An ambitious man, Gresley or Greisley, as he insisted on spelling his name after 1830, was a flamboyant Tory who attracted litigation and controversy in equal measure.1The official return gives Greisley, but most parliamentary sources refer to him as Gresley. HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 417-20. He inherited the Drakelow estate, which his ancestors had possessed since Norman times, and title when only eight years old. A dispute between his mother and his trustees meant that he became a ward of chancery, and his lax upbringing contributed to his habitual impulsiveness. He began his costly mission to get into Parliament in the 1820s and, after a number of unsuccessful contests, sat briefly for Durham and New Romney in the unreformed parliament.2Ibid.
Liberal dithering allowed Gresley a head start in his campaign for South Derbyshire at the 1832 general election, but his votes against reform proved unpopular and he was pelted with rubbish on his arrival in Derby, 12 Nov. 1832.3Derby Mercury, 21 Nov. 1832. Divisions amongst local Tories meant that he stood alone against Lord Waterpark and the Hon. George John Vernon.4G. Crewe, Squire of Calke Abbey: extracts from the journal of Sir George Crewe, 1815-1834, ed. C. Kitching (1995), 28 Apr. 1831, 19 Dec. 1832, pp. 75-76, 106. Perhaps as a result of his earlier experience, Gresley brought 300 of his tenants with him to the nomination, where he defended the corn laws and spoke in favour of a paper currency, but he was easily defeated at the poll.5Derby Mercury, 19 Dec. 1832.
In 1835, he stood again alongside the Conservative Sir George Crewe, who had dismissed him as a ‘violent ultra Tory’ in 1832.6Derby Mercury, 10 Dec. 1834; Crewe, Squire, 19 Dec. 1832, p.106. During the campaign Gresley expressed his support for the abolition of the malt tax, and a paper currency, or an expansion of silver.7Derby Mercury, 21 Jan. 1835, 10 Dec. 1834. Attention to the registers, as well as the formidable campaign, saw both men elected.
Gresley, who was reasonably active in the 1835 session, generally voted with the Conservatives in major divisions.8Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1835), 120; Hansard, 19, 26 Feb. 1835, vol. 26, cc. 59, 411; ibid., 2 Apr. 1835, vol. 27, c.775. Hansard records him as dividing against Chandos’ motion for repeal of the malt tax, 10 Mar. 1835, but when asked by Daniel O’Connell, 26 Feb. 1835, whether he would support repeal, he had, according to the Times, said ‘Yes’.9Hansard, 10 Mar. 1835, vol. 26, c.834; ibid., 26 Feb. 1835, vol. 26, c.400, cf. The Times, 27 Feb. 1835. In 1835, he proposed an amendment to the weights and measures bill, for weights to only be made of gold, silver, iron, brass or copper, but this was negatived without a vote.10Hansard, 16 July 1835, vol. 29, c.634. The original clause also permitted lead and pewter. In July 1836 he became embroiled in a lawsuit brought by his sister against his mother, Lady Maria Elizabeth Gresley, who was accused of improperly transferring stock, which she held in trust for her children, to herself. Having long since disposed of the stock, she had been sent to the king’s bench prison at the insistence of one creditor. Gresley advanced her £5,000 for her release, but only after she had signed over all her assets, including estates in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, to him. His sister sought to prevent Gresley and his mother from receiving rents from these estates. The judge granted the injunction and ordered Gresley to pay costs, ruling that he had been aware of his mother’s crime at the time their agreement was made.11The Times, 1, 8 Aug. 1836. Later in the same year, he suffered a fall from his horse, which ‘was followed in a few days by a severe attack of paralysis, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered’.12Derby Mercury, 18 Oct. 1837.
He retired at the 1837 general election due to illness, though a replacement already been announced before his injury, on 4 Mar. 1836, and it appears that local Conservatives thought a less vociferous figure would enable them to avoid a contest, as indeed proved to be the case.13Derby Mercury, 9 Mar. 1836, 26 July 1837; C. Hogarth, ‘Derby and Derbyshire elections, 1837-47’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1975), xvc. 48-58 (at 49-50).
Gresley was the author of a number of works, including the novel Sir Philip Gasteneys (1829), which contained ‘a spirited description of the evils of contemporary Rome’, and the unflattering Life of Pope Gregory VII (1832).14Gent. Mag. (1837), viii. 649; HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 418. Gresley died at Drakelow, 12 Oct. 1837, having complained of faintness and difficulty in breathing 15 minutes earlier.15Derby Mercury, 18 Oct. 1837. As he had no surviving issue, the title and estates passed to his kinsman, the Rev. (William) Nigel Gresley (1806-47), while his sister became the sole heiress to his mother’s estates in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.16Ibid.; HP Commons, 1820-1832, v. 419; The Times, 23 Oct. 1837. The family seat was demolished in 1938, and the title became extinct on the decease of the 12th bt. Sir Nigel (1894-1974).17G. Turbutt, A history of Derbyshire (1999), iv. 1631, 1661.