The Revd Harry Grey was born in Knutsford, Cheshire, England, on 26 February 1812, and was the son of the Revd Harry Grey and his wife, Frances Elizabeth Ellis.
Harry was educated at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford (BA) in 1836 and married on 30 September 1844, to Susan Gaydon, the daughter of Richard Gaydon, of Tiverton, Devon, England.
Susan died in Bamstaple, Devon, on 20 November 1869. He married for the 2nd time at St. John’s Church, Wynberg in the Cape, by the Revd George Mitchell, on 19 December 1872, to Annie Macnamara. Sadly, she died in September 1874.
He remarried again for the third time in Wynberg, by Dr P E Faure of the Dutch Reformed Church, on 6 December 1880, to Martha Solomons, the daughter of Solomon Solomons.
Harry was ordained as a Deacon in 1836 and a Priest in 1837.
He arrived at the Cape in about 1854 and acceded to the earldom of Stamford and barony of Grey of Groby on 2
January 1883. He died in Wynberg on 19 June 1890 of pneumonia. He is buried in St. Johns Cemetery in Wynberg.
“You must be very well aware that long before I succeeded to the family title, I had by my ill conduct forfeited all claims on family consideration
and respect. And, on obtaining my titular position, I crowned this most unenviable position by the marriage I entered into. Out here, I am pointed at with the finger of scorn and contempt. And I may say ditto with regard to England and not one of my family with your exception now sees fit to notice me” (Lord Stamford to his nephew William Grey, quoted in Langham-Carter). “He was a most unusual individual, the most unlordly nobleman and the most unpriestly clergyman”
(Langham-Carter). [Crockford’s Clerical Directory, 1889, p. 1185. RR Langham-Carter, “Lord Stamford’s Tangled Affairs”, in Familia, XI (1974), no. 1, pp. 8-16; “Lord Stamford’s Descendants”, in Familia, XVI (1979), no. 2, pp. 31-33.] Source Acknowledgement: Messengers, Watchmen and Stewards by Andries William de Villiers.
