Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (
December 28, 1802–October 9, 1894), known as
Viscount Howick from 1807 until 1845, was an
English statesman.
He was the son of
the 2nd Earl Grey, prime minister at the time of the
Reform Bill of
1832.
He entered parliament in 1826, under the title of
Viscount Howick, as member for
Winchelsea, which constituency he left in 1831 for
Northumberland. On the accession of the
Whigs to power in 1830, when his father became prime minister, he was made under-secretary for
Britain's colonial possessions, and laid the foundation of his intimate acquaintance with colonial questions. He belonged at the time to the more advanced party of colonial reformers, sharing the views of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield on questions of land and
emigration, and resigned in
1834 from dissatisfaction that
slave emancipation was made gradual instead of immediate.
In
1835 he entered
Lord Melbourne's cabinet as secretary at war, and effected some valuable administrative reforms, especially by suppressing malpractices detrimental to the troops in
India. After the partial reconstruction of the ministry in
1839 he again resigned, disapproving of the more advanced views of some of his colleagues.
These repeated resignations gave him a reputation for crotchetiness, which he did not decrease by his disposition to embarrass his old colleagues by his action on
free trade questions in the session of
1841. During the exile of the Liberals from power he went still farther on the path of
free trade, and anticipated
Lord John Russell's declaration against the
corn laws.
When, on Sir
Robert Peel's resignation in December
1845, Lord John Russell was called upon to form a ministry, Howick, who had become Earl Grey by the death of his father in the preceding July, refused to enter the new cabinet if
Lord Palmerston were foreign secretary. He was greatly censured for perverseness, and particularly when in the following July he accepted Lord Palmerston as a colleague without remonstrance. His conduct, nevertheless, afforded Lord John Russell an escape from an embarrassing situation.
Becoming
colonial secretary in
1846, he found himself everywhere confronted with arduous problems, which in the main he encountered with success. His administration formed an epoch. He was the first minister to proclaim that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and not for the mother countries; the first systematically to accord them
self-government so far as then seemed possible; the first to introduce free trade into their relations with
Great Britain and
Ireland. The concession by which colonies were allowed to tax imports from the mother-country ad libitum was not his; he protested against it, but was overruled. In the
West Indies he suppressed, if he could not overcome, discontent; in
Ceylon he put down rebellion; in
New Zealand he suspended the constitution he had himself accorded, and yielded everything into the masterful hands of
Sir George Grey.
The least successful part of his administration was his treatment of the convict question at the
Cape of Good Hope, which seemed an exception to his rule that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and in accordance with their own wishes, and subjected him to a humiliating defeat.
After his retirement he wrote a history and defence of his colonial policy in the form of letters to Lord John Russell, a dry but instructive book (
Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration,
1853).
He resigned with his colleagues in
1852. No room was found for him in the Coalition Cabinet of 1853, and although during the
Crimean struggle public opinion pointed to him as the fittest man as minister for war, he never again held office.
During the remainder of his long life he exercised a vigilant criticism on public affairs. In
1858 he wrote a work (republished in
1864) on parliamentary reform; in
1888 he wrote another on the state of Ireland; and in
1892 one on the
United States tariff. In his latter years he was a frequent contributor of weighty letters to
The Times on land, tithes, currency and other public questions. His principal parliamentary appearances were when he moved for a committee on Irish affairs in
1866, and when in
1878 he passionately opposed the policy of the
Beaconsfield cabinet in India. He nevertheless supported Lord Beaconsfield at the dissolution, regarding
William Ewart Gladstone's accession to power with much greater alarm. He was a determined opponent of Gladstone's
Home rule policy.
He died on the
October 9, 1894. None ever doubted his capacity or his conscientiousness, but he was generally deemed impracticable and disagreeable.
Prince Albert, however, who expressed himself as ready to subscribe to all Grey's principles, and applauded him for having principles, told Stockmar that, although dogmatic, he was amenable to argument; and
Sir Henry Taylor credits him with
:more freedom from littlenesses of feeling than I have met before in any public man.
His chief defect was perceived and expressed by his original tutor and subsequent adversary in colonial affairs,
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who wrote:
:With more than a common talent for understanding principles, he has no originality of thought, which compels him to take all his ideas from somebody; and no power of working out theory in practice, which compels him to be always in somebody's hands as respects decision and action.
The earl had no sons, and he was followed as 4th earl by his nephew
Albert Henry George (born 1851), who in
1904 became
Governor General of Canada.
The suburb of
Howick, New Zealand is named after the earl.
