Henry Gray, 3rd Earl Gray

Henry George Gray, 3rd Earl Gray

Henry George Gray , called Viscount Howick from 1807 to 1845, since 1845 3rd Earl Gray (born December 28, 1802 in Howick , Northumberland , † October 9, 1894 ibid) was a British colonial politician and statesman.

Life

Henry Gray was the son of Charles Gray, 2nd Earl Gray , who later became Prime Minister (1830-1834). He studied at Cambridge University , followed his father into politics and was elected to the House of Commons for the Whigs in 1826 . Here he strongly supported Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform.

In 1830, under the government of his father, who had followed Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington , as Prime Minister, he became Under-Secretary for the Colonies . Influenced by Edward Gibbon Wakefield's ideas about colonial policy, he was considered to be a capable, but impatient and unwilling to compromise man. When the government refused in 1833 to abolish slavery in the West Indies immediately, he stepped back, but was in January 1834 to the dismissal of the Ministry Melbourne followed, of Gray's father as prime minister in November 1834 Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Interior ( Under Secretary of Home Affairs ).

In 1835 Gray became Minister of War in the Melbourne Cabinet and a member of the Privy Council . He continued to be involved in colonial policy and got more and more into quarrels with his cabinet colleagues, especially the Colonial Minister, Charles Grant, Baron Glenelg , whose indecisive Canada policy he sharply condemned. Working tirelessly but very irritable and impatient, Gray was not an easy colleague. His many too liberal views also led to falling out with his colleagues, so that he finally resigned from his ministerial office in 1839.

In 1841 he was re-elected to the House of Commons and belonged to the opposition to Sir Robert Peel . After his father's death in 1845, he succeeded him as Earl Gray , moved into the House of Lords and became the leader of the Whig Party. The following year, when John Russell, 1st Earl Russell , was entrusted with the formation of a government after Peel's resignation, Gray refused to serve in a cabinet with Lord Palmerston , who had been appointed Foreign Secretary and whose foreign policy he disapproved of. When the formation of a government, which had been delayed because of his refusal, finally came about in June 1846, he gave up his resistance to Palmerston under the pressure of political realities and was Minister of War and Colonial Affairs until February 1852 .

During his term of office there were some serious difficulties, but most of them he overcame successfully. The aim of his policy was to reduce spending on the colonies, promote free trade and give the colonies greater freedom. He was the first minister to represent the self-government of the colonies and to ensure that the economic proceeds would also benefit them. He supported federalism in New Zealand , Canada and Australia and campaigned for the removal of tariff barriers between neighboring colonies. His administration initiated a paradigm shift in British colonial policy. In New Zealand and Australia his policies failed due to a lack of support, but in Canada he had a happier hand with the appointment of James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin as Governor General , succeeded by Grey's nephew Albert .

Gray opposed the expansion of British territories in South Africa because he feared the cost and strain on the British national budget. He thought it more correct to confine himself to Cape Colony and Simon's Bay , but reluctantly had to accept the establishment of the Orange River Sovereignty as an independent Free State by Sir Harry Smith , while he himself endeavored to keep the administration and defense expenses to the colonists themselves to impose.

Gray made himself particularly unpopular in Australia and the Cape Colony because he persisted in transporting convicted convicts there, while resistance to it grew steadily both in the colonies and in the motherland. He introduced the so-called ticket of leave system, a kind of free pass or pardon that allowed a prisoner to be set free early if he was well managed.

Gray, who, along with Lord Palmerston, was largely to blame for the overthrow of the Russel government, resigned with his cabinet colleagues in 1852 and the next year published a justification of his colonial policy in the form of letters to Lord Russell (Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration, 1853) , a somewhat dry, but very instructive book. There was no longer any place for Gray in Lord Aberdeen's coalition government , and he would no longer hold any public office. He turned down the War Ministry offered by Lord Palmerston after the fall of the coalition government in Aberdeen in 1855, because he did not consider the war against Russia ( Crimean War ) to be fair, which he spoke about on May 25, 1855 in a long speech in the House of Lords.

He remained an influential member of the House of Lords, an old Whig in principle, but by no means disagreed with all of the measures taken by successive liberal governments. Above all, the fundamental reorganization of the British electoral system through the introduction of the secret written vote in 1872 had no more resolute opponent than Lord Gray. He also passionately criticized Disraeli's Indian policy in the House of Lords. Because of the Irish Home Rule policy of the Gladstone government , he publicly renounced the Liberal Party on January 19, 1882. For the rest of his long life he took a lively and critical part in British politics, which he followed closely, and spoke out on many subjects. In 1858 he published an essay on parliamentary government , in 1888 another on the state of Ireland and in 1892 one on trade, especially tariffs, with the United States . Up until old age he also wrote many important letters to the Times and other publications on current political issues .

He died on October 9, 1894 at the age of almost 92. From 1832 he was married to Maria Copley, daughter of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd  Baronet Copley of Sprotborough , with whom he had a very devoted marriage until her death in 1879. If they were separated from each other, they wrote to each other daily, often several times a day. Nevertheless, the marriage remained childless and after his death his nephew Albert , son of his brother Charles, followed him as Earl Gray .

Gray was a capable and conscientious man. At his post he showed a sharp mind, a deep understanding of his statesmanlike duties and tireless diligence, but made himself unpopular through his obstinacy and aristocratic arrogance. Prince Albert , who said that he would sign any of Grey's principles, told Christian Friedrich von Stockmar that Gray, although opinionated, was open to discussion. And Sir Henry Taylor affirmed that he had greater freedom of thought than any other politician he had ever met. His original teacher and later adversary in colonial affairs, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, described Grey's greatest shortcoming: “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 somebodys hands as respects decision and action. "

Works

• Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration , 1853
• Essay on Parliamentary Government , London 1858

literature

• Gray, Henry Gray, 3rd Earl . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 12 : Gichtel - harmonium . London 1910, p. 590 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

predecessor	Office	successor
Charles Gray	Earl Gray 1845-1894	Albert Gray