GREY, Sir GEORGE, K.C.B., governor and commander-in-chief of New Zealand, was b. at Lisburn, Ireland, in 1812. He was educated at the royal military college at Sand hurst, and on attaining his captaincy, offered to explore the interior of Australia, then but little known, and on receiving the requisite permission from the colonial office, started on his arduous mission in 1837. In Sept., 1838, he organized another expedition to explore the Swan River district. He returned to England in 1840, and began his Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-western and Western Australia during 1837-8-9. His enterprise and ability obtained for him, unasked, in 1841, from lord J. Russell, then colonial secretary, the post of governor of south Australia. In 1846 he was made governor of New Zealand. Both here and in Australia his first task was to acquire the language of the natives, with whom he became more popular than any pre ceding governor. His government appeared to the authorities at home to be so wise and conciliatory, that in 1848 he was made F. C. B. (civil), and in 1854 was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of the cape of Good Hope. The task of allaying the asperities and irritation left by the Kaffir war demanded high powers of statesmanship; Grey was, however, equal to the occasion. Industry revived, and brighter days began
to dawn upon the colony. In 1858, however, the colonial office interfered with meas ures which he considered necessary, and he threw up his post, and came to England. Public opinion at the cape was so strongly manifested in Ins favor, that he was requested by the government to resume his governorship. On the breaking out of the Indian mutiny, Grey sent every soldier he could spare to the assistance of the Indian govern ment, and received the acknowledgments of the British government and parliament for his promptitude and energy. In 1861 he was again appointed governor of New Zealand, the hope that he would bring the war then raging there to a satisfactory conclusion. The natives received him with joy and veneration, and he succeeded in bringing about pacific relations with the Maories. He resigned his office and returned to England in 1867, but afterwards resided for a time in New Zealand, where he took a prominent part in resisting the absorption of the provincial powers by the central colonial govern ment. Grey is the author of Journals of Discovery in Australia (1841) ; Polynesian Mythology (1855) ; and Proverbial Sayings of the Ancestors of the New Zealand Race (1858).