Grey, Sir George (1812-1898), was premier, or prime minister, of New Zealand from October 1877 to October 1879. During that time, New Zealand was a British colony. Political parties as we know them did not exist in New Zealand then, and Grey belonged to no party. Before becoming prime minister, Grey served twice as governor of New Zealand, the official appointed by the British monarch to oversee a colony. He also served as governor of the British colonies of South Australia and the Cape Colony in South Africa. Throughout his career, Grey sought to encourage Indigenous (native) peoples to adopt a European lifestyle. He also wrote much about Indigenous cultures and his explorations in western Australia.
Early life
Boyhood and education.
George Edward Grey was born on April 14, 1812, in Lisbon, Portugal. His mother was Elizabeth Anne Vignoles Grey, the daughter of an Irish clergyman. She had gone to Portugal to be near her husband, Lieutenant Colonel George Grey of the 30th Regiment of Foot, an infantry unit of the British Army. The regiment was fighting against the French in the Napoleonic Wars in Spain. Lieutenant Colonel Grey was killed at the Battle of Badajoz in Spain a few days before the baby boy was born. George was the couple’s only son. 
In 1817, George’s mother remarried. She and the boy’s stepfather sent young George to a boarding school in Guildford, England, but he was so unhappy there that he ran away. He then was tutored by an English clergyman. In 1826, he enrolled in the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.
Army career and marriage.
In 1830, Grey joined the 83rd Regiment of Foot as a low-ranking officer called an ensign. He served in Ireland and was promoted to lieutenant in 1833. In Ireland, Grey sympathized with the poverty that many Irish people suffered. He blamed the landlords who charged high rents to people who lived on their land. For the rest of his life, Grey opposed large landowners.
Grey became interested in Australia after reading about the travels of the British explorer Charles Sturt. In 1836, the Royal Geographical Society, a British organization, accepted Grey’s offer to explore what is now Western Australia.
In 1837 and 1839, Grey led two expeditions to the Kimberley district on the northwestern coast of Western Australia, one to Hanover Bay and the other to Shark Bay. Both expeditions ran into trouble. The first expedition fought with a group of Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Indigenous peoples of Australia. Grey shot and killed an Aboriginal man who had speared him in the thigh. Grey recovered from his wound and continued the expedition. His party visited and named the Glenelg River, Stephen Range, and Mount Lyell. Grey’s second group of explorers became the first Europeans to reach the Gascoyne River, but their boats were wrecked soon afterward. The party had to march 100 miles (161 kilometers) overland to Perth with little food or water.
In June 1839, the Army promoted Grey to the rank of captain. The British colonial government also appointed him resident magistrate at Albany in Western Australia. The resident magistrate was a judge who decided civil disputes and minor criminal cases.
On Nov. 2, 1839, Grey married Eliza Lucy Spencer, the daughter of Sir Richard Spencer, the previous resident magistrate. The young couple’s only child was born in 1841, but the baby boy lived only a few months.
Governor of South Australia
In 1840, Grey submitted a report to the United Kingdom’s Colonial Office concerning the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the Māori << MOW ree or MAH ree >> , the Indigenous people of New Zealand. The Colonial Office was the government department that supervised the colonies of the British Empire. The department was headed by the secretary of state for the colonies, or the colonial secretary. Grey’s report urged a policy called assimilation. Under this policy, the British would convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity, educate them in British schools, give them jobs, and subject them to British laws and customs. Grey’s report led the colonial secretary to appoint Grey as governor of the British colony of South Australia in 1841. Grey resigned from the Army with the rank of captain.
When Grey took office as governor, South Australia was torn by fighting between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples. The colony also was teetering near bankruptcy. In an effort to stop the fighting, Grey appointed officers called protectors of Aborigines to safeguard Aboriginal rights. Still, the violence continued. Grey was more successful with the economy. By aggressively slashing expenses, he restored the colony to financial health within a few years. He cut the police force in half and reduced many government salaries.
First term as governor of New Zealand
Grey’s financial success in South Australia led the Colonial Office to appoint him as governor of New Zealand, another British colony in difficulties. New Zealand was troubled by financial problems and disputes between Māori and British settlers, mainly over land claims. Grey arrived at Auckland in New Zealand’s North Island in November 1845. Māori leaders Hōne Heke and Kawiti were leading a rebellion in the far north. Grey led a force that defeated Kawiti at Ruapekapeka, ending the rebellion in the north. In the south, he arrested Māori chief Te Rauparaha and imprisoned him without a trial.
After defeating the rebellious Māori chiefs, Grey kept the peace by respecting Māori land rights. Within a few years, he had learned the Māori language and established friendly relations with many Māori chiefs. He studied Māori culture and encouraged Māori leaders to record their traditions, legends, and customs.
Despite Grey’s interest in Māori culture, his policy of assimilation insisted that Māori adopt British ways of life. He set up magistrates courts to enforce British laws in Māori districts. He helped finance mission schools to teach English to Māori children. He built several hospitals to treat Māori patients, and he encouraged Māori to begin farming. In 1848, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom granted him a knighthood, and he became known as Sir George Grey.
At that time, New Zealand was divided into two provinces, New Ulster (the northern part of the North Island) and New Munster (the South Island and the southern part of the North Island). In 1852, Grey introduced a constitution that set up provincial councils to govern the two provinces, as well as a General Assembly to govern the entire colony. He served as governor of New Zealand until late 1853.
In the 1840’s, Grey had written a book about the Australian Aboriginal languages and another book about his explorations in western Australia. In the 1850’s, he wrote several books about Māori songs, poetry, and legends.
Governor of Cape Colony
In 1854, Grey took up an appointment as governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa. The British government also made him high commissioner for South Africa, the representative of the British government in the region. At that time, South Africa was made up of both British and Dutch colonies. The European settlers in South Africa, like those in Australia and New Zealand, often came into conflict with the Indigenous peoples. Grey built roads, irrigation systems, schools, and a hospital for African patients. He encouraged missionaries to convert the local Xhosa people to Christianity.
While Grey was governor of Cape Colony, a tragedy known as the Great Cattle Killing occurred. Many Xhosa at that time had been alarmed by the loss of their land and the changes to their traditional society. Some believed that if they killed their livestock and stopped planting crops, the spirits of their ancestors would drive the Europeans into the sea and restore the Xhosa property. As a result, many Xhosa killed their cattle, and a terrible famine followed. Between 1856 and 1858, tens of thousands of people—about two-thirds of the Xhosa population—died. Grey used army and police forces to keep order. He also provided limited famine relief to the starving Xhosa, giving food to those who agreed to work on public projects.
Grey urged the British and Dutch colonies in South Africa to unite and form a federation. He believed that federation was the best way to guarantee peace and effective government. The Colonial Office opposed federation, however, and recalled him from South Africa in 1859.
During Grey’s ocean voyage back to the United Kingdom, a new British government came to power. The new colonial secretary was a supporter of Grey’s. He reappointed Grey as governor of Cape Colony on the condition that Grey drop his support of federation and agree to follow orders.
On the voyage back to South Africa, Grey and his wife, Eliza, quarreled. Each accused the other of being unfaithful. Grey had Eliza put ashore in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The couple lived apart for 36 years. They finally reunited in 1897, shortly before they both died. Grey resumed his position as governor from July 1860 to August 1861.
Return to New Zealand
In 1860, war broke out in New Zealand after a group of Māori disputed the British government’s purchase of Māori land in Taranaki. Government forces seized a Māori fortification built on disputed land near Waitara. Grey offered to return to New Zealand, hoping that his influence with Māori might restore peace. The British government accepted his offer, and Grey returned in September 1861 to once again serve as governor.
Second term as governor.
Grey attempted to introduce British law into Māori districts, but he was unsuccessful. Tensions remained between Europeans and the king movement, or Kīngitanga, which sought to unite Māori under a single Māori monarch.
In 1863, Grey ordered the invasion of the Waikato district, a Kīngitanga stronghold south of Auckland in New Zealand’s North Island. Grey claimed to have heard rumors that the Waikato Māori intended to invade Auckland. He had the support of many British settlers, who wanted to open up the Waikato’s fertile grazing lands to settlement. In a series of battles, government troops defeated the main Kīngitanga tribes. The colonial government passed the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863, which allowed the British to seize the land of Māori who had been declared rebels. In 1864, Grey ordered the seizure of 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of Māori land.
The British government removed Grey from his post in 1868, after he refused an order to withdraw troops from the colony. Grey then returned to England. There, he ran for Parliament in 1870 as a Liberal supporter of Prime Minister William Gladstone. He lost the election.
In 1870, Grey returned to New Zealand. He lived as a private citizen on Kawau Island, an island near Auckland that he had bought in 1862. There, he kept a mansion, lush gardens, and a small private zoo.
Grey soon became active once again in politics. He opposed a proposal by Prime Minister Julius Vogel to abolish the provincial councils, which Grey had established 10 years earlier. Grey was unsuccessful in his effort to save the provincial councils. However, he won election in 1875 as the superintendent of Auckland province and as the representative of Auckland City West in the House of Representatives, the lower house of New Zealand’s colonial Parliament. In 1876, Grey won the seat for the city of Thames in New Zealand’s North Island.
Prime minister.
In 1877, the government of Prime Minister Harry Atkinson faced criticism over what many viewed as a lack of clear policies. Atkinson resigned after losing a parliamentary motion called a vote of no confidence.
Grey succeeded Atkinson as prime minister on Oct. 13, 1877. However, he accomplished little as prime minister. His Cabinet split deeply over a number of issues, and he often came into conflict with the colony’s governor.
Grey campaigned for an ambitious program of liberal reforms. He called for the breaking up of large estates, government regulation of wages and hours, and voting reform. He called for “one man, one vote”—that is, ending the practice of plural voting, in which landowners could vote in all the districts where they owned land. New Zealand later adopted several of his proposals, but he failed to gain support for them while he was prime minister.
In 1878, New Zealand fell into a business slump and suffered high unemployment. Grey called an election in 1879. Economic problems had caused his government to lose favor with the voters, and it failed to win a majority in Parliament. Grey resigned as prime minister on Oct. 8, 1879. He was succeeded by John Hall.
Member of Parliament.
Grey remained in Parliament for about 15 more years, representing first the voting district of Newton in Auckland and later Auckland City again.
Grey was an enthusiastic naturalist and scholar. He collected rocks, plant samples, and rare books. He donated his botanical and geological collections to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the South Kensington Museum (now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London. He also supported the establishment of public libraries. He donated rare books and manuscripts to the South African Public Library in Cape Town (now the National Library of South Africa) in 1861 and the Auckland Public Library in 1887. His gifts included first editions of the works of the English playwright William Shakespeare.
In 1888, Grey sold Kawau Island and moved back to Auckland. In 1891, Parliament chose him as one of three New Zealand representatives at the National Australasian Convention in Sydney. The convention met to discuss how the six Australian colonies and New Zealand might form a federation. At the convention, Grey again argued for the “one man, one vote” policy. In one of his most important parliamentary achievements, Grey finally succeeded in ending plural voting in New Zealand in 1889.
Later years
In 1894, Sir George returned to England. He became a member of the Privy Council, an honorary group of advisers to the British queen. He resigned his seat in the New Zealand Parliament in 1895.
Sir George and his wife reunited in 1897. Lady Grey died in London in early September 1898, and Sir George followed on September 19.
A number of places in South Africa and New Zealand are named in honor of Sir George Grey. They include Grey College, a school for boys in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Grey donated money to establish the school in 1855. Other places named for him include Greytown in South Africa and Greytown, Greymouth, Grey Lynn, the Grey River, Grey Glacier, and Mount Grey (also known by its Māori name, Maukatere) in New Zealand.
