George Grey

Background

Grey was born on 14 April 1812 at Lisbon, Portugal, the only son of Lieutenant-Colonel George Grey and his wife Elizabeth Anne, née Vignoles, a week after his father was killed at Badajoz.

"In June 1839 Grey was promoted captain and in August appointed resident magistrate at King George Sound at £100 a year, in place of Sir Richard Spencer, whose daughter, Eliza Lucy, he married on 2 November at Albany. After four months in office he published Vocabulary of the Dialects spoken by the Aboriginal Races of South-Western Australia. In 1840 it was reprinted in London and his 'report on the best means of promoting the civilization of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Australia' was circulated by the Colonial Office to the governors of other colonies. Grey argued that the only way to save native peoples from extinction was to wean them from their tribal customs by bringing them under British law, making them Christian, educating their children in boarding schools and employing the adults among the white settlers. Grey disregarded practical difficulties but he never deviated from this dream of compulsory assimilation."

"In his dealings with the Aboriginals Grey had little opportunity to act on the principles of his 1840 report. He tried to prevent racial friction on the River Murray by organizing police escorts for the overlanders and he ordered that Aboriginals were to be brought to trial before punishment. He also sent Edward John Eyre to Moorundie as protector of Aborigines, but serious clashes continued until the overlanding of sheep and cattle was stopped by low prices. Grey also tried to provide for destitute native children by encouraging schools for them near Adelaide, but at adolescence they drifted back to their tribes. His efforts to induce adults to work for white settlers were rarely successful and his own attempt, on a journey to the south-east of the colony, to make contact with Aboriginals, resulted only in a few paintings by one of his companions, George French Angas."

"In June 1854 Grey was appointed governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner of South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town obsessed with a visionary native policy that would end all Kaffir wars, bring the tribes between Cape Colony and Natal under control, penetrate their lands with broad settlements of white immigrants capable of defending themselves, and finally unite all South Africa in a self-sufficing, self-governing federation. In attempting to crowd these idealistic projects into a five-year term, he alienated his Legislative Council and the colonists and Kaffirs as well as the War Office, the Treasury and the Colonial Office. He ignored his orders, once boasting they that were merely suggestions to be set aside at his discretion, but he was reproved for detaining troops in South Africa during the Indian mutiny and censured for initiating discussions on confederation contrary to instructions. On his way to England in 1859 his recall was cancelled, and his confidence was restored by a cordial reception at the Colonial Office. While returning to South Africa next year he quarrelled with his wife and they separated."

Post 1854 Experiences

Sir George Grey in correspondence commented upon the Eureka Riots, the unpopularity of the Victorian Colonial Secretary and his disapproval of Sir Charles Hotham. He also refers in this correspondence to "the constitution for Van Diemen's Land; approving of Hotham's measures of quelling the Victorian riots but critical of his character, also discussing the Victorian constitution and the influx of ex-convicts into the colony". Grey also reports that the constitution for Van Diemen's Land was ready for the Royal Assent but that the South Australian proposals presented serious difficulties and would have to be returned.

He died on 19 September 1898, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

---