Graham, SIR JAMES ROBERT GEORGE

Graham, SIR JAMES ROBERT GEORGE, English statesman, was born at Netherby, in Cumberland, June 1, 1792, and educated at Westminster and Queen's College, Cambridge. As private secretary to the British minister in Sicily in 1813, he had a hand in the negotiations with Murat at Naples. After his return for Carlisle as a Whig in 1826 he became a warm supporter of Catholic emancipation and a zealous advocate of the Reform Bill. Earl Grey thereupon offered him, in 1830, the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, with a seat in the cabinet. But in 1834 he seceded from the government, disagreeing with his colleagues on the appropriation clause of the Irish Church Temporalities Act; and, going over to the Conservatives, became in 1841 Home Secretary under Sir Robert Peel. In 1844 he issued a warrant for opening the letters of Mazzini, and caused the information thus obtained to be communicated to the Austrian minister, an act by which the ministry, and Graham in particular, incurred great obloquy. He also encountered great displeasure north of the Tweed by his high-handed method of dealing with the Scottish Church during the troubles which ended in the Disruption and the formation of the Free Church. He gave Peel warm support in carrying the Corn Law Repeal Bill, and resigned office (1846) with his chief as soon as that measure was carried. On the death of Peel in 1850 he became leader of the Peelite party in the Lower House, and in December 1852 took office in the Coalition Ministry as First Lord of the Admiralty. He retired from official life in February 1855, and died at Netherby, October 26, 1861. See Life by Torrens (2 vols. 1863) and by Lonsdale (1868).