GREY, George Harry, Lord Grey (1765-1845), of Enville Hall, Staffs.

Lord Grey, the Duke of Portland’s nephew, joined the Whig Club on 1 May 1787 and Brooks’s Club, sponsored by his uncle, on 8 May 1789. He was listed by the party as in quest of a seat, for which he was prepared to pay £4,500, before the election of 1790. He secured one for Aldeburgh on the Crespigny interest. On 12 Apr. 1791 he voted with opposition on Grey’s Oczakov resolutions, and was considered favourable to repeal of the Test Act in Scotland the same month. No further minority vote is known, nor any speech by him. He was duly listed a Portland Whig in December 1792, thought of for Windham’s ‘third party’ in February 1793 and transferred his support to government with his uncle. He took up militia duties. In 1796 he declined an opening for Cheshire, of which his father was lord lieutenant; was defeated at Grampound, standing on Lord Eliot’s interest; but came in for the latter’s borough of St. Germans instead. Leaves of absence were granted on 9 Dec. 1796 and 6 Mar. 1801, but there is no particular evidence of parliamentary activity. He did not seek re-election in 1802.

As a local magnate, Grey was respected for ‘the excellence of his private character and the firm yet courteous manner in which he discharged his public duty’. He died 26 Apr. 1845.1HMC Kenyon, 544; Gent. Mag. (1845), i. 647.