Earl Grey was born Charles Grey in 1764 into the aristocratic Northumbrian Grey family and was the son of army general. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, but left without a degree.

He was elected to Parliament for the Northumberland constituency in 1786. He associated with Charles James Fox and became a leader of the Whig party. He was a strong speaker, with a clear style, and advocated for Parliamentary reform.

In 1806 (then known as Lord Howick, due to his father’s elevation to the peerage) became First Lord of the Admiralty in Grenville’s government. Later that year, after the death of Fox, Howick became Foreign Secretary. He served for just six months before the collapse of the government.  In 1807, his father died, and Grey entered the House of Lords, something that initially depressed him and he compared the atmosphere to that of a tomb.

Grey would now be in opposition for almost two and a half decades. He took a pessimistic line on the Napoleonic Wars, fearing a perpetual military stalemate, and was critical of the British policy of restoring the Bourbon monarchy that had been overthrown during the French Revolution. He opposed British intervention to defeat Napoleon after he returned to power in 1815.

In 1822, Grey gave a fine speech denouncing the ‘Pains and Penalties Bill’ that had been brought before the Lords, which would have annulled the marriage of King George IV to Queen Caroline. Ultimately, the Lords passed the bill, but by only nine votes, and the government dropped it rather than fight for it in Commons, to George’s fury.

In 1830, Wellington’s government collapsed, marking the final end of the Pittite/Tory era. William IV asked Grey to form a government. He formed a government of aristocrats, and even the Leader of the House of Commons was a Viscount.

The main issue for Grey was parliamentary reform. Britain’s democratic system remained largely the same as it had been during the 17^th Century. There were over 100 ‘rotten’ and ‘pocket’ boroughs that were controlled or owned by a tiny number of aristocrats. Many of the burgeoning industrial towns had little or no representation at all. The franchise requirements differed vastly across the country, with some areas having a tiny electorate, and others a fairly wide one. Public opinion strongly favoured change, and there was fear of revolution if nothing was done.

Grey’s government proposed a new Reform Act which abolished the rotten boroughs, gave representation to the cities, broadened the franchise, and generally rationalised and standardised the system. Although, in doing so, it did remove the vote from some in areas where, by the tradition, the franchise was much wider, and it also explicitly restricted the franchise to male voters for the first time. The Bill was presented to Parliament by Lord John Russell in March 1831.

Ultimately, the Bill passed by a single vote, but the parliamentary arithmetic did not favour Grey. In April 1831, he asked for an election, which resulted in a Whig victory. The Bill was swiftly passed by the Commons, and a painstaking process of getting it through the Lords began. It was rejected, and Grey considered creating new peers, even submitting his resignation to William IV when this was refused. But the Duke of Wellington, effectively the leader of the anti-reform faction, gave way, organising the abstention of the peers and reform passed in June 1832.

Due to the controversy, the difficult work to pass it through Parliament, and the risk of failure, the ‘Great Reform Act’, as it became known, was Grey’s greatest achievement, but it was not his only achievement. In December 1832 there was another election, which Grey won with a huge majority. In 1833, his government abolished slavery in the British Empire (excluding the East India Company areas), albeit with compensation for the slaveowners and not to the freed.  It also passed a Factory Act and a new Poor Law Act. His government convened an international conference in 1830 that would result in the recognition of Belgium and a guarantee of permanent neutrality. Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston was also able to ensure that Belgium’s new monarch would be a Saxe-Coburg and not a French Bourbon.

However, after accomplishing so many objectives over 1830-33, Grey now found little further direction for his government. Problems loomed over the Irish Church, over which the Cabinet was divided and several ministers resigned. In July 1834, Grey too resigned.

Grey married Mary Ponsonby in 1794. They had 16 children, 13 of whom reached adulthood. Before he was married, Grey was also the lover of Whig Georgina Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and fathered her daughter Eliza (b.1791).

Grey died in 1845.

Though the exact rationale for the name is unknown, the popular brand of tea ‘Earl Grey’ memorialises his name. Grey ended the East India Company’s monopoly on tea and it is possible the name originates from a tea merchant grateful at the new markets. It is also possible that it was a favourite that Grey served to guests. More fanciful tales, including that Grey (who never travelled to China) saved a Chinese mandarin’s son from drowning, can be dismissed.