Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/224

 Grey counties, and in the early summer of 1643 he received orders to march to the lord general's assistance (Commons' Journals, iii. 36, 51). His attendance was, however, dispensed with upon his being nominated in July one of the parliamentary commissioners to Scotland. For refusing to serve he was imprisoned in the Tower, and his military commission cancelled (ib. iii. 172, 176, 177). He was soon released, and on Lord-keeper Littleton's flight was chosen to succeed him as speaker of the House of Lords. In 1648, when the parliament were appointing commissioners of the great seal, Grey was at the lords' request added to them by an ordinance dated 15 March, and he performed the duties for nearly eleven months. He is not charged with concurring in the king's execution. In satisfaction of his losses during the war parliament granted him 5,120l. He was constituted a member of the council of state on 13 Feb. 1649, but refused to subscribe the engagement (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649-50, pp. 6, 9). At the Restoration he availed himself of the king's general pardon (ib. 1660-1, p. 37). He died in July 1674. By his wife Anne, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Wentworth of Gosfield, Essex, he had issue Ralph (d. 1675), his successor, and father of Forde Grey, earl of Tankerville [q. v.], Elizabeth (d. 1668), and Katherine.

[Burke's Extinct Peerage, p. 253; Clarendon's Rebellion, 1849, iii. 117, 284, 316; Commons' Journals, vols. iii. iv. v. vi.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641-3, p. 475; Foss's Judges, vi. 441-2; Whitelocke's Memorials, pp. 295, 377, 381, 488.]

 GREY, WILLIAM (1719–1781), judge, born at Merton, Norfolk, on 7 July 1719, was the third son of Thomas de Grey, M.P., of Merton, by Elizabeth, daughter of William Windham of Felbrigge in the same county. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, entered the Middle Temple in January 1738, and was called to the bar on 26 Nov. 1742. In 1758 he became king's counsel, and in September 1761 was appointed solicitor-general to Queen Charlotte. He was elected M.P. for Newport, Cornwall, in 1761, and in December 1763 was made solicitor-general to the king. In August 1766 he succeeded as attorney-general, and was knighted. He was also comptroller of the first-fruits and tenths. At the election of 1768 he was chosen for both Newport and Tamworth, Staffordshire, when he selected the former, and in February 1770 he was returned for the university of Cambridge. In parliament he argued against the legality of Wilkes's return for Middlesex, and on all other occasions proved himself a powerful supporter of Lord North's party. On a motion to curtail the power of the attorney-general in filing ex-officio informations, he showed that the power was not only constitutional, but necessary. As solicitor-general he spoke with much ingenuity in favour of the king's messengers acting under the general warrant issued by Lord Halifax, and as attorney-general he conducted the proceedings against Wilkes in 1768. On 25 Jan. 1771 he succeeded Wilmot as lord chief justice of the common pleas. On the question whether Brass Crosby [q. v.], the lord mayor of London, should be discharged from the custody of the lieutenant of the Tower, where he had been imprisoned by warrant from the speaker of the House of Commons, he refused to interfere with the privileges of parliament. Infirm health obliged him to resign in June 1780. In the following October he was created a peer by the title of Lord Walsingham. He died on 9 May 1781, and was buried at Merton. By his marriage in 1743 with Mary (d. 1800), daughter of William Cowper, M.P., he left a son and daughter. He was an accomplished lawyer, and possessed a wonderfully retentive memory. Lord Eldon declared that he would come into court with both hands crippled by gout, try a cause which lasted nine or ten hours, and then correctly sum up all the evidence without the aid of a single note (, Life of Eldon, i. 113).

[Collins's Peerage (Brydges), vii. 519; Foss's Judges, viii. 264-6; Parl. Hist. xvi. 585, 1182, 1194, 1271; State Trials, xix. 1012, 1079, 1146.]

 GREY, WILLIAM (1818–1878), lieutenant-governor of Bengal and governor of Jamaica, was fourth son of Edward Grey, bishop of Hereford, a son of Charles, first earl Grey [q. v.] His mother was a daughter of James Croft, esq., of Greenham Lodge, near Newbury, Berkshire. Grey matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, 19 May 1836, aged 18 (, Alumni Oxon.), but left the university without a degree on being appointed by his cousin, Lord Howick (now third Earl Grey), to a clerkship in the war office. While serving in the war office he was nominated to a writership in the Bengal civil service, the nomination having been placed at the disposal of his uncle, the second Earl Grey, by Sir Robert Campbell, director of the East India Company. Entering Haileybury College in January 1839, he passed out in July 1840, and reached India on 27 Dec. in that year. He was not remarkable for studious habits in early youth. At Christ Church he incurred the