Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville

Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville

Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville , KG , PC (born May 11, 1815 in London , † March 31, 1891 there ) was a British statesman. He was foreign and colonial minister ( Secretary of State for the Colonies ) several times and was one of the closest political friends of William Ewart Gladstone , whom he followed as leader of the Liberal Party .

Origin and early years

He was born George Leveson-Gower in London , but spent his childhood in Paris , where his father was ambassador. He was a nephew of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford .

He first visited the Eton College and studied at Christ Church College of Oxford University and was on his father as Attaché assumed.

Political career

Marie Louise Pelline Leveson-Gower , 1860

In 1836 he was elected to the House of Commons . In 1840 he married Lady Marie Louise Pelline Dalberg-Acton , daughter of Duke Emmerich Joseph von Dalberg , widow of Ferdinand Richard Edward, 7th Baronet Acton, and mother of the historian John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton . From 1840 to 1841 he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs ) in the government of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne .

Due to the death of his father as Earl Granville in the House of Lords , he received the post of Master of the Buckhounds when the Whigs came back to power in 1846 . In May 1848 he became Vice President of the Board of Trade . Granville chaired the commission for the 1851 World's Fair in London.

In December 1851 he succeeded Palmerston as Secretary of State. In this capacity, Lord Granville mainly defended the right of political refugees in the United Kingdom against the continental powers. As early as February 22, 1852, the Whig Ministry fell and Granville's tenure ended prematurely.

But after Derby's ministry had been overthrown before the end of the year , Granville took over the office of Lord President of the Council in the new coalition cabinet in Aberdeen , which was connected with the chairmanship of the Privy Council . In 1854 he resigned from this office to John Russell, 1st Earl Russell , but remained as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Cabinet until he became Lord President of the Council again in February 1855 .

In 1856 he attended the coronation of Tsar Alexander II in Moscow as envoy extraordinary . In the same year he became Chancellor of the University of London . In this role, he advocates the admission of women to academic studies and teaching in modern languages.

In the new Palmerston-Russell Ministry, which was formed in 1859, he took over the position of Lord President of the Council again and became the chief representative of the cabinet in the House of Lords , with which he resigned in 1866. In 1862 he was President of the Commission for the Second World Exhibition . In the meantime his wife had died in 1860. In 1865 he became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and married Miss Castalia Campbell. During the American Civil War , he advocated strict neutrality, which the government then implemented.

In the Cabinet of Gladstone, which was formed in December 1868, Granville initially joined as colonial minister, and in June 1870 after Clarendon's death he was again foreign minister. Whether he could have prevented the outbreak of the Franco-German war by taking a more energetic attitude towards the French ministry remains to be seen. During the war he observed strict neutrality, but did not prevent British merchants from supplying France's fleet with coal and his army with weapons.

After the Liberals lost the general election in 1874 , Granville went back to opposition with the party. Since Gladstone no longer wanted to act as an opposition leader, he retired to the back benches. After Gladstone's self-chosen withdrawal, Lord Hartington took over the leadership of the Liberal faction in the House of Commons, while Granville became leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords. Through his Midlothian campaign , Gladstone surpassed the two Liberal party leaders and placed himself in a position where he became prime minister again after the Liberal election victory in 1880. In April 1880 Granville again took over the Foreign Ministry under Gladstone, whose policy, however, was determined more by the Prime Minister than by him. Nor did Granville prevent the mistakes that put the United Kingdom in a difficult position in Egypt and Afghanistan and isolated itself from Europe. He resigned with Gladstone in June 1885, then took over the Colonial Office in Gladstone's new government in January 1886 instead of the Foreign Office which went to Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery , and held it until the new elections in July 1886, in their Follow he sought his release with Gladstone.

He withdrew from public life and died in London in 1891 .

Personality and work

Granville was fluent in French . He was always concerned with peace and balance and was more of a diplomat than a politician.

He managed to resolve the differences between the United Kingdom and the United States , on the one hand, remaining territorial issues on the border with Canada and, on the other hand, fishing rights.

In Europe, however, his methods were less successful. The United Kingdom was able to stay out of the European wars because it had no allies on the continent. On the other hand, the other major European powers took advantage of the lack of readiness for conflict several times - especially Russia several times in Central Asia ( The Great Game ). Granville was also essentially powerless in the face of the incipient differences with Germany, such as the question of the German occupation of Lüderitz Bay .

However, the fundamental willingness to resolve conflicts through negotiations and arbitration awards gained more and more recognition in the following decades.

literature

• Granville, Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 362 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Detlev Schwennicke: European family tables. Family tables on the history of the European states . New series, Volume 9: Families from the Middle and Upper Rhine and from Burgundy . Marburg 1986, plate 60.

predecessor	Office	successor
Granville Leveson-Gower	Earl Granville 1846-1891	Granville Leveson-Gower