Henry Francis Greville was born on July 10, 1760, in Wilbury, Wiltshire, England.

He was a British military officer and impresario. In 1777, he was appointed an ensign in the Coldstream Guards, and in 1781, was promoted to Lieutenant. Deployed to North America during the American Revolutionary War, he became a prisoner of war (POW) following the British surrender at Yorktown. In May 1782, he was one of 13 POWs forced to draw lots to determine which one should be executed in retaliation for the execution of a patriot captain by Loyalists in what became known as the Asgill Affair. In 1790, he was appointed to the 4th Regiment of Dragoon Guards to serve in Ireland as Lieutenant-Colonel. While in the army, he became interested in theatricals, and after leaving the army, he tried to organize professional theatre shows. In 1801, he founded the Pic-Nic Society and began a weekly newspaper, the Pic-Nic, to report theatrical affairs. In 1803, he purchased the lease on a mansion on Little Argyll Street, where in 1806, he gave two balls. In 1807, the Lord Chamberlain granted Greville an annual license to host music, dancing, burlettas, and dramatic performances at the Argyll Rooms. The license was renewed the following year, but afterwards, it was limited to music and dancing. By 1811, Greville was ill and in deep debt. He tried to sell the Argyll Rooms in 1811. In 1812, he went abroad, possibly as a condition of his family helping with his debts. He died on January 13, 1816, in Port Louis, Mauritius.

In 1791, he married Catherine Graham (1776–1803), and in 1805, he remarried Sophia Lambert (née Whyte) (1771–1839).

Edward Grey was born on April 25, 1862, in London, England.

He was a British Liberal politician. He attended Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford, but never received a degree. He succeeded to his grandfather’s baronetcy and estate in 1882 and, from 1885 to 1916, when he was created Viscount Grey of Fallodon, he sat in the House of Commons. He became Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office in 1892 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1905, a post he held until 1916. His most important action came in the July Crisis in 1914, when he led Britain into World War I against Germany. He convinced the Liberal cabinet that Britain had an obligation and was honour-bound to defend France and prevent Germany from controlling Western Europe. Grey became President of the League of Nations Union in 1918. From 1919 to 1920, he served as Ambassador to the United States. In 1923–1924, despite increasing blindness, he led the Liberal opposition in the House of Lords. He was also President of the Liberal Council (1927-1933) and Chancellor of Oxford University (1928-1933). Grey received an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from Oxford in 1907. In 1932, he co-founded the organization British Trust for Ornithology. As an avid ornithologist, he published the book on his love of birds, "The Charm of Birds" (1927). Grey also published his memoirs, "Twenty-Five Years, 1892-1916" (2 vols., 1925) and several other books, e.g., "Fly Fishing" (1899) and "The League of Nations" (1918).

In 1885, he married Dorothy Widdrington (–1906), and in 1922, he remarried Pamela Wyndham (1871–1928). He died on September 7, 1933, in Fallodon, England.

George Wardrope Grier was born in June 1879, in Montreal, Quebec.

He served for more than fifty years as president of G. A. Grier and Sons Ltd., lumber and forest industry company. He also had been president of Penman's Ltd. and of St. Lawrence Flour Mills Co. Ltd. Active in sports, he was a founding member of the Montreal Indoor Tennis Club and a life member of the Royal Montreal Golf Club. He took an interest in Christian and charitable organizations, particularly in the Canadian Bible Society and the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

In 1903, he married Winifred Savage. He died on March 17, 1967, in Montreal, Quebec.

Scottish-born John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) is often regarded as “the father of Canadian documentary film”. He was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Chicago and in 1928 he returned to England. In 1929 he produced Drifters, the first documentary film and the well-spring of a new genre of cinema. Grierson first travelled to Canada in 1938 after the Canadian government requested that he survey the country’s film production. His report led to the founding of the National Film Board of Canada in May 1939. In October of the same year Grierson became the National Film Board’s first commissioner, a position he held until 1945. During the Second World War, Grierson became the general manager of Canada’s Wartime Information Board and greatly influenced wartime government communications. Grierson left his position with the Wartime Information Board as the war concluded. He served as director of mass communications for UNESCO from 1946 to 1948 and film controller for Britain’s Central Office of Information from 1948 to 1950. Grierson returned to Canada as a lecturer at McGill University in 1968, and again as special lecturer in the Communications Programme of the English Department in 1970-1971. In his later years, besides working as executive producer for British television and films, Grierson emerged as an articulate theorist of a new science, communications, particularly in relation to the social and political dimensions of documentary film. John Grierson passed away on February 19, 1972.