member of parliament for Appleby
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey took which position in Mar 1807?
Charles Grey , 2nd Earl Grey Charles Grey , 2nd Earl Grey , ( 13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845 ) , known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807 , was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from November 1830 to July 1834 . He was a descendant of the noble House of Grey and a member of the Whig Party . Grey was a long-time leader of multiple reform movements , and as Prime Minister , his government was known for bringing about two notable reforms . The Reform Act 1832 brought about parliamentary reform , bringing changes to the House of Commons . His government also enacted the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 , bringing about the abolition of slavery in most of the British Empire . Grey was a strong opponent of the foreign and domestic policies of William Pitt the Younger in the 1790s . In 1807 , he resigned as Foreign Secretary to protest against King George IIIs uncompromising rejection of Catholic Emancipation . Grey finally resigned in 1834 over disagreements in his cabinet regarding Ireland , and retired from politics . Scholars rank him highly among British prime ministers , believing that he averted much civil strife and enabled Victorian progress . Earl Grey tea is named after him . Early life . Descended from a long-established Northumbrian family seated at Howick Hall , Grey was the second but eldest surviving son of General Charles Grey KB ( 1729–1807 ) and his wife , Elizabeth ( 1743/4–1822 ) , daughter of George Grey of Southwick , co . Durham . He had four brothers and two sisters . He was educated at Richmond School , followed by Eton and Trinity College , Cambridge , acquiring a facility in Latin and in English composition and declamation that enabled him to become one of the foremost parliamentary orators of his generation . Titles . He became the second Earl Grey , Viscount Howick and Baron Grey of Howick on 14 November 1807 upon the death of his father . Upon the death of his uncle on 30 March 1808 he became the third Baronet Grey of Howick . Government career . Elected to Parliament , 1786 . Grey was elected to Parliament for the Northumberland constituency on 14 September 1786 , aged just 22 . He became a part of the Whig circle of Charles James Fox , Richard Brinsley Sheridan , and the Prince of Wales , and soon became one of the major leaders of the Whig party . He was the youngest manager on the committee for prosecuting Warren Hastings . The Whig historian T . B . Macaulay wrote in 1841 : Grey was also noted for advocating Parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation . His affair with Georgiana Cavendish , Duchess of Devonshire , herself an active political campaigner , did him little harm although it nearly caused her to be divorced by her husband . Foreign Secretary , 1806–1807 . In 1806 , Grey , by then Lord Howick owing to his fathers elevation to the peerage as Earl Grey , became a part of the Ministry of All the Talents ( a coalition of Foxite Whigs , Grenvillites , and Addingtonites ) as First Lord of the Admiralty . Following Foxs death later that year , Howick took over both as Foreign Secretary and as leader of the Whigs . The ministry broke up in 1807 when George III blocked Catholic Emancipation legislation and required that all ministers individually sign a pledge , which Howick refused to do , that they would not propose any further concessions to the Catholics . Years in opposition , 1807–1830 . The government fell from power the next year , and , after a brief period as a member of parliament for Appleby from May to July 1807 , Howick went to the Lords , succeeding his father as Earl Grey . He continued in opposition for the next 23 years . There were times during this period when Grey came close to joining the Government . In 1811 , the Prince Regent tried to court Grey and his ally William Grenville to join the Spencer Perceval ministry following the resignation of Lord Wellesley . Grey and Grenville declined because the Prince Regent refused to make concessions regarding Catholic Emancipation . Greys relationship with the Prince was strained further when his estranged daughter and heiress , Princess Charlotte , turned to him for advice on how to avoid her fathers choice of husband for her . On the Napoleonic Wars , Grey took the standard Whig party line . After being initially enthused by the Spanish uprising against Napoleon , Grey became convinced of the French emperors invincibility following the defeat and death of Sir John Moore , the leader of the British forces in the Peninsular War . Grey was then slow to recognise the military successes of Moores successor , the Duke of Wellington . When Napoleon first abdicated in 1814 , Grey objected to the restoration of the Bourbons authoritarian monarchy ; and when Napoleon was reinstalled the following year , he said that the change was an internal French matter . In 1826 , believing that the Whig party no longer paid any attention to his opinions , Grey stood down as leader in favour of Lord Lansdowne . The following year , when George Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister , it was therefore Lansdowne and not Grey who was asked to join the Government , which needed strengthening following the resignations of Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington . When Wellington became Prime Minister in 1828 , George IV ( as the Prince Regent had become ) singled out Grey as the one person he could not appoint to the Government . Prime Minister ( 1830–1834 ) . In 1830 , following the death of George IV and when the Duke of Wellington resigned on the question of Parliamentary reform , the Whigs finally returned to power , with Grey as Prime Minister . In 1831 , he was made a member of the Order of the Garter . His term was a notable one , seeing passage of the Reform Act 1832 , which finally saw the reform of the House of Commons , and the abolition of slavery throughout almost all of the British Empire in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act . As the years had passed , however , Grey had become more conservative , and he was cautious about initiating more far-reaching reforms , particularly since he knew that the King was at best only a reluctant supporter of reform . Grey contributed to a plan to found a new colony in South Australia : in 1831 a Proposal to His Majestys Government for founding a colony on the Southern Coast of Australia was prepared under the auspices of Robert Gouger , Anthony Bacon , Jeremy Bentham and Grey , but its ideas were considered too radical , and it was unable to attract the required investment . In the same year , Grey was appointed to serve on the Government Commission upon Emigration ( which was wound up in 1832 ) . It was the issue of Ireland which precipitated the end of Greys premiership in 1834 . Lord Anglesey , the Viceroy of Ireland , preferred conciliatory reform including the partial redistribution of the income from the church tithe to the Catholic church and away from the established Protestant one , a policy known as appropriation . The Chief Secretary for Ireland , Lord Stanley , however , preferred coercive measures . The cabinet was divided and when Lord John Russell drew attention in the House of Commons to their differences over appropriation , Stanley and others resigned . This triggered Grey to retire from public life , leaving Lord Melbourne as his successor . Unlike most politicians , he seems to have genuinely preferred a private life ; colleagues remarked caustically that he threatened to resign at every setback . Grey returned to Howick but kept a close eye on the policies of the new cabinet under Melbourne , whom he , and especially his family , regarded as a mere understudy until he began to act in ways of which they disapproved . Grey became more critical as the decade went on , being particularly inclined to see the hand of Daniel OConnell behind the scenes and blaming Melbourne for subservience to the Radicals with whom he identified the Irish patriot . He made no allowances for Melbournes need to keep the radicals on his side to preserve his shrinking majority in the Commons , and in particular he resented any slight on his own great achievement , the Reform Act , which he saw as a final solution of the question for the foreseeable future . He continually stressed its conservative nature . As he declared in his last great public speech , at the Grey Festival organised in his honour at Edinburgh in September 1834 , its purpose was to strengthen and preserve the established constitution , to make it more acceptable to the people at large , and especially the middle classes , who had been the principal beneficiaries of the Reform Act , and to establish the principle that future changes would be gradual , according to the increased intelligence of the people , and the necessities of the times . It was the speech of a conservative statesman . Lord Greys ministry , November 1830 – July 1834 . - Lord Grey — First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords - Lord Brougham — Lord Chancellor - Lord Lansdowne — Lord President of the Council - Lord Durham — Lord Privy Seal - Lord Melbourne — Secretary of State for the Home Department - Lord Palmerston — Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs - Lord Goderich — Secretary of State for War and the Colonies - Sir James Graham — First Lord of the Admiralty - Lord Althorp — Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons - Charles Grant — President of the Board of Control - Lord Holland — Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - The Duke of Richmond — Postmaster General - Lord Carlisle — Minister without Portfolio Changes - June 1831 — Lord John Russell , the Paymaster of the Forces , and Edward Smith-Stanley , the Chief Secretary for Ireland , join the Cabinet . - April 1833 — Lord Goderich , now Lord Ripon , succeeds Lord Durham as Lord Privy Seal . Edward Smith-Stanley succeeds Ripon as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies . His successor as Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the Cabinet . Edward Ellice , the Secretary at War , joins the Cabinet . - June 1834 — Thomas Spring Rice succeeds Stanley as Colonial Secretary . Lord Carlisle succeeds Ripon as Lord Privy Seal . Lord Auckland succeeds Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty . The Duke of Richmond leaves the Cabinet . His successor as Postmaster General is not in the Cabinet . Charles Poulett Thomson , the President of the Board of Trade , and James Abercrombie , the Master of the Mint , join the Cabinet . Personal life . Before his marriage , Grey had an affair with the married Georgiana Cavendish , Duchess of Devonshire . Grey met Cavendish while attending a Whig society meeting in Devonshire House , and they became lovers . In 1791 she became pregnant and was sent to France , where she gave birth to an illegitimate daughter , who was raised by Greys parents : - Eliza Courtney ( 20 February 1792 – 2 May 1859 ) . She married Robert Ellice . Marriage and legitimate children . On 18 November 1794 , Grey married Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby ( 1776–1861 ) , only daughter of William Ponsonby , 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly and Hon . Louisa Molesworth . The marriage was a fruitful one ; between 1796 and 1819 the couple had ten sons and six daughters : - unnamed daughter Grey ( stillborn , 1796 ) - Lady Louisa Elizabeth Grey ( 7 April 1797 – 26 November 1841 ) . She married John Lambton , 1st Earl of Durham , on 9 December 1816 . They had five children , including Charles William , Greys favourite grandson , who died young . - Lady Elizabeth Grey ( 10 July 1798 – 8 November 1880 ) . She married John Crocker Bulteel on 13 May 1826 . They had five children . - Lady Caroline Grey ( 30 August 1799 – 28 April 1875 ) . She married Captain Hon . George Barrington on 15 January 1827 . They had two children - Lady Georgiana Grey ( 17 February 1801 – 13 September 1900 ) , who never married . - Henry George Grey , 3rd Earl Grey ( 28 December 1802 – 9 October 1894 ) . He married Maria Copley on 9 August 1832 . - General Charles Grey ( 15 March 1804 – 31 March 1870 ) . He married Caroline Farquhar on 26 July 1836 . They had seven children , including Albert Grey , 4th Earl Grey . - Admiral Sir Frederick William Grey ( 23 August 1805 – 2 May 1878 ) . He married Barbarina Sullivan on 20 July 1846 . - Lady Mary Grey ( 2 May 1807 – 6 July 1884 ) . She married Charles Wood , 1st Viscount Halifax , on 29 July 1829 . They had seven children . - The Honourable William Grey ( 13 May 1808 – 11 February 1815 ) , who died at the age of six . - Admiral The Honourable George Grey ( 16 May 1809 – 3 October 1891 ) . He married Jane Stuart ( daughter of General Hon . Sir Patrick Stuart ) on 20 January 1845 . They had eleven children . - Thomas Grey ( 29 December 1810 – 8 July 1826 ) , who died at the age of fifteen . - Rev . John Grey MA , DD , Canon and Rector of Durham ( 2 March 1812 – 11 November 1895 ) . He married Lady Georgiana Hervey ( daughter of Frederick William Hervey , 1st Marquess of Bristol ) in July 1836 . They had three children . He remarried Helen Spalding ( maternal granddaughter of John Henry Upton , 1st Viscount Templetown ) on 11 April 1874 . - Reverend Francis Richard Grey ( 31 March 1813 – 22 March 1890 ) . He married Lady Elizabeth Howard , daughter of George Howard , 6th Earl of Carlisle on 12 August 1840 . - Captain the Hon . Henry Cavendish Grey ( 16 October 1814 – 5 September 1880 ) - William George Grey ( 15 February 1819 – 19 December 1865 ) . He married Theresa Stedink on 20 September 1858 . Later years and death . Grey spent his last years in contented , if sometimes fretful , retirement at Howick with his books , his family , and his dogs . The one great personal blow he suffered in old age was the death of his favourite grandson , Charles , at the age of 13 . Grey became physically feeble in his last years and died quietly in his bed on 17 July 1845 , forty-four years to the day since going to live at Howick . He was buried in the Church of St Michael and All Angels there on the 26th in the presence of his family , close friends , and the labourers on his estate . His biographer G . M . Trevelyan argues : Legacy . Grey is commemorated by Greys Monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne , which consists of a statue of Lord Grey standing atop a high column . The monument was damaged by lightning in 1941 and the statues head was knocked off . The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro , located directly underneath . Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne , which runs south-east from the monument , is also named after Grey . Durham Universitys Grey College is named after Grey , who as Prime Minister in 1832 supported the Act of Parliament that established the university . Earl Grey tea , a blend which uses bergamot oil to flavour the brew , is named after Grey . In film . Grey is portrayed by Dominic Cooper in the 2008 film The Duchess , directed by Saul Dibb and starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes . The film is based on Amanda Foremans biography of Georgiana Cavendish , Duchess of Devonshire . Further reading . - Brett , Peter . Grey , Charles , 2nd Earl Grey in - Pennington , D.H.British Prime Ministers : II Earl Grey . History Today ( May 1951 ) 1#5 pp 21-27 online ] . - Phillips , John A. , and Charles Wetherell . The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the political modernization of England . American historical review 100.2 ( 1995 ) : 411–436 . in JSTOR - online free Other sources . - Temperley , Harold and L.M . Penson , eds . Foundations of British Foreign Policy : From Pitt ( 1792 ) to Salisbury ( 1902 ) ( 1938 ) , primary sources online