Grenville Whigs | |
|---|---|
| Leader(s) | |
| Founded | 1760s |
| Dissolved | 1817 |
| Headquarters | Buckinghamshire |
| Ideology | Whiggism Conservatism Anti-radicalism Abolitionism Parliamentarism [1] |
| Political position | Right-wing |
| National affiliation | Whigs |
The Grenville Whigs (or Grenvillites) were a name given to several British political factions of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, all of which were associated with the important Grenville family of Buckinghamshire. [2] [3]
The Grenville family interest, led by Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, which dominated local politics in Buckinghamshire, was prominent in the mid-18th century politics as close allies of Temple's brother-in-law, William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl Chatham. They had earlier been members of the group of Cobham's Cubs.
However, in the early 1760s, a split occurred in the family as a result of Pitt's dismissal from the government in October 1761. Temple quit the government in protest, but his younger brother, George Grenville, remained in the government, which was now dominated by King George III's favourite, Lord Bute, who served as Leader of the House of Commons.
The followers of the younger Grenville became known as Grenvillites or Grenville Whigs.
George Grenville fully came into his own as a politician in 1763, when he was made Prime Minister, but his own following was not sufficient to form a government. Grenville was forced to rely largely on the Bedford Whigs, supporters of the Duke of Bedford, to staff his ministry.
After Grenville himself was ousted from power in 1765 as a result of conflicts with the King, Grenville moved into opposition and for a time from 1766 to 1767 was the leader of one of three separate opposition factions (the other two were led by the Duke of Bedford and Lord Rockingham).
After Grenville's own death in 1770, the Earl of Suffolk took over the official leadership of Grenville's faction and negotiated Grenvillite entrance into the Lord North ministry in early 1771, but many of Grenville's former supporters refused to follow him and remained in opposition with Chatham and Temple.
After Lord Temple's death in 1779, George Grenville's sons, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 3rd Earl Temple (from 1784 the Marquess of Buckingham), and William Wyndham Grenville, became the principal figures in the Grenville family. Temple played a key role in bringing down the Fox-North coalition in December 1783 and in bringing his cousin William Pitt the Younger to power as Prime Minister, but he was snubbed for major office. Nevertheless, he and his supporters backed the new ministry, and William Grenville soon became one of Pitt's closest advisors and served for ten years (1791–1801) as Foreign Secretary during the difficult period of the French Revolutionary Wars.[ citation needed ]
The resignation of Pitt's government in 1801 brought about a separation between Pitt and his cousin, William Wyndham Grenville (now Lord Grenville), which was encouraged by Buckingham and his followers, who had always resented Pitt for preventing him from receiving major office. During the Addington government from 1801 to 1804, a number of former supporters of the Pitt government declared their dissatisfaction with the new ministry, came to consider Grenville as their leader and called calling themselves "Grenvilles" or "Grenvillite". Although Grenville himself initially kept his distance from his supposed followers, he had by 1803 acknowledged himself as their leader.
Other than dependents of Lord Buckingham, the group was largely former Portland Whigs who had joined the Pitt government in 1794 and opposed the Addington government's policy of peace with France. Notable members of the group included Lord Spencer, Lord Fitzwilliam, William Windham and Buckingham and Grenville's brother, Thomas Grenville. The new group, aptly nicknamed the "New Opposition", gradually made a tentative alliance with Charles James Fox's "Old Opposition". Their disagreements were many, most apparently on the topic of war with France, wherein the Grenvillites wished to prosecute it more aggressively, but Fox desired peace by negotiation.
When Addington's government fell in 1804, Grenville hoped to form a coalition government that included supporters of himself, Pitt, and Fox, but he was stymied by the King's refusal to countenance a government that included Fox. Unwilling to go into government without his new ally, Grenville chose to remain in opposition when Pitt formed his second government in May of that year.
When Pitt died two years later, however, the King had little choice but to appoint a government including both the "New" and "Old" Opposition, and Grenville became Prime Minister in the Ministry of All the Talents. Although the coalition partners agreed about little besides the abolition of the slave trade, it was really the King's opposition to the ministry that destroyed it in early 1807.
Thereafter, Grenville acted as nominal Leader of the Opposition although Lord Grey, the leader of the Foxites, was essentially equal with him.
After Buckingham's death in 1813 and Grenville's withdrawal from politics in 1817, the Grenvillites remained a distinct political grouping in opposition, but they were by now little more than a pawn of the ambitions of Buckingham's son, the 2nd Marquess of Buckingham. The former Portland Whigs who remained active in politics had by now largely returned to their former Whig allegiances. In 1822, Prime Minister Lord Liverpool bought the group's support for the government by creating Buckingham as Duke of Buckingham and Chandos and bringing in several of his supporters, notably Charles Williams-Wynn, who became President of the Board of Control, into the government. In the years that followed, the Grenvillites disappeared as a distinct political faction.
The Whigs were a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the Liberal Party with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s. Many Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Conservative Party in 1912.
George Grenville was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an MP for Buckingham. He emerged as one of Cobham's Cubs, a group of young members of Parliament associated with Lord Cobham.
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation and it was dismissed in the same year.
Duke of Buckingham, referring to Buckingham, is an extinct title that has been created several times in the peerages of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. There were creations of double dukedoms of Buckingham and Normanby and of Buckingham and Chandos. The last holder of the dukedom died in 1889.
Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple,, was a British politician. He is best known for his association with his brother-in-law William Pitt with whom he served in government during Britain's participation in the Seven Years War between 1756 and 1761. He resigned, along with Pitt, in protest at the cabinet's failure to declare war on Spain.
George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham,, known as George Grenville before 1779 and as The Earl Temple between 1779 and 1784, was a British statesman.
Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham was a British soldier and Whig politician. After serving as a junior officer under William III during the Williamite War in Ireland and during the Nine Years' War, he fought under John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, during the War of the Spanish Succession. During the War of the Quadruple Alliance Temple led a force of 4,000 troops on a raid on the Spanish coastline which captured Vigo and occupied it for ten days before withdrawing. In Parliament he generally supported the Whigs but fell out with Sir Robert Walpole in 1733. He was known for his ownership of and modifications to the estate at Stowe and for serving as a political mentor to the young William Pitt.
William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby , was a leading Irish Whig politician, being a member of the Irish House of Commons, and, after 1800, of the United Kingdom parliament. Ponsonby was the son of the Hon. John Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1784. He served as Joint Postmaster-General of Ireland (1784–1789).
George Tierney PC was an Irish Whig politician. For much of his career he was in opposition to the governments of William Pitt and Lord Liverpool. From 1818 to 1821 he was Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.
The 1806 United Kingdom general election was the election of members to the 3rd Parliament of the United Kingdom. This was the second general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The 1807 United Kingdom general election was the third general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The 1812 United Kingdom general election was the fourth general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Bedford Whigs were an 18th-century British political faction, led by John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. Other than Bedford himself, notable members included John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Gower; Richard Rigby, who served as principal Commons manager for the group; Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth; Edward Thurlow; and George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough
Buckinghamshire is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885.
In the first Parliament to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801, the first House of Commons of the United Kingdom was composed of all 558 members of the former Parliament of Great Britain and 100 of the members of the House of Commons of Ireland.
The 1768 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 13th Parliament of Great Britain to be held, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707.
Foxite was a late 18th-century British political label for Whig followers of Charles James Fox.
The Cobhamite faction were an 18th-century British political faction built around Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham and his supporters. Among its members, the group included the future Prime Ministers William Pitt and George Grenville. They had a general Whig philosophy and were at first supporters of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole but later became opponents of his administration.
The Chatham ministry was a British government led by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham that ruled between 1766 and 1768. Because of Pitt's former prominence before his title, it is sometimes referred to as the Pitt ministry. Unusually for a politician considered to be Prime Minister, Pitt was not First Lord of the Treasury during the administration, but instead held the post of Lord Privy Seal.