Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville
Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, KG PC FRS (11 May 1815 – 31 March 1891), styled Lord Leveson until 1846, was a British Liberal statesman[1] and diplomat from the Leveson-Gower family. He is best remembered for his service as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
For the 20th and 21st century Lord Justice, see Brian Leveson.
The Earl Granville
The Earl of Derby
11 May 1815
London
31 March 1891 (aged 75)
London
(1) Mary Louise von Dalberg
(1813–1860)
(2) Castila Rosalind Campbell (died 1938)
His foreign policy kept Britain free from European wars and improved relations with the United States after the strain during the American Civil War.
Background and education[edit]
Leveson-Gower was born in London, the eldest son of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville and Lady Harriet Cavendish, daughter of Lady Georgiana Spencer and William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire. His father was a younger son of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford and his third wife; an elder son with his second wife (a daughter of the 1st Duke of Bridgwater) became the 2nd Marquess of Stafford, and his marriage with the daughter and heiress of the 18th Earl of Sutherland (Countess of Sutherland in her own right) led to the merging of the Gower and Stafford titles in that of the Dukes of Sutherland (created 1833), who represent the elder branch of the family. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.[2]
Political career[edit]
Leveson-Gower went to Paris for a short time under his father, and in 1836 was elected to Parliament as Whig MP for Morpeth. For a short time (1840-1) he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Melbourne's ministry. From 1841 until his father's death in 1846, when he succeeded to the title, he sat for Lichfield.[2]
In the House of Lords he distinguished himself as a Free Trader, and when Lord John Russell formed a government in 1846 he made him Master of the Buckhounds. He became Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 1848, and took a prominent part in promoting the Great Exhibition of 1851. Having already been admitted to the Cabinet, for about two months at the end of 1851 and the start of 1852 he succeeded Palmerston as Foreign Secretary until Russell's defeat in 1852.[2]
When Lord Aberdeen formed his coalition government at the end of 1852, Granville became first Lord President of the Council, and then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1854). Under Lord Palmerston (1855) he was again President of the Council.[2] His interest in education (a subject associated with this office) led to his election (1856) as chancellor of the University of London, a post he held for thirty-five years; and he was a prominent champion of the movement for the admission of women, and also of the teaching of modern languages.[2]
From 1855 Lord Granville led the Liberals in the Upper House, both in office and, after Palmerston's resignation in 1858, in opposition. In 1856 he was head of the British mission to Tsar Alexander II of Russia's coronation in Moscow. In June 1859 Queen Victoria asked him to form a ministry, but he was unable to do so, and Palmerston again became Prime Minister, with Russell as Foreign Secretary and Granville once again as President of the Council.[2]
He retained his office when, on Palmerston's death in 1865, Lord Russell (now a peer) became Prime Minister and took over the leadership in the House of Lords. Granville, now an established Liberal leader, was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.[2]
He received an honorary degree from Cambridge University in 1864.[3]
Military career[edit]
He served in the part-time Staffordshire Yeomanry, being commissioned as a major on 12 December 1848 and being promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 3 July 1854. He continued in the regiment until the early 1860s.[4] As Lord Warden, he was appointed honorary colonel of the 1st Cinque Ports Artillery Volunteers on 23 April 1866.[5]
Lord Granville married Lady Acton (Marie Louise Pelline de Dalberg), daughter of the Duke of Dalberg, Emmerich Joseph de Dalberg (a famous diplomat), widow of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, Bt and mother of the historian Lord Acton, in 1840. She died in 1860.
He was engaged in 1864 to an envoy and former spy from the Confederate States of America, Rose O'Neal Greenhow; but shortly thereafter, in returning to the Confederacy, she drowned off Wilmington, North Carolina, when her rowboat overturned as she was escaping a US blockade ship.
He married, as his second wife, Castilia Rosalind Campbell (or Castalia), daughter of Walter Frederick Campbell,[13] on 26 September 1865; their children were:
Death[edit]
Granville died in London on 31 March 1891 and was succeeded in his peerages by his elder son, who became the 3rd Earl. He was buried in the family vault in the churchyard of St Michael and St Wulfad, Stone, Staffordshire.
Attribution: