Thomas Grenville

This article deals with the politician and diplomat. For his uncle and seaman, see Thomas Grenville (seaman) .

Thomas Grenville

Escape from the HMS Proserpine across the mudflats (1799)

Thomas Grenville PC (born December 31, 1755 , † December 17, 1846 in Piccadilly , London ) was a British politician , diplomat and bibliophile . From 1806 to 1807 he was First Lord of the Admiralty .

Life

His father was George Grenville , his older brother George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham , his younger brother William Wyndham Grenville and his uncle the seaman of the same name .

Grenville became a lieutenant in 1779. From 1780 to 1790 he was a member of parliament. In 1806 he became President of the Board of Control and was First Lord of the Admiralty from September 29, 1806 to April 6, 1807 . In 1798 he was appointed a member of the Privy Council .

On a secret diplomatic mission during the Second Coalition War to Friedrich Wilhelm III. in Berlin on board the HMS Proserpine , he was stranded in 1799 before Scharhörn and found in the tower of Neuwerk refuge before he later Cuxhaven could travel further.

He began collecting books in the 1820s. By his death there were 20,240 volumes with 16,000 titles and 59 manuscripts. He bequeathed his book collection to the British Museum , which it integrated in 1847. It is now housed in the King's Library Tower in the British Library .

Web links

Commons : Thomas Grenville  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Biography on dukesofbuckingham.org.uk
• Description of the British Library about the Grenville Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. F. Voigt, "From the foreign book of the Thurm zu Neuwerk", communications of the Association for Hamburg History Volume 10 (1888) p. 127, Association for Hamburg History
2. ↑ Taylor, Barry: Thomas Grenville (1755-1846) and His Books . British Library. Pp. 321-340 ff. ISBN 978-0-7123-5035-8 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Charles Gray	First Lord of the Admiralty 1806–1807	Henry Phipps