Family and Education

b. 12 Apr. 1665, 2nd s. of John, 1st Earl of Bath; bro. of Charles Granville, Lord Lansdown. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1680. m. 15 Apr. 1703, Rebecca, da. of (Sir) Josiah Child, 1st Bt., of Wanstead, Essex, wid. of Charles Somerset, Mq. of Worcester, s.p. suc. fa. in Potheridge estate 1701; cr. Baron Granville of Potheridge 13 Mar. 1703.

Offices Held

Freeman, Plympton Erle 1685; commr. for assessment, Devon 1690; chief commr. for Plymouth dock 1692-?96; j.p. Cornw. by 1701-d.; ranger of St. James’s Park 1701-d.; recorder, Launceston 1701-d.; ld. prop. Carolina 1701-d.; ld. warden of the stannaries and steward of the duchy of Cornw. (jt.) 1701-2, (sole) 1702-5; ld. lt. and custos rot. Cornw. 1702-5.1

Capt. Earl of Bath’s regt. (later 10 Ft.) 1687-Dec. 1688; capt. and brevet col. 1 Ft. Gds. 1689-90; gov. Deal by Apr.-Dec. 1690.2

Commr. of public accounts 1696-7; lt. of the Ordnance 1072-5; PC 18 June 1702-22 May 1707.3

Biography

Granville served with his elder brother in the Imperial army in 1683. He was returned in 1685 for Launceston, one of the boroughs of which his father was recorder. Though doubtless a Tory, he left no certain trace on the records of James II’s Parliament. He was commissioned in his father’s regiment, and recommended as court candidate for Launceston in 1688. Like the rest of his family he welcomed the Revolution, when his father became governor of Plymouth. He was returned for the borough at a by-election caused by the elevation of his friend Arthur Herbert to the peerage, and survived a petition from one of James’s Whig collaborators to become a moderately active Member. As ‘Colonel Granville’ he was appointed to only five committees in the Convention; but he probably acted as teller in four divisions, and made four speeches attacking the vile conditions in the navy. ‘If you value not these complaints’, he said, ‘you may talk of raising money, but not of raising seamen.’ In December 1689 he was added to the committees to consider the mutiny bill and to recommend ways of relieving wounded seamen and their dependants. He was probably twice teller against the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations. He delivered a report from the mayor of Plymouth on victualling on 16 Jan., and again acted as teller against making reparations to (Sir) Thomas Pilkington.4

Granville soon moved into opposition in 1690, and was dismissed at the time of Herbert’s court-martial at the end of the year. One of the most influential of the country party, he ‘expressed the most violent and unrelenting aversion to the whole administration’ throughout the remainder of William III’s reign. Under Anne, however, he succeeded his father as government manager of the Cornish boroughs, and was raised to the peerage. But he went into opposition again in 1705. He died on 3 Dec. 1707, after an apoplectic seizure, and was buried at St. Clement Danes.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: J. S. Crossette

Notes

• 1. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 87; 1702-3, pp. 391, 503-4; HMC Hastings , ii. 344; Cal. Treas. Bks. xvii. 412; xviii. 290; London Gazette, 23 Mar. 1702.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1686-7, p. 119; 1687-9, pp. 32, 376; 1689-90, p. 559; 1690-1, p. 190; J. Laker, Hist. Deal, 230, 234.
• 3. HMC Kenyon , 400; CSP Col. 1702-3, pp. 15-16; Luttrell, v. 174, 185; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 788.
• 4. R. Granville, Granville Fam. 400-3; Grey, ix. 443; CJ, x. 323, 329, 339.
• 5. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 149; Burnet ed. Routh, v. 10-11.