GREY, CHARLES, second Earl GREY (1764 1845). An English statesman, born at Falladon, Northumberland, of an ancient family, and edu cated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. After traveling on the Continent, he became, in his twenty-second year, a member of Parliament for his native county. Abandoning the politics of his family, he became a follower of Fox, making his maiden speech in opposition to the address of thanks to the King for negotiating the com mercial treaty with France. He soon obtained a leading position in the House of Commons, and was one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. A prominent member of the Society of Friends of the People, in 1793 he was solicited to present a petition from this society in which the defects and abuses of the 'rotten borough' system were forcibly exposed. On a motion for reform he was outvoted on this occa sion, and again in 1797. In 1799 he opposed the proposal for the Irish union, but recommended the abolition of forty rotten boroughs in Ireland as a means of securing the independence of Irish members. When the Administration of Lord Grenville came into office in 1806, Grey, now Lord Howick, became First Lord of the Admiralty.
Fox died in September, and was succeeded by Grey as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and leader of the House of Commons. The Cabi net was broken up in 1807, but not before it had carried the abolition of the slave trade and the enlistment of soldiers for a limited period instead of for life. By the decease of his father in 1807 he was removed from the House of Commons to the Upper House. Grey and Lord Grenville, as the leaders of the Whig opposition, were more than once desired by the Prince of Wales, after he had become regent, to coalesce with the Tory Ministry, but their overtures were firmly rejected. Grey actively opposed the bill of pains and penal ties against Queen Caroline. During the long period in which he remained in opposition, from 1807 to 1830, he gave a strenuous support to the abolition of religious tests, the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities, and the amelioration of the criminal code. When Parliament met in No vember, 1830, he again urged the adoption of measures of temperate reform. In answer to this the Duke of Wellington declared against any reform, and affirmed his devoted allegiance to existing conditions; a position which caused the overthrow of his Administration, put the Whigs in power, and permitted them to fix the character and extent of reform.
Grey now became Prime Minister, and March 1, 1831, his Ministry presented a bill, prepared by a sub-committee of the Cabinet led by Lord John Russell (q.v.), which provided for moderate yet extensive changes: (1 ) in the distribution of seats in the Commons (disfranchising many 'rot ten boroughs' and increasing the representation of the northern cities and boroughs) ; (2) in ex tending and simplifying the suffrage; and (3) in equalizing conditions in many other ways. The
bill was fiercely opposed, and upon the motion of General Gascoyne amended, an act which caused Grey to advise William IV. to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people. When the new Parlia ment met, the bill was carried through the Lower House by large majorities. The second reading was moved by Grey in the House of Lords, Octo ber 3, 1831. After five nights the bill was thrown out by 199 votes against 158. The reply of the House of Commons was an immediate vote of confidence in the Ministers. The King pro rogued Parliament in order that after the short est possible interval the bill might be again introduced. Riots took place at Nottingham, Derby, and Bristol. At Birmingham 150,000 men threatened to march upon London. A second re form bill passed the House of Commons, which also passed a second reading in the House of Lords, the Tories being determined to mutilate it in committee. Lord Lyndhurst moved the postponement of the disfranchising clauses, and, the Whigs being beaten, Grey resorted to the extreme remedy of demanding from the King a new and large creation of peers. Consent to this was refused, and Grey resigned. The King there upon sent for the Duke of Wellington. but, Sir Robert Peel refusing to join the Duke in the at tempt to form a Government, Grey again returned to office, arzred with the written authority of the King to create as many peers as might he neces sary to secure the safety of the bill, and on June 4, 1832, the Reform Bill passed the House of Lords.
Grey took office on the principles of peace, retrenchment, and reform. His Government, how ever, lost a good deal of its popularity in Eng land by his deference to the Lords, and his at tempts to conciliate his opponents by a division of patronage. In Ireland, Stanley's quarrels with O'Connell and the Irish repealers also tended to weaken the Government. Many important meas ures were, however, passed—as the measure for national education in Ireland, the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, and the bill for abolishing slavery in the West Indies. In December, 1834, the Grey Ministry fell to pieces on the Irish Coercion Act. Grey retired from the post of First Lord of the Treasury with the respect and es teem of the entire nation. He passed the last ten years of his life in comparative retirement, and died at his family mansion, Howiek House, July 17, 1845. For the life of Grey, consult: Lord Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party (London, 1842-54) ; Roebuck, History of the Whig Ministry (London, 1890). For his letters and corre spondence, see Strange, Correspondence of l'rin cess Lieven and Earl Grey, 1824-34 (London, 1890), and The Correspondence of William IV. and Earl Grey (London, 1867). Some valuable material may also be found in Molesworth, His tory of England, 1830-74 (London, 1874).