Edward Gray

Sir Edward Gray, 3rd Baronet (1914)

Edward Gray, 1st Viscount Gray of Fallodon KG PC FZL DL (born April 25, 1862 in Fallodon ; † September 7, 1933 ibid), 1882 to 1916 known as Sir Edward Gray, 3rd Baronet , was a British politician. Gray achieved fame above all in his function as British Foreign Secretary in the years before the First World War and during the first half of the First World War (1905-1916).

Education and political beginnings (1862–1905)

Gray was the eldest of seven children from the marriage of George Henry Gray and Harriet Jane Pearson. His grandfather was Sir George Gray, 2nd Baronet , and Prime Minister Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray was a great-great-uncle.

As a child, Gray attended Winchester College , after which he studied at Balliol College of Oxford University . In 1882 he inherited the title of baronet from his grandfather , of Fallodon in the County of Northumberland , at which time his father had died. Gray was temporarily expelled from college in 1884 for his sluggish behavior, but was re-admitted to the final exam.

In 1885, Gray was first elected to the House of Commons as the Liberal Party candidate for the Berwick-upon-Tweed district. From 1892 to 1895 Gray was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the last Gladstone administration . During the Boer War (1899-1902), when the Liberals split into a pacifist and an imperialist wing, Gray sided with the imperialists around Rosebery and Herbert Henry Asquith . With the latter and Richard Burdon Haldane , Gray had a close private friendship and political partnership ( Troika ).

Liberal Minister (1905-1916)

Edward Gray, 1st Viscount Gray of Fallodon to 1920. Portrait study by James Guthrie for Statesmen of World War I .

Following the resignation of the Conservative Balfour government , the Liberals, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, took over government responsibility. The displacement of Campbell-Bannerman into the House of Lords planned by Gray, Asquith and Haldane as part of the so-called Relugas Compact - after Grey's fisherman's hut in Scotland - which would give the liberal faction in the House of Commons sole control of the right wing of the party led by Gray, Asquith and Haldane would have resulted in failure, but under pressure from Asquith Campbell-Bannerman Gray transferred the portfolio for the Foreign Office, the British Foreign Office. The Prime Minister gave Gray preference over his original favorite for this office, Lord Elgin , who was given the Colonial Ministry instead.

Gray continued to work closely with Asquith and Haldane in government. In addition, he was in the cabinet above all Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe and, especially after the first Moroccan crisis , in which he de facto moved from the left wing of the Liberal Party to the right, Winston Churchill , for his son Randolph Frederick Churchill he took over the sponsorship.

In the years before the First World War, Gray was partly responsible for the departure of Great Britain from the traditional alliance-avoiding British foreign policy in the spirit of splendid isolation . The Entente cordiale with France , initiated by his conservative predecessor Lord Lansdowne in 1904 , he expanded through the settlement with Russia in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1907 into the British-French-Russian Triple Entente for the purpose of containing the German Empire . During his tenure, the Foreign Office was ruled by a decidedly anti-German faction, which, against the resistance of the radical wing of the liberals, pushed through this cooperation with the autocratically ruled Russia instead of a compromise with Germany. However, this new thrust of British foreign policy, which also included secret military agreements, was largely hidden from the public, so that the German government could get the impression that British military intervention on the continent on the part of the French and Russian Federation was by no means foreseen Thing.

During the Balkan Wars , Gray succeeded as chairman of the London Ambassadors' Conference in 1913, to initiate a provisional peace. Grey's attempts to resolve the tension that had emerged in the July crisis of 1914 through diplomatic channels - he proposed a new conference of European foreign ministers in London - then failed.

During the First World War, Grey's policy was primarily aimed at winning over initially neutral states for the cause of the Entente. He played a key role in the conclusion of the London Treaty of April 1915, which promised Italy large territorial gains if it entered the war. Gray also retained his post as foreign minister in the Asquith coalition government , which was formed in May 1915 and which lasted until December 1916. After Asquith's overthrow, he went into the opposition with him - he was no longer represented in the Lloyd George government.

Elder Statesman (1916-1933)

On July 27, 1916, he was raised as Viscount Gray of Fallodon , in the County of Northumberland, to hereditary peer and thereby received a seat in the House of Lords , where he served as leader of the Liberal MPs from 1923 to 1924. Gray died in 1933. Since he was childless, the Viscount dignity expired with his death. The baronage fell to his second uncle Charles George Gray (1880-1957).

Personal life and awards

Gray was a good tennis player during his college days at Oxford . He became Oxford champion in 1883 . He also won the British championship in 1889, 1891, 1895, 1896 and 1898. Gray was a passionate fly fisherman and wrote a monograph ( fly fishing ) on this hobby. He also devoted a lot of time to ornithology . The Edward Gray Institute of Field Ornithology is named in his honor.

He was accepted into the Order of the Garter in 1912 . He was a member of the Coefficients dining club .

Edward Gray was an active member of the Freemasonry Association , he was inducted into Robert Mitchell Lodge No. 2956 in 1907 . He later held the office of grand official in the United Grand Lodge of England .

Fonts

• Cottage Book. Itchen Abbas, 1894–1905. London 1909.
• Fly Fishing , (London, 1899)
• Recreation Boston 1920 ( online at Project Gutenberg ).
• Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916. London 1925 (German edition: Twenty-five years of politics, 1892–1916. Memoirs in two volumes. Bruckmann, Munich 1926.)
• Fallodon Papers. London 1926.
• The Charm of Birds. London 1927.
• Michael Waterhouse (Ed.): The cottage book. The undiscovered country diary of an Edwardian statesman by Sir Edward and Lady Gray. Gollancz, London 1999, ISBN 0-297-82534-8 .

literature

• Francis H. Hinsley (Ed.): British foreign policy under Sir Edward Gray. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1977, ISBN 0-521-21347-9 .
• Douglas Hurd : Choose your Weapons: The British Foreign Secretary . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2010. ISBN 978-0-297-85334-3 . (Chapter Gray, pp. 207–240)
• George Macaulay Trevelyan: Gray of Fallodon. Being the life of Sir Edward Gray afterwards Viscount Gray of Fallodon. Longmans, Green, London 1945.
• Gray, Sir Edward . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 588 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Edward Gray  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Edward Gray  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Edward Gray in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Edward Gray in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Entry online in 1914–1918. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
• Edward Gray, 1st Viscount Gray of Fallodon on thepeerage.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Keith Robbins: Sir Edward Gray. A Biography of Lord Gray of Fallodon. London 1971, pp. 15, 55.
2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 28581, HMSO, London, February 16, 1912, p. 1169 ( PDF , English).
3. ^ Robert A. Minder: Freemason Politicians Lexicon. Study publisher; Innsbruck 2004, p. 41, ISBN 3-7065-1909-7 .

predecessor	Office	successor
George Gray	Gray Baronet, of Fallodon 1882-1933	Charles Gray
New title created	Viscount Gray of Fallodon 1916-1933	Title expired