Greville, CHARLES CAVENDISH FULKE

Greville, CHARLES CAVENDISH FULKE, writer of memoirs of his time, the eldest son of Charles Greville by his wife, Lady Charlotte Cavendish Bentinck, was born in 1794. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. Before he was twenty he was appointed private secretary to Earl Bathurst. In 1821 he became Clerk of the Council in Ordinary, an office which he discharged until 1860. During the last twenty years of his life he occupied a suite of rooms in the house of Earl Granville, in Bruton Street, and there he died, 18th January 1865. In advocacy of the completion of the measure of relief to the Catholics by the payment of their clergy he wrote Past and Present Policy of England towards Ireland (1845). His position as Clerk of the Privy-council brought him into intimate relations with the leaders of both political parties, and gave him peculiar facilities for studying court life from within—advantages which the shrewd intelligence and cultured versatility of Greville turned to the best account by penning miscellaneous memoirs dealing alike with public and private affairs, and containing many lively, immediate sketches of the distinguished personages of his time, political, social, and literary. The first part of the Memoirs, covering the reigns of George IV. and William IV., edited by Mr Reeve, appeared in 1875. The second part, embracing the period 1837–51, was published in 1885; and the third, 1852–60, in 1887.