LEVESON-GOWER, Granville George, Lord Leveson (1815-1891), of Stone Park, Staffordshire

A scion of the network of aristocratic families which constituted the ‘Grand Whiggery’, Leveson was the most talented member of its younger generation, with an ‘exceedingly youthful, not to say boyish, appearance’.1P. Mandler, Aristocratic government in the age of reform (1990), 47, 49, 51, 268; J. Grant, The British senate (1838), 201. His Commons career was short and unremarkable but as a peer he was a mainstay of the Whig and Liberal cabinets of the second half of the nineteenth century. His family’s seat was Stone Park, Staffordshire, but like his father, Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st earl Granville, he was most at home in a cosmopolitan and metropolitan environment, a product of being reared in Whig salons.2E. Fitzmaurice, The life of Granville, George Leveson-Gower, second earl Granville (1905), 2 vols., i. 38. His uncle was George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd marquess of Stafford and 1st duke of Sutherland, and on his mother’s side, his uncle was William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th duke of Devonshire, whilst his aunt, Georgiana, was married to George Howard, 6th earl of Carlisle.3Burke’s peerage (1949), 874, 1943-4.

Leveson’s father was an eminent diplomat, serving as ambassador to Russia, and to France 1824-8, 1830-4, 1835-41, and Leveson briefly served as an attaché at the British embassy in Paris, 1835-6.4K.D. Reynolds, ‘Gower, Granville Leveson, first Earl Granville (1773–1846)’, www.oxforddnb.com. When his first cousin, Frederick Howard, resigned as MP for Morpeth in February 1837 to pursue a naval career abroad, Leveson was returned unopposed in his place as a ministerial supporter.5Newcastle Courant, 10 Feb. 1837; Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 26; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 209; Mandler, Aristocratic government, 53. Leveson was a Whig loyalist, giving general support to the Melbourne administration, especially over Irish policy, and opposing the ballot. His first speech, 17 Apr. 1837, was a punchy defence of the government’s encouragement of liberal forces in Spain against the reactionary Carlists. Unlike the Tories, he thought it was ‘most desirable to prevent the triumph of a prince who was the representative and impersonation of despotic power’.6Hansard, 17 Apr. 1837, vol. 37, cc. 1366-7 (at 1367). The civil war was a ‘contest of absolutism against constitutional government – of fanaticism against religious toleration’.7Ibid., 1367. The speech was enthusiastically greeted by his mother and aunt, and Lord John Russell wrote to the latter, 18 Apr. 1837:

I must write you a word to congratulate you on Leveson’s success last night. I never saw anything more promising in my life. He took all the strongest points, and showed great tact in the rapid and effective way in which he disposed. He cannot but be a good debater, if he perseveres.8Qu. in Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 27.

Another observer noted that Leveson’s voice ‘does not appear to be powerful, but it is clear and pleasant’, and his speech was attended by little gesticulation other than ‘a slight movement of his right arm’.9Grant, British senate, 202. Leveson’s speech partly plagiarised the intended oration of Henry Bulwer, who was seated nearby, and who had discussed his ideas on the benches.10Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 26-7.

After being returned unopposed at the 1837 general election, Leveson was given the honour of moving the address to the Queen’s speech, 20 Nov. 1837, and gave a general endorsement of ministerial policy.11Leeds Mercury, 22 July 1837; Hansard, 20 Nov. 1837, vol. 39, cc. 31-5. In foreign affairs, he approved of the promotion of peace and encouragement of liberalism abroad, and praised the commercial treaties which boosted trade with South America.12Ibid., 32-3. He hailed Ireland’s ‘improving prospects’, and welcomed forthcoming legislation to reform Irish corporations.13Ibid., 33-4 (at 33). Leveson reprised this last theme in his speech of 14 May 1838, condemning Peel’s opposition to the Whigs’ policies on Irish church appropriation and Irish tithes.14Hansard, 14 May 1838, vol. 42, cc. 1219-21. Although Peel might be sincere, his party were giving the measure a factious opposition, which would ‘entirely alienate the affections of the people of Ireland, and be in the end as destructive to the Irish Church as any measure that could be devised’.15Ibid., 1221.

Leveson was obliged to vacate his seat in February 1840, after Frederick Howard’s return to England, and he became an under-secretary of state at the foreign office under Palmerston, 1840-1.16Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 34. Of his new position he wrote to his father:

I like the thought of it very much. Though it is rather hard work, it is all of [a] pleasant kind ... I think I may be of use, from having more opportunities of seeing Lord Palmerston, and not being so dreadfully afraid of him. It is impossible to have a glimpse of him in the office. He comes down very late, having kept quantities of people waiting for him; and before he has seen them all goes down to the House. The clerks detest him, and ... [think] that he takes pleasure in bullying them.17Qu. in ibid., 29.

Leveson was prepared to stand as a second Whig candidate for South Staffordshire at the 1841 general election, but his services were not necessary as the parties shared the representation in a compromise.18Ibid., 35; Hatherton diary, 9 June 1841, Hatherton Mss., Staffs. RO, D260M/F/5/26/22. However, he was returned unopposed for Lichfield at a by-election in September that year, after making a characteristic defence of the late Melbourne ministry.19The Times, 16 Sept. 1841. Less active now that his party was in opposition, Leveson only appears to have spoken once in his second spell in the Commons, offering a critique of Peel’s Irish policy, 14 Feb. 1844.20Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 37; Hansard, 14 Feb. 1844, vol. 72, cc. 808-11. He attacked the government’s indictment of Daniel O’Connell, who was ‘to be judged by a Protestant Judge, prosecuted by a Protestant Attorney-general and a Protestant Solicitor-general, and before a jury scrupulously composed, according to the words of the old penal statute, “of known Protestant jurors”’.21Ibid., 809-10. He also criticised Peel’s resistance to Irish church appropriation to fund education.22Ibid., 810-11. Often absent from the key divisions between 1841 and 1846, Leveson cast votes in favour of a ten hour day in factories and Villiers’ anti-corn law motion in 1844 and supported the Maynooth college bill the following year.

On his father’s death in January 1846 Leveson succeeded to the peerage as 2nd earl Granville, and made his first speech in the upper house in favour of the repeal of the corn laws.23Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, i. 39. He ‘rather gained’ by his removal to the Lords, as ‘not only were his temperament and his talents for debate better suited to the more serene atmosphere of the Upper House, but the change removed him from a sphere where he was overshadowed by rivals who were to share the lead of the Liberal party for many years to come’.24The Times, 1 Apr. 1891. His appointment as foreign secretary by Russell in December 1851, after Palmerston’s dismissal, was considered as an example of Whig clannishness by many, but Granville’s talents made him indispensible to Liberal governments thereafter.25Mandler, Aristocratic government, 273-4. Amongst other ministerial posts he was foreign secretary twice more, 1870-4, 1880-5, and, with one brief interlude, he led the Liberal peers from 1855 until his death. The urbane Granville was less comfortable in the late Victorian period of aggressive imperial expansionism, rancorous partisan strife, and much changed foreign relations.26Ibid.; M.E. Chamberlain, ‘Gower, Granville George Leveson, second Earl Granville (1815–1891)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Even so, it would be wrong to mistake his emollience for effeteness. As one obituary noted: ‘he was not a dilettante dabbler; he was what we may call a hereditary professional’.27Pall Mall Gazette, 1 Apr. 1891. He was succeeded by his two sons from his second marriage, Granville George (1872-1939), 3rd earl, a diplomat, and William Spencer (1880-1953), 4th earl.