Nationality | Greville, George, second earl of Warwick and second Earl Brooke (1746–1816), art collector, was born on 16 September 1746, the eldest son of Francis Greville, first Earl Brooke and later first earl of Warwick (1719–1773), politician and art collector, and his wife, Elizabeth (1720/21–1800), daughter of Lord Archibald Hamilton, a lord commissioner of the Admiralty, and Lady Jane Hamilton. His uncle was the diplomatist and art collector Sir William Hamilton, and his younger brother, Charles Francis Greville, later achieved note as a mineralogist and horticulturist. Greville was born into close proximity to the Hanoverian court—his maternal grandmother was widely understood to be the mistress of Frederick, prince of Wales—but also into a family already committed to the arts. His father had inherited the title of eighth Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court in 1727 and devoted much of his adulthood to extending his seat, Warwick Castle, and enhancing the Greville family's status, becoming Earl Brooke in 1746. Following the death of the last earl of Warwick of the Rich family, he successfully petitioned George II for that earldom in 1759, thereby restoring its medieval association with the castle. Thereafter Brooke contrived to use the Warwick title rather than the senior title of Earl Brooke, a practice continued and magnified by his son and descendants.
Lord Greville, as he was known before he succeeded to the earldoms, was educated at Eton College from 1753 to 1754. He subsequently attended the University of Edinburgh where he lodged with and studied under the historian William Robertson, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 24 September 1764, but did not take a degree. He travelled to Naples and Venice in late 1766 and early 1767. At the general election of 1768 he was brought in as MP for Warwick, a borough where the Grevilles had a leading though not overwhelming interest. He voted with the opposition on the petition of John Wilkes on 27 January 1769, but afterwards supported the government. In April 1770 he was appointed to the Board of Trade. On 1 April 1771, at St George's, Hanover Square, London, he married Georgiana, daughter of Sir James Peachey, fourth baronet, later first Baron Selsey; she died exactly one year later, a week after giving birth to their son, George (1772–1786).
Though educated for a leading role in political life, Greville professed to be overwhelmed by his position on the Board of Trade and in 1773 he passed on the post to his more capable brother Charles. Greville succeeded as second earl on his father's death on 6 July 1773. The new earl of Warwick set out to remodel Warwick Castle, continuing or reviving in some cases projects begun by his father. He repaired the fabric, replaced windows and furniture, and built a new library. His main preoccupation was to expand the art collection inherited from the first earl, a patron of Canaletto. In 1772–3 his hope that George Romney would acquire for him old masters and antiquities in Italy came to nothing as the artist concentrated on his own career. Warwick began a more enduring relationship about 1775 with the watercolourist John Smith, whom Warwick also sent to Italy and who returned to set up home in Warwick, and thereby to gain the soubriquet ‘Warwick’ Smith. In the medium term he received greater assistance in extending his collection from his uncle William Hamilton, who procured several items for him from Italy. By 1778 these included the monumental Warwick vase (now in the Burrell collection, Glasgow), assembled from smashed fragments found in the remains of the emperor Hadrian's palace complex at Tivoli, and installed by Warwick in a dedicated ‘greenhouse’ at the castle. Other additions to the collection perhaps acquired by Hamilton included sixteenth-century Italian armour, some by the leading armourer Pompeo della Cesa, placed by Warwick in a new armoury. The process by which the Warwick Castle collection was developed is poorly documented, but when justifying his collecting late in life Warwick wrote of his acquisition of 'a matchless collection of pictures, by Vandyke, Rubens, &c.' and 'marbles … not equalled, perhaps, in the kingdom' (G. Greville, Narrative, 58).
In his account of his financial difficulties Warwick admitted that at this time he 'knew nothing of that important part of my duty, the management of my Estate and Possessions' (G. Greville, Narrative, 1) and his ventures added debts to an already encumbered inheritance. On 14 July 1776 he married Henrietta (1760–1838), daughter of Richard Vernon, of Hilton, Staffordshire, and (Lady) Evelyn, née Leveson-Gower, widow of John Fitzpatrick, first earl of Upper Ossory, and sister of George, second Earl Gower. The union may well have been contracted as a way of providing Warwick with the means to repay a loan from his new father-in-law, since the marriage settlement provided for Vernon to be paid £200 per annum for life. Warwick and his second wife had two sons and six daughters.
In 1780 a satirical publication observed that while Warwick lacked 'the predominant Vices of the age', even good qualities like 'Virtù and Taste, alone, will find a way sometimes to get, very quickly, to the far end of a large fortune' (R—l Register, 4.130). Warwick's mother, fearing for her annuity when it fell into arrears, suggested that her son turn to his half-brother-in-law John Fitzpatrick, second earl of Upper Ossory, for advice; Upper Ossory in turn recommended William James as his legal adviser. On 20 August 1782 Warwick handed over control of the bulk of his estate to a trust headed by Upper Ossory. From then on influence over his ancestral property steadily fell out of Warwick's hands. He retained some political control at first in Warwick borough, where in 1784 he was unsuccessful in removing his whig brother Charles (a trustee) as an MP. On 4 March 1787 Warwick made his maiden speech in the House of Lords in support of Pitt the younger's government's commercial treaty with France, and from 1788 he used his interest in the borough on behalf of the ministry, perhaps with its financial help, turning Charles Greville and his ally Robert Ladbroke out in 1790 in favour of Pittites.
For the rest of his life Warwick attempted to prove his competence to run a great estate. Since inheriting the castle he had altered its relationship with the borough of Warwick, extending the park to the north, closing streets, and demolishing houses. A new porter's lodge and drive were built on a site excavated 'thro' a solid rock' (G. Greville, Narrative, 58). Benefits for the town included a new water cistern and cattle wash and then a new stone bridge across the River Avon, free of tolls, opened in 1793 and maintained by the earl until 1800. His patronage of artists continued, with John Smith being followed by the animal painter John Higton and possibly the marine painter John Serres. Warwick's support for Pitt's administration was rewarded in 1795 with the lord lieutenancy of Warwickshire. In the late 1790s he recruited George Vancouver as his agricultural adviser and encouraged Vancouver to invest in improvements to irrigation and agricultural buildings, despite the opposition of William James and the trustees. With Vancouver's advice Warwick also bought the Bishop's Tachbrook estate adjacent to Warwick Castle park and incorporated it into their schemes. Warwick argued that Vancouver's improvements raised the annual rental value of the estate from £8000 to £14,300 within five years, at the expense of £18,000 over three years. Vancouver was banished by William James, who in 1799 took over as steward of the estate himself and ended Warwick's speculative investments. As Warwick saw it, James prevented him from exploiting the estate to his and its profit. In one case the ‘soap mine’ discovered by Vancouver was seized by James and the trust and Warwick's ambitions to develop the resulting product (which was efficacious in salt water and of potential use to the Royal Navy) were consequently frustrated. In 1800, following the death of the dowager countess of Warwick, the trust was revised again, to benefit Warwick's surviving sons; it was the earl's opinion that James had turned his heir against him.
In 1801 Warwick entertained Sir William and Lady Hamilton at Warwick Castle. Hamilton 'was bored to death by his Lordship's eternal talk & stories, chiefly of himself, as to strength, bravery, knowledge of improvement, so as to be actually now one of the richest men in England' (The Collection of Autograph Letters, 2.174). Agricultural improvement was a topic on which Warwick occasionally spoke in the House of Lords, especially in defence of 'poor cottagers who used to occupy small lots of ground' (The Times, 3 June 1801) who he thought should have their property rights protected so they could continue to feed themselves from their own livestock and vegetables. His proposal in 1807 for an 'equal and equitable, and at the same time general and compulsory' (Hansard 1L, 8.1029) system of taxation based on income rather than consumption demonstrated an unworldly understanding of the means by which the state raised revenue from the propertied. It was rejected by the Lords. His last contribution in the chamber was his presentation of a petition from the manufacturers of Birmingham against the East India Company monopoly in 1812.
Warwick's estates in Somerset, Northamptonshire, and Gloucestershire were sold in the early nineteenth century to meet the demands of his creditors. He had been evicted from Warwick Castle by the time of the visit of George, prince of Wales, in September 1806, when the prince and his brother William, duke of Clarence, were entertained by Warwick's heir, Henry Richard Greville, Lord Brooke (1779–1853). Warwick lived in his later years on an allowance of £1000 a year, not enough to sustain his status or meet his debts. After several years in penury he died at his home in Green Street, Mayfair, London, on 2 May 1816. Lord Brooke succeeded to the earldoms. A statement of Warwick's case against his trustees and their agent William James, though with almost all names removed, was published later that year as A Narrative of the Peculiar Case of the Late Earl of Warwick. An appendix included correspondence between the earl's executor and the estate solicitors over the latter's resistance to the granting of probate. In 1824 it was calculated that Warwick's debts stood at £70,321 18s. 9d.
Warwick's career stood as an example of misguided aristocratic ambition. His failure to understand business and his desire to fashion a seat and setting worthy of the dignity of the earls of Warwick brought himself and his family to ruin. However, within a century of his death—and after further disasters had compelled the Grevilles to open Warwick Castle as a revenue-earning tourist attraction—the second earl had been rehabilitated as 'the great virtuoso of his house' who 'did more for the embellishment of the Castle than any of its occupants since Sir Fulke Greville' (F. Greville, 2.765–6). While much of his collection was sold in the twentieth century to meet financial pressures similar to those that the second earl had failed to address, the topographical relationship of Warwick Castle to the town remains much as he left it. |