The Greville Memoirs: A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV, King William IV and Queen Victoria

Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (1794-1865) was one of the most important English political and social diarists. Clerk to the Privy Council for over forty years, he mixed with all the great political names of the day, including Wellington, Melbourne, Palmerston and Peel. Greville was fascinated by people, and a great collector of information, believing that ‘there is always something to be learned from everybody if you touch them on the points they know’. Greville always intended his diaries to be published after his death. They appeared in eight volumes between 1874 and 1887, and form an important historical source for the first half of the nineteenth century. Volume 5 begins with the election of 1841, and includes war in Afghanistan and continuing political trouble in Ireland. The volume continues to the end of 1846, and includes the fall of Sir Robert Peel over the Corn Law Bill.