George Grenville was born at Wotton House on 14 October 1712. He was the second son of Richard Grenville and Hester Temple (later the 1st Countess Temple). He was one of five brothers, all of whom became MPs. His sister Hester Grenville married the leading political figure William Pitt. His elder brother was Richard Grenville, later the 2nd Earl Temple. It was intended by his parents that George Grenville should become a lawyer.
Grenville received his education at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1736.
George Grenvilleentered Parliament in 1741 as one of the two members for Buckingham, and continued to represent that borough for the next twenty-nine years until his death. He was disappointed to be giving up what appeared to be a promising legal career for the uncertainties of opposition politics. In Parliament he subscribed to the "Boy Patriot" party, which opposed Sir Robert Walpole.
In December 1744 he became a Lord of the Admiralty in the administration of Henry Pelham. He allied himself with his brother Richard and with William Pitt (who became their brother-in-law in 1754) in forcing Pelham to give them promotion by rebelling against his authority and obstructing business. In June 1747, Grenville became a Lord of the Treasury. In 1754 Grenville was made Treasurer of the Navy and Privy Councillor. Along with Pitt and several other colleagues he was dismissed in 1755 after speaking and voting against the government. He and Pitt joined the opposition, haranguing the Newcastle government.
In May 1762, Grenville was appointed Northern Secretary, where he took an increasingly hard line in the negotiations with France and Spain designed to bring the Seven Years' War to a close.
After a period of active opposition to the Chatham Ministry led by Pitt between 1766 and 1768, Grenville became an elder statesman during his last few years - seeking to avoid becoming associated with any faction or party in the House of Commons.
George Grenville's best known policy is the Stamp Act, a common tax in Great Britain onto the colonies in America, which instigated widespread opposition in Britain's American colonies and was later repealed.
He was one of the few prime ministers, who never acceded to the peerage. The town of Grenville, Quebec, was named after George Grenville.
Grenville's most immediate task was to restore the nation's finances. He also had to deal with the fall-out from Pontiac's Rebellion, which erupted in North America in 1763. Prominent measures of his administration included the prosecution of John Wilkes and the passing of the American Stamp Act 1765, which led to the first symptoms of alienation between American colonies and Great Britain.
