Person

Grey of Fallodon, Edward Grey, Viscount, 1862-1933

1862-1933

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.