Granville George Leveson Gower Granville

GRANVILLE, GRANVILLE GEORGE LEVESON GOWER, 2ND EARL (1815-1891), English statesman, eldest son of the I st Earl Granville (1773-1846), by his marriage with Lady Harriet, daughter of the duke of Devonshire, was born in London on May 11, 1815. On leaving Oxford young Lord Leveson went to Paris for a short time under his father, and in 1836 was re turned to parliament in the Whig interest for Morpeth. For a short time he was under-secretary for foreign affairs in Lord Melbourne's ministry. In 184o he married Lady Acton. From 1 841 till his father's death in 1846, when he succeeded to the title, he sat for Lichfield. In the House of Lords he signalized himself as a Free Trader, and Lord John Russell made him master of the buckhounds (1846). He became vice-president of the Board of Trade in 1848, and was one of the promoters of the great exhibition of 1851. In that year, having already been admitted to the cabinet, he succeeded Palmerston at the foreign office until Lord John Russell's defeat in 1852; and when Lord Aberdeen formed his Government at the end of the year, he became first president of the council, and then chancellor of the duchy of Lan caster (1854). Under Lord Palmerston (1855) he was president of the council. He was chancellor of the London university for 35 years; he advocated the admission of women, and also the teaching of modern languages. From 1855 Lord Granville led the Liberals in the Upper House, both in office, and, after Palmer ston's resignation in 1858, in opposition. He went in 1856 as head of the British mission to the tsar's coronation in Moscow. In June 1859 the queen, embarrassed by the rival ambitions of Palmerston and Russell, sent for him to form a ministry, but he was unable to do so, and Palmerston again became prime minister, with Lord John as foreign secretary and Granville as president of the council.

From 1866 to 1868 he was in opposition, but in Dec. 1868 he became colonial secretary in Gladstone's first ministry. His tact was invaluable to the Government in carrying the Irish Church and Land bills through the House of Lords. On June 27, 187o, on Lord Clarendon's death, he was transferred to the foreign office. Lord Granville's name is mainly associated with his career as foreign secretary (187o-74 and 188o-85). Personally he was patient and polite, but his courteous and pacific methods were somewhat inadequate in dealing with the new situation then arising in Europe and outside it ; and foreign Governments had little scruple in creating embarrassments for Great Britain, and relying on the disinclination of the Liberal leaders to take strong measures. The Franco-German War of 187o broke out within a few days of Lord Granville's quoting in the House of Lords (July I 1) the curiously unprophetic opinion of the permanent under-secretary (Hammond) that "he had never known so great a lull in foreign affairs." Russia took advantage of the situation to denounce the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris, and Lord Granville's protest was ineffectual. In 1871 an intermediate zone between Asiatic Russia and Afghanistan was agreed on be tween him and Shuvalov; but in 1873 Russia took possession of Khiva, within the neutral zone, and Lord Granville had to accept the aggression.

When the Conservatives came into power in 1874, his part

for the next six years was to criticize Disraeli's "spirited" foreign policy, and to defend his own more pliant methods. He returned to the foreign office in 188o, only to find an anti-British spirit developing in German policy which the temporizing methods of the Liberal leaders were generally powerless to deal with. Lord Granville failed to realize in time the importance of the Angra Pequena question in 1883-84, and he was forced to yield to Bis marck over it. Whether in Egypt, Afghanistan or equatorial and south-west Africa, British foreign policy was dominated by suav ity rather than by the strength which commands respect. Gran ville was a faithful supporter of Gladstone all through his life, and during the troubled period (188o-85) the prime minister constantly turned to him. When Gladstone took up Home Rule for Ireland, Lord Granville adhered to his chief (1886), and gave way to Lord Rosebery when the latter was preferred to the foreign office. He went to the Colonial Office for six months, and in July 1886 retired from public life. He died in London on March 31, 1891, being succeeded in the title by his son, born in 1872. See Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of Lord Granville (19o5) ; also other memoirs of the time, notably Morley's Life of Gladstone.