GREY, Sir Charles Edward (1785-1865), of The Oaks, Surrey

Sir Charles Edward Grey was a descendant of the Greys of Horton Castle, a merchant family of Newcastle, who had acquired the Backworth Estate in Earsdon, five miles west of Tynemouth, in the early seventeenth century. His father, Ralph William Grey, was high sheriff of the county in 1792.1R. Welford, Men of mark ’ twixt Tyne and Tweed (1895), ii. 380-1. A promising scholar, Grey won the Oxford English prize essay for his study of ‘Hereditary rank’ in 1808 and was elected a fellow of Oriel College. Called to the bar in 1811, he practised on the northern circuit until his appointment as commissioner of bankruptcy in 1817.

In 1820 Grey was knighted and appointed a judge of the supreme court of Madras, arriving in India in September 1821. Four years later, he was made chief justice of Calcutta, where, according to Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general, he was guided ‘by the most impartial and liberal spirit’.2K. Prior, ‘Grey, Sir Charles Edward (1785-1865)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com; The correspondence of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, governor-general of India, 1828-1835, ed. C.H. Philips (1977), i. 107. He left India in 1832, and three years later was made one of the three commissioners for investigating the troubles in Lower Canada and appointed a privy councillor. Upon being sworn in, the King reportedly lectured Grey that Canada was subject to the ‘prerogative’ of the Crown and had ‘no pretensions to set up any rights of its own’.3The Holland House diaries, 1831-1840, ed. A.D. Kriegel (1977), 315. During his tenure as a commissioner, Grey frequently dissented from the recommendations made by his colleagues because of his trenchant defence of the interests of the English minority in Assembly of Lower Canada.4P.A. Bucker, The transition to responsible government: British policy in British North America, 1815-1850 (1985), 219-20. Although the commission ultimately failed as rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada followed in 1837, on his return to London, he received the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic order.

Connected to the constituency by his ancestors’ ownership of the Backworth estate, Grey unsuccessfully contested Tynemouth in the Liberal interest at the 1837 general election, but gained the seat in February 1838 when his opponent, Sir George Young, was unseated on petition. A steady attender, he spoke frequently on colonial and legal matters and was a reliable supporter of Melbourne’s ministry. It is clear that Grey’s experiences in both India and Canada instilled in him a belief in the supremacy of British law. In the face of a motion for a select committee to investigate their conduct, he made a strenuous defence of British judges in India, 22 Mar. 1838, and argued that the ‘Imperial Parliament’ should possess legislative power over Jamaica, 30 May 1839. A staunch defender of the ministry’s handling of the Canadian revolt, he insisted that no reform of Canada should be carried out that was ‘contrary’ to the ‘principles of the British constitution’, 11 July 1839, and stated that the government of Canada bill should ‘create a majority in the legislature with thoroughly British feelings’, 18 June 1840. Only on Irish policy did Grey disagree with ministers. He spoke in opposition to the registration of voters (Ireland) bill, 20 May 1840, and was in the minority against it, 11 June 1840.

Grey’s judicial experience came to the fore during the debates concerning parliamentary privilege in 1840. Following John Stockdale’s successful libel case against Hansard for its printing of a report that described one of his publications as ‘obscene’, Grey insisted that it was ‘in the highest degree unreasonable, and nothing less than absurd’ for parliamentary privilege not to extend to papers made available outside the Commons, 17 Jan. 1840. Stating that ‘nothing less will answer the legitimate purposes of this House than a publication of our proceedings to all the world’, he concluded that in a legal dispute between an English court and parliament, ‘it is the Aula Regis that must give way’, 22 Jan. 1840. His legal expertise was utilised again in 1840 when he served on the select committee on the supreme court of judicature in Scotland.5PP 1840 (332), xiv. 2. Grey also served on select committees on freemen of cities and boroughs, PP 1840 (465), xi. 2, and the merchant seamen’s fund, PP 1840 (617), xiii. 2.

A supporter of franchise reform, on 30 July 1839 Grey moved for leave to bring in a bill ‘for establishing throughout England annual meetings of people in their parishes and for securing to the industrious classes a regular influence in the election of MPs’. In a lengthy and rambling speech, he proposed that ‘annual meetings’ acting in ‘a salutary and orderly manner’ should be allowed to ‘elect annually one person’ who could then vote in parliamentary elections in their county. Despite his assertion that this would add the ‘no trifling boon’ of 15,000 electors to the English franchise, he failed to garner any significant support, and the motion was negatived without a division.

After supporting the ministry over the proposed reduction of the sugar duties, 17 May and 24 May 1841, Grey offered an extensive defence of the government during the confidence in the ministry debate, 3 June 1841. A champion of free trade, he insisted that the ‘landlords of England’ and the ‘most enlightened agriculturalists in the world’ would soon realise that their prosperity depended ‘upon the repeal of the corn laws’ and subsequently divided in the minority, 4 June 1841.

Despite the frequency of his contributions, Grey had let it be known that parliamentary life was not to his liking, and following the dissolution he announced to his constituents that he would not stand again.6Prior, ‘Grey, Sir Charles Edward’; Newcastle Courant, 25 June 1841. It was later noted that his ‘severe judicial training had disqualified him from enjoying the fiery atmosphere of debate, and the rancorous rivalry of party politics’.7Welford, Men of mark, 383. In August 1841 he was appointed governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands, where he focused on the concerns of the recently-freed slaves and criticised Peel’s administration for ignoring the problems of Britain’s Caribbean colonies. In 1846 he was promoted to the governorship of Jamaica. His tenure, however, was marred by conflict with the colonial legislature and the planters who believed that Grey, by promoting free trade, did not have ‘the best interests of the island at heart’.8Prior, ‘Grey, Sir Charles Edward’; Welford, Men of mark, 383. He quit Jamaica in 1853 and retired to England. He died at his home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in June 1865, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Jervoise. Grey’s correspondence and papers are located in the Bodleian library, Oxford.9Bodl. Oxf., MSS. Eng. C. 6796-818, d. 3377-84, e. 3303-22.