Grey , a W. county of Ontario. Canada, bounded N. E. by Georgian bay and Owen sound, and watered by Saugeen river and smaller streams; area, 1,800 sq. m.; pop. in 1871, 59,395, of whom 23,511 were of Irish, 17,551 of Scotch, 11,283 of English, 4,702 of German, and 426 of French origin. The land is rough, sandy, and stony, but supports a valuable growth of pine. The county is intersected by the Toronto, Grey, and Bruce railway. Capital, Owen Sound.

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Grey ,.I. Charles, earl, an English statesman, born at Fallowden, Northumberland, March 13, 1704, died at Howick house, July 17, 1845. He entered parliament as member for Northumberland in 1786, and attached himself to the whig party, then under the leadership of Fox. In 1788 he was appointed one of the managers of the trial of Warren Hastings. In 1792 he was one of the founders of the "Society of the Friends of the People," whose object was to obtain a reform in parliament. About this time he attempted to mitigate the law of imprisonment for debt. Being in opposition, he was unsuccessful in his endeavor to obtain a committee of inquiry into the conduct of ministers, in his plan of parliamentary reform, and in his proposal to abolish a number of Irish rotten boroughs. Pitt having died in 1806, a new ministry was formed under Lord Grenville, and Grey, now Baron Howick, was appointed first lord of the admiralty, Fox being secretary for foreign affairs. Fox dying in September, Grey took his place. Lord Grenville and he were now the recognized leaders of the whig party, Grenville in the house of lords and Grey in the commons.

During this session Grey carried through the bill for the abolition of the slave trade, and moved the abolition of the oath which excluded Roman Catholics from rank in the army and navy. His proposal was met with violent opposition by the Protestant interest, and the king exacted from his ministers a written pledge that they would not press a measure which he considered perilous to church and state. Grey declined to give such a promise, resigned, and the cabinet was broken up. The death of his father in the succeeding year called him as Earl Grey to the house of lords. For the 18 years succeeding the death of Perceval (1812-30) Earl Grey ably led the opposition. The chief events of his career during this period were his opposition to a renewal of the war in 1815; his condemnation of the coercive measures of the government against the people in the depression and restlessness which followed the peace; his opposition to every attempt to abridge the right of public meeting, and to the bill of pains and penalties against Queen Caroline; his support of Hus-kisson's measures of commercial reform; and his vehement hostility to Canning's administration. He had the satisfaction in 1829 of seeing the Catholic emancipation act passed.

The French revolution of 1830 and other causes having given a new impulse to the agitation for reform, the tory ministry under Wellington was obliged to retire, and William IV. requested Earl Grey to form a government; he consented only on condition that the reform of the parliamentary representation should be brought forward as a cabinet question. In November, 1830, the new premier announced in the house of lords that the policy of his administration would be "peace, retrenchment, and reform;" and in March, 1831, the first reform bill was introduced. On May 7, 1832, a motion having been carried which was considered hostile to the reform measure, the ministry resigned, and the duke of Wellington undertook to form a new administration. On May 17, however, Earl Grey returned to power; on June 4 the reform bill passed the house of lords, and three days afterward it received the royal assent. He resigned in July, 1834, in consequence of Irish difficulties. II. Henry George, earl, an English statesman, son of the preceding, born Dec. 28, 1802. He entered parliament in 1826. On the formation of the reform ministry by his father in 1830, Lord Howick, as he was then called, was appointed under secretary for the colonies, but resigned in 1833 in consequence of his disapproving the details of the measure for negro emancipation.

For a few months of 1834 he was under secretary for the home department. He was secretary at war in the Melbourne administration from 1835 to 1839. When the Peel administration came in, he earned the reputation of being one of the most brilliant men of the opposition. On his father's death, in July, 1845, he took his seat in the house of lords as Earl Grey, and in the succeeding year was appointed secretary for the colonies in the administration of Lord John Russell. On his retirement with his colleagues in 1852, he published in two volumes a defence of his colonial policy, and in 1858 an "Essay on Parliamentary Government as to Reform" (2d ed., 1864).