various attempts to induce Pitt to come to his rescue by forming a ministry, but without success, and at last had recourse to the marquis of Rockingham, on whose agreeing to accept office Grenville was dismissed July 1765. He never again held office, and died 13th November 1770. In 1749 he was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, by whom he had a large family. His son, the second Earl Temple, was created Marquis, and his grand son Duke, of Buckingham. A contemptuous application by Pitt to Grenville of the lines " Gentle Shepherd, tell me where," caused him to be dubbed the "gentle shepherd" for the remainder of his life ; and this would seem to indicate a deficiency in the personal characteristics which insure any high degree of general respect. Exemplary in the observance of all the decencies of private life, and upright and honourable in all his political relations, he yet possessed none of those attrac tive or commanding qualities which are sometimes found an advantageous substitute for strict moral integrity, and which the possessor of moral integrity cannot afford to despise. He was moreover under the dominion of an ambition ludicrously out of proportion to his abilities, and the self-confidence with which he pursued his own purposes can be attributed only to the narrow range of his political vision. Though few excelled him in a knowledge of the forms of the House or in mastery of administrative details, his tact in dealing with men and with affairs was so defec tive that there is perhaps no one who has been at the head of an English administration to whom a lower place can be assigned as a statesman. The Grenville Papers, being the Correspondence of Richard Grenville, Earl Temple, K.G., and the Right Hon. George Grenville, their Friends and Con temporaries, was published at London in 1852.
GRENVILLE, William Wyndham Greenville, Lord
(1750-1834), English statesman, son of the preceding, was
born 25th October 1759. He was educated at Eton and
Oxford, and for some time studied at the Inns of Court,
but never practised at the bar. In February 1782 he was
elected a member of parliament for the county of Buck
ingham, and in the September following he became secretary
to his brother the marquis of Buckingham, who had been
named lord-lieutenant of Ireland. On the overthrow of the
cabinet of Lord Shelburne in the following year he returned
to England, and in December he was appointed by his
cousin Pitt paymaster-general of the forces. In 1789 he
was chosen speaker of the House of Commons, but he
vacated the chair in the same year, and was transferred to
the Upper House with the title of Lord Grenville, on being
appointed secretary of state. He exchanged this office in
1791 for that of secretary of foreign affairs, being regarded
by Pitt as the person best fitted to carry out his policy in
reference to France. Along with Pitt he resigned office in
1801, on account of the king declining to grant any conces
sions to the Catholics ; and when Pitt, on accepting office in
1804, did not stipulate for Catholic emancipation he
declined to join his ministry, and entered into a close
alliance with Fox. On the death of Pitt in 1806 he became
the nominal head of the Government of " All the Talents,"
whose military projects resulted very unsuccessfully, but
which deserves to be remembered with honour on account
of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Its influence
was, however, considerably weakened by the death of Fox ;
and as the king in March 1807 demanded from Grenville an
assurance that he would initiate no measures for the relief
of the Catholics he and his colleagues found it necessary
to resign. His colleagues were not unanimous in ap
proving of his conscientiousness, and Sheridan expressed
the opinion of more than himself when he remarked :
" I have known many men knock their heads against
a wal 1 , but t never before heard of a man collecting bricks
and building a wall for the express purpose of knocking
out his own brains against it." Lord Grenville never
again held office. He continued to be one of the principal
supporters of Catholic emancipation, and during the re
mainder of his political career generally voted with the
Whigs, although in 1815 he separated himself from Lord
Grey and supported the warlike policy of Lord Liverpool.
In 1819, when the marquis of Lansdovvne brought forward
his motion for an inquiry into the cause of the distress
and discontent in the manufacturing districts, Grenville
delivered an alarmist speech in which he advocated the
adoption of severely repressive measures. He died at
his residence, Dropmore, Buckinghamshire, 12th January
1834.
Though the talents of Lord Grenville were not of a high
order, his straightforwardness, great industry, political
knowledge, firmness of mind, and moderate opinions secured
him considerable political influence. He can also lay claim
to be enrolled among those English statesmen who have
distinguished themselves in literature. Besides editing
the letters of the earl of Chatham to his nephew Thomas
Pitt, afterwards Lord Camelford, he printed for private
circulation an edition of Homer with annotations, and also
a small volume entitled Nugce Metric 1 , consisting of trans
lations into Latin from Greek, English, and Italian. In
1809 he was chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford.
He married in 1792 Anne Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford,
but had no issue, and the title became extinct.
GRESHAM, Sir Thomas (1519-1579), a London mer
chant, the founder of the Royal Exchange and of Gresham
College, London, was born in 1519. Descended from an old
Norfolk family, he was the only son of Sir Richard Gresham,
a leading London merchant, who for some time held the
office of lord mayor and for his services as agent of Henry
VIII. in negotiating loans with foreign merchants received
the honour of knighthood. Though his father intended
him to follow his own profession, he nevertheless sent him
for some time to Caius College, Cambridge, but there
is no information as to the duration of his residence.
It is uncertain also whether it was before or after this
that he was apprenticed to his uncle Sir John Gresham,
who was also a merchant, but we have his own testimony
that he served an apprenticeship of eight years. In 1543
at the age of twenty-four he was admitted a member of
the Mercers Company, and in the same year he went to
the Low Countries, where, either on his own account or on
that of his father or uncle, he both carried on business as a
merchant and acted in various matters as an agent for Henry
VIII. In 1544 he married the widow of William Read,
a London merchant, but he still continued to reside prin
cipally in the Low Countries, having his headquarters at
Antwerp. When in 1551 the mismanagement of Sir
William Dansell, "king s merchant" in the Low Countries,
had brought the English Government into great financial
embarrassment, Gresham was called in to give his advice,
and chosen to carry out his own proposals. Their leading
feature was the adoption of various methods highly in
genious, but quite arbitrary and unfair for raising the
value of the pound sterling on the " bourse" of Antwerp,
and it was so successful that in a few years nearly all King
Edward s debts were discharged. The advice of Gresham
was likewise sought by the Government in all their money
difficulties, and he was also frequently employed in various
diplomatic missions. He had no stated salary, but in reward
of his services received from Edward various grants of lands,
the annual value of which at that time was ultimately about
400 a year. On the accession of Mary the council resolved
on his recall, but before the letter was sent they changed
their opinion ; and as he professed his zealous desire to serve
the queen, and manifested great adroitness both in negoti-
