GREY, GEORGE

Sir George Grey (April 14, 1812-September 19, 1898) was the British governor of Cape Colony and British high commissioner for South Africa from 1854-61.

PHOTO CAPTION: George Grey. SOURCE: EA Library

The son of a British army officer, George Grey was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Eight days before his birth, his father was killed in action at Badajoz, Spain, during the Peninsula War against Napoleon. Grey received his commission in the British Army in 1829, serving in it until 1837.

He then engaged in two lengthy expeditions of exploration in western Australia (1837-39). From 1840-45, he was governor of South Australia. During his term of office he strengthened the economy, discouraged land speculation, and promoted agriculture.

From 1845-53 he was governor of New Zealand. He was appointed at a time when war had broken out between Maoris and British settlers over land rights. He took strong military action against the Maoris, and then established friendly relations with them, while at the same time promoting a policy of westernisation. He also became a scholar of Maori culture, studying Maori mythology and oral history.

Administratively, he was an early exponent of the British colonial policy of governing through traditional means, later known as “Indirect rule.” With respect to the British settlers, he favoured small landowners and discouraged the formation of large estates, a position which brought him into sharp conflict with leading British settlers.

In 1854, at a time of rising tension in South Africa, he was appointed governor of Cape Colony. His success in calming the prevailing conflict between Africans and European settlers won praise from both sides. Upon the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, he sent men, money, and supplies to India from South Africa to help to maintain British power there. When the great Xhosa cattle killing occurred in the same year, he organised the provision of food to the Xhosa to relieve the famine that followed.

He also initiated the importation of Indian labour to work in the sugar industry in Natal. Seeking to establish peaceful conditions, he mediated a settlement to the border dispute between the Orange Free State and the Sotho kingdom, thereby temporarily resolving a cause of conflict.

His main aim in South Africa was to federate the British and Boer settlements into a single administration, as well as to integrate African labour into the South African colonial economy. He obtained the support of the Boer population of the Orange Free State for his federation plan, only to find it opposed by the British government, which at that time was seeking to reduce both British expenditures and the further expansion of British power overseas. In consequence, Grey was recalled to England in 1859.

His return, however, coincided with the fall of the government, and Grey found himself reinstated as governor of the Cape, but was enjoined not to pursue his federation efforts any further. In his last year in office, before being transferred to the governorship of New Zealand at his own request, he extended the Cape frontiers eastwards, towards Natal. He granted the Griqua, under Adam Kok III, the territory known as No Man’s Land, situated between the Sotho and the coastal chiefdoms. He also opened negotiations with Faku and Sarhili [Sarili] and other Transkei chiefs that eventually resulted in the incorporation of their chiefdoms into the Cape Colony. Upon leaving South Africa, he gave to Cape Town Public Library his books and manuscripts, which at that time was the most valuable collection of the kind in the southern hemisphere.

Grey served as governor of New Zealand from 1861-68, and then entered New Zealand politics. He held a seat in the New Zealand parliament from 1870-90, and served as prime minister of New Zealand from 1877-79. In 1894 he retired to London, England, where he died in 1898, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Grey held the conviction considered progressive in his day that non-European peoples were ready and able to acquire western culture and to take advantage of its benefits.

KEITH IRVINE