Family and Education

b. Mar. 1734, 2nd s. of Sir Robert Grosvenor^†, 6th Bt., of Eaton Hall, Cheshire by Jane, da. and h. of Thomas Warre of Swell Court. educ. Westminster 1749-51; I. Temple 1750; Oriel, Oxf. 1751. m. 21 Sept. 1758, Deborah, da. and coh. of Stephen Skynner of Walthamstow, Essex, 4s. 2da.

Offices Held

Biography

After playing a prominent part in the St. Alban’s Tavern group’s attempt to promote a union of parties in 1784, ‘tunbellied Tommy Grosvenor’, as one jaundiced observer of that enterprise dubbed him, supported Pitt, to whom he applied unsuccessfully for a peerage in 1788. His only reported speech after 1790, when he came in again for Chester on the family interest, was against abolition of the slave trade, 18 Apr. 1791:

he had twenty reasons for disapproving the idea ... and the first, was that the thing itself was impossible, and therefore he would not give the other nineteen ... He acknowledged that it was not an amiable trade; but neither, said he, is the trade of a butcher very amiable, and yet a mutton chop is, notwithstanding, a very good thing.

The same month he was listed as an opponent of the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland. He died 12 Feb. 1795.

M. Elwin, Noels and Milbankes, 230; PRO 30/8/140, f. 343.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: M. H. Port

Notes