Grenvillite

The Grenville Whigs (or Grenvillites) were a name given to several British political factions of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, all of which were associated with the important Grenville family of Buckinghamshire.

The Grenville family interest, led by Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, which dominated local politics in Buckinghamshire, was prominent in the mid-18th century politics as close allies of Temple's brother-in-law, William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl Chatham. They had earlier been members of the group of Cobham's Cubs.

However, in the early 1760s, a split occurred in the family as a result of Pitt's dismissal from the government in October 1761. Temple quit the government in protest, but his younger brother, George Grenville, remained in the government, which was now dominated by King George III's favourite, Lord Bute, who served as Leader of the House of Commons.

The followers of the younger Grenville became known as Grenvillites or Grenville Whigs.

George Grenville fully came into his own as a politician in 1763, when he was made Prime Minister, but his own following was not sufficient to form a government. Grenville was forced to rely largely on the Bedford Whigs, supporters of the Duke of Bedford, to staff his ministry.

After Grenville himself was ousted from power in 1765 as a result of conflicts with the King, Grenville moved into opposition and for a time from 1766 to 1767 was the leader of one of three separate opposition factions (the other two were led by the Duke of Bedford and Lord Rockingham).

After Grenville's own death in 1770, the Earl of Suffolk took over the official leadership of Grenville's faction and negotiated Grenvillite entrance into the Lord North ministry in early 1771, but many of Grenville's former supporters refused to follow him and remained in opposition with Chatham and Temple.

After Lord Temple's death in 1779, George Grenville's sons, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 3rd Earl Temple (from 1784 the Marquess of Buckingham), and William Wyndham Grenville, became the principal figures in the Grenville family. Temple played a key role in bringing down the Fox-North coalition in December 1783 and in bringing his cousin William Pitt the Younger to power as Prime Minister, but he was snubbed for major office. Nevertheless, he and his supporters backed the new ministry, and William Grenville soon became one of Pitt's closest advisors and served for ten years (1791–1801) as Foreign Secretary during the difficult period of the French Revolutionary Wars.^{[citation needed]}