969 William Grenfell

Constituency  : Salisbury  1880-2, 1885-6  , Hereford  1892-3 , Wycombe  1900-5  ( Conservative )

William  was  one  of  two  Liberal  victors  at  Salisbury.

William  was  the  son  of   Charles  Grenfell, former  Whig  MP  for  Sandwich. He  was  educated  at  Harrow  and  Oxford. He  was  a  major  landowner  in  Kent.He  was  a  keen  sportsman  and  rowed  for  Oxford  in  the  Boat  Races  of  1877 and  1878. He  was  also  fond  of  fencing  ( he  won  a  silver  medal  at  the  Athens  Olympics ), mountaineering , fishing  and  big-game  hunting.

In  1882  William  was  appointed  a  groom-in-waiting  to  the  queen  and  lost  his  seat  in  the  subsequent  by-election.  He  recaptured  it  with  a  very  small  majority  three  years  later. He  was  appointed  parliamentary  private  secretary  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.

William  predicted  his  defeat  in  1886  following  the  Home  Rule  crisis.  In  1888  he  went  out  to  Sudan  as  a  special  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Telegraph. In  1890  he  contested  the  Windsor  by-election  for  the  Liberals  but  was  unsuccessful.

In  1892  William  returned  as  MP  for  Hereford  but  resigned  his  seat  in  1893  when  he  could  not  support  the  Home  Rule  Bill. He  was  also  opposed  to  Treasury  policy  on  the  gold  standard  , advocating  bi-metallism. He  supported  a  Conservative  candidate  at  Oxford  in  1895.  He returned  in  1900  as  a  Conservative. He  never  spoke  in  the  Commons  until  1901. He  was  raised  to  the  Lords  as  Baron  Desborough  in  1905.

William  married  a  grandfather  of the  Earl  of  Westmorland  in  1887  and  hosted  an  exclusive  gathering  of  aristocrats  the  "Souls", eroding  Whig-Tory  distinctions . Hartington  was  a  frequent  visitor.

William  was  President  of  the  Thames  Conservancy  Board  from  1904  to  1937. He  was  at  different  times  President  of  the  London  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society.He   was  president  of  the  Olympic  Games  in  London  in  1908. He  donated  land  for  a  park  in  Maidenhead  and  populated  it  with  tree  from  seeds  gathered  during  his  international  travels. He  was  Mayor  of  Maidenhead  in  1895  and  1896.

In  November  1914  William  was  appointed  President  of  the  Central  Association  of  Volunteer  Training  Corps,  a  militia  for  home  defence   and  held  the  post  until  it  was  disbanded  in  1920. He  was  Captain  of  the  Yeoman  of  the  Guard  from  1924  until  1929.

When  Lord  Bessborough  died  in  1920  William  had  the  dubious  pleasure  of  reading  a  premature  obituary  in  The  Times.

He  died  in  1945  aged  89.