he resigned over slavery in May after failing to persuade his father’s cabinet to give precedence to his scheme for precipitate emancipation.73 Reinstated as home under-secretary in January 1834, he resigned with Grey six months later. He became war secretary in Melbourne’s 1835 cabinet, but left it in 1839 with a reputation as a difficult, divisive, haughty and impatient colleague, after he had been thwarted in his ambition to become leader of the House and had seriously undermined the policies of Lord Glenelg (as Charles Grant had become) and Poulett Thomson.74 Defeated by two Conservatives in Northumberland North in 1841, after bringing down the government on the Irish franchise bill, he was accommodated at Sunderland, which he represented until he succeeded his father as 3rd Earl Grey and de facto leader of the Liberals in the Lords in 1845.75 He came to terms with Palmerston’s appointment as foreign secretary and served with him as colonial secretary in Russell’s first administration, instituting surprisingly conciliatory and farsighted constitutional reforms. John Campbell II*, then chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, found him ‘intrepid, vigorous, disinterested and sincere’, but recalled:

He certainly was very ill-tempered and wrong headed. I had myself unavoidable quarrels with him in the House of Commons when he was under-secretary of state and I was attorney-general. Since July 1846 I must say that he has conducted himself in the cabinet with uniform moderation and courtesy. He has occasionally expressed his opinion with vivacity, but without giving just cause of offence and without offending anyone.76

Excluded from Lord Aberdeen’s coalition ministry in 1852, he was a constant critic of all parties for the next 40 years and declared for the Conservatives in 1880, when his nephew and heir, Charles’s son Albert Henry George Grey (1851-1917), came in for Northumberland South as a Liberal. He died without issue at Howick in October 1894, predeceased in 1879 by his wife. His will was proved in London, 8 Feb. 1895, by his nephew the 4th earl, to whom he had already made over his estates.77

Ref Volumes: 1820-1832

Author: Margaret Escott

Notes

There is no comprehensive published biography of Grey, but his Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s Administration (1853), Parl. Government Considered (1858) and Corresp. of William IV with Earl Grey (1867) provide a partial and selective review of his own and his father’s administrative careers.

  • 1. E.A. Smith, Lord Grey, 137; Brougham mss, autobiog. fragment; M.D. George, Cat. of Pol. and Personal Satires, x. 15131-3; [J. Grant], Recollections of House of Commons (1837), 223; Pencillings of Politicians (1839), 115-16.
  • 2. The Times, 13 Oct. 1894; Oxford DNB.
  • 3. Smith, 139-42.
  • 4. Grey mss.
  • 5. Broughton, Recollections, iii. 77-78.
  • 6. Grey mss, J. Lambert to Grey, 22 Mar. 1824, 7 June 1825, 22 Jan. 1826, Lambton to Howick, 25 Aug. 1824, to Grey, 30 Nov., 16 Dec. Howick to same [21 July, 6 Aug., 15, 21, 25 Sept., 16, 21 Oct., 16, 18 Nov., 1 Dec. 1825], replies, 10 Sept. 1824, 10 Sept.-20 Nov. 1825; Durham Co. Advertiser, 13 Aug.; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 6 Sept. 1825.
  • 7. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 2 Feb.-9 Mar., replies 4 Feb.-14 Mar., Lambert to Grey, 3 Feb., Ellice to same, 2 Feb., 2 Mar.; The Times, 7, 10, 14 Feb.; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 11, 12 Feb. 1826.
  • 8. Grey mss.
  • 9. Ibid. Creevey to Grey, 21 Feb., reply 23 Feb.; Fitzwilliam mss 124/9, Grey to Fitzwilliam [22, 23 Feb.]; Add. 51784, Holland to C.R. Fox, 5 Mar.; Durham Chron. 23 Feb. 1826; Diaries and Corresp. of James Losh ed. E. Hughes (Surtees Soc. clxxiv) [hereafter Losh Diaries, ii], 41.
  • 10. Add. 51574, Abercromby to Holland, 17 Mar.; 51584, Tierney to same, 10 Apr., 4-5 May; 51586, Tierney to Lady Holland [28 Mar.]; 51663, Bedford to same, 9 May; Add. 51833, Yarborough to Brocklesby, 20 Mar.; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 17 Apr. 1826.
  • 11. Add. 51586, Tierney to Lady Holland, 18 Apr. 1826.
  • 12. Add. 30111, f. 231; Grey mss, C. Grey to Grey, 9 Mar., 20 May, 2 June, Lambton to same, 29, 31 May, 3 June, Lambert to same, 31 May, 2, 7 June, election accts. (1826-7); Baring Jnls. i. 48; NLS, Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 7 Feb. 1827.
  • 13. Grey mss, Darlington to Grey, 7 June; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 11 June 1826.
  • 14. Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 17 Aug. 1826-10 July 1830.
  • 15. Castle Howard mss, Abercromby to Carlisle [22 Nov. 1826].
  • 16. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 22 Nov., reply 24 Nov. 1826.
  • 17. Smith, 142; Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 28 Nov., 9, 13 Dec. 1826.
  • 18. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 22 Feb., reply 23 Feb. 1827.
  • 19. Ibid. Grey to Howick, 19, 28 Feb., reply, 3 Mar. 1827.
  • 20. Ibid. Howick to Grey, 2-20 Mar., replies, 14, 23 Mar. 1827.
  • 21. Ibid. Howick to Grey, 6, 7 Mar. 1827.
  • 22. Lieven-Grey Corresp. i. 39.
  • 23. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 12, 16, 31 Mar., replies, 14, 23 Mar. 1827.
  • 24. Ibid. Grey to Howick, 19 Feb.-23 Mar.; Lansdowne mss, Grey to Lansdowne, 16, 17, 27 Apr. 1827.
  • 25. Grey mss, Darlington to Grey, 19 Apr. 1827; Creevey Pprs. 464.
  • 26. Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1341; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 1 June 1827; A. Mitchell, Whigs in Opposition, 202.
  • 27. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 22 Sept. 1827; Arbuthnot Jnl. ii. 142.
  • 28. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 21 Jan. 1828; Smith, 249.
  • 29. Grey mss, Cleveland to Grey, 17 Mar., 4 Apr. and undated, replies, 21, 23 May, Howick to Cleveland, 21 May, reply 22 May 1828.
  • 30. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 11 Aug. 1828.
  • 31. Unless otherwise stated, the following account of Howick’s career, Jan. 1828-Nov. 1830, is based on his jnl. (Grey mss).
  • 32. Grey mss, Cleveland to Grey, 27 Jan. 1829.
  • 33. Grey mss, Howick to Grey. 2 June 1829, 22 Jan., 4 Feb., Cleveland to same, 12 Jan., reply, 16 Jan., same to Howick, 12 Jan., 4 Feb., Grey to Howick, 5 Feb., Durham to same, 5 Feb., Grey to Holland, 9 Feb.; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 6, 11 Feb.; Creevey mss, Sefton to Creevey, 30 Jan. 1830.
  • 34. Grey mss, Grey to Howick, 5 Feb. 1830; Le Marchant, Althorp, 233-4.
  • 35. Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 17 Feb.; Add. 51670, Bedford to Lady Holland, 20 Feb.; 51681, Lord W. Russell to Holland, 10 May; 51785, Holland to C.R. Fox, 20 Feb.; 52176, J. Allen to same, 4 Apr. 1830; Lieven-Grey Corresp. i. 441, 445.
  • 36. Grey mss, Grey to Howick, 10 Feb., Howick to Grey, 12 Feb., Durham to same, 12 Feb. 1830; J.R.M. Butler, Passing of Great Reform Bill (1914), 66-67.
  • 37. Grey mss, Howick to Grey, 15 Feb. 1830.
  • 38. Grey mss.
  • 39. Ibid. Howick to Grey, 2 Mar. 1830.
  • 40. Ibid. Howick to Grey, 2, 3, 6 Mar.; Castle Howard mss, Graham to Morpeth [3 Mar.] 1830.
  • 41. Grey mss, Grey to Howick, 9, 14 Mar. 1830.
  • 42. Ibid. Grey to Howick, 15 Mar., Graham to same [Mar. 1830].
  • 43. Grey mss, Durham to Grey, 9 Mar., Macdonald to same 14, 15 July, Wood to Howick [21 July]; BL, Althorp mss, Althorp to Spencer, 7 July 1830.
  • 44. Brougham mss, Brougham to Graham [Oct.]; Add. 51564, same to Lady Holland [8 Nov] 1830; Broughton, iv. 60; Mitchell, 242-4.
  • 45. A. Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party, 184.
  • 46. Three Diaries, 25; Greville Mems. ii. 75; Grey mss, Durham to Grey, 19 Nov., Howick to C. Grey, 24 Nov. 1830.
  • 47. Grey mss.
  • 48. Three Diaries, 58; Le Marchant, 282.
  • 49. Grey mss, Hay to Howick, 3, 29 Jan., Wood to same [Jan.], Graham to same, 3 Feb., Poulett Scrope to same, 21 Feb. 1831.
  • 50. Ibid. Richmond to Howick, 3 Feb., 3 Apr.; Durham Chron. 19 Mar. 1831; H.J.M. Johnston, British Emigration Policy, 1818-1870, pp. 163-4.
  • 51. St. Deiniol’s Lib. Glynne-Gladstone mss 198, T. to J. Gladstone, 16 Apr.; Brougham to Howick [Apr. 1831]; Buxton Mems. 266.
  • 52. Grey mss, Howick to C. Grey, 31 Jan. 1831; Lieven-Grey Corresp. ii. 178.
  • 53. Add. 51579, Ord to Lady Holland [7 Mar. 1831].
  • 54. Greville Mems. ii. 129; Grey mss, Headlam to Howick, 8, 10, 26 Mar. 1831; Losh Diaries, ii. 111, 189, 193.
  • 55. Fitzwilliam mss, C.H. Dundas to Fitzwilliam, 29 Mar.; Grey mss, Howick to C. Grey, 4 Apr. 1831.
  • 56. Geo. IV-Grey Corresp. i. 234; Grey mss, Headlam to Howick, 24, 25 Apr., Howick to mother, 2 May; Newcastle Chron. 30 Apr., 7 May; Add. 51569, Ord to Lady Holland, 1 May 1831; Lieven-Grey Corresp. ii. 218; George, xi. 16648.
  • 57. Brougham mss, Losh to Brougham, 5 May 1831.
  • 58. Grey mss, Grey to Howick, 1 May; Newcastle Chron. 14 May 1831.
  • 59. Grey mss, Ponsonby to Howick, 20, 30 May, 6 Sept. [31 Oct.], 28 Dec., Howick to Milton, 26 May, reply 30 May 1831.
  • 60. Grey mss, Wood to Howick, 5 July 1831.
  • 61. Greville Mems. ii. 185; Three Diaries, 122.
  • 62. Smith, 270-1; Southampton Univ. Lib. Broadlands mss, Palmerston to Richmond, 8 Nov. 1831; Wilts RO, Hobhouse mss, Hobhouse to wife, 25 Jan. 1832; William IV-Grey Corresp. ii. 195.
  • 63. Hatherton diary, 21-26 Dec. 1831.
  • 64. Grey mss, Howick to Hay, 17 Nov. 1831, replies, 6, 10, 31 Jan. 1832, Villiers to Howick, 19 Dec. 1831, 4 Feb. 1832.
  • 65. Newcastle Chron. 19, 26 May 1832; Losh Diaries, ii. 133.
  • 66. Grey mss, Althorp to Howick [Dec. 1831], Howick to Goderich [Feb. 1832].
  • 67. Grey mss, Howick to Althorp, 23 May 1832.
  • 68. Buxton Mems. 287, 290.
  • 69. Raikes Jnl. i. 61.
  • 70. Losh Diaries, ii. 135.
  • 71. Croker Pprs. ii. 150; Aberdeen Univ. Lib. Arbuthnot mss 3029/1/2/45.
  • 72. Losh Diaries, ii. 172-3; Grey mss, Howick to C. Grey, 31 Aug., 4 Sept.; Newcastle Jnl. 22 Dec. 1832.
  • 73. Add. 52011, Eleanor Fazakerley to H.E. Fox, 29 Mar. 1833; Holland House Diaries, 207; Greville Mems. ii. 371-2.
  • 74. Smith, 308-24; R. Brent, Liberal Anglican Politics, 288.
  • 75. Newcastle Chron. 10 July 1841; M.J. Turner, ‘Reform Politics and the Sunderland by-election of 1845’, Northern Hist. xxxviii (2001), 83-106.
  • 76. Life of Campbell, ii. 208.
  • 77. The Times, 10, 13, 15 Oct. 1894, 13 Feb. 1895.