Grafton, Augustus Henry Fitzroy
Grafton, Augustus Henry Fitzroy
GRAFTON, AUGUSTUS HENRY FITZROY. (1735–1811). British prime minister. Succeeding to his grandfather's dukedom in 1756, Grafton was at first an admirer of Pitt and an ally of Lord Temple. On 9 December 1762 he led the opposition to the peace preliminaries and made a personal attack upon Bute. He was secretary of state for the Northern Department in the Rockingham administration of 1765–1766, resigning two months before the ministry fell. In Chatham's ministry he was first lord of the Treasury, but until 1767, when illness disabled him, the real head of the government was Pitt himself. Grafton stepped reluctantly into the breach but preferred inaction to leadership. In 1769 he was outvoted in the cabinet on the question of retaining Townshend's tea tax. On 30 January 1770, plagued by the opposition of a revived Chatham, he resigned in favor of Lord North.
SEE ALSO Bute, John Stuart, third Earl of.
revised by John Oliphant