Name Granville 3rd Died July 21, 1939 | Education Eton College | |
Parents Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville Grandparents Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville, Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville Great-grandparents Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire | ||
Granville George Leveson-Gower, 3rd Earl Granville GCMG GCVO PC (4 March 1872 – 21 July 1939) was a British diplomat from the Leveson-Gower family who was envoy to several countries.
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Career
The eldest son of the 2nd Earl Granville, Leveson-Gower was educated at Eton College and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1893 as an attaché in Berlin. He served in Cairo, Vienna, The Hague and Brussels, then was appointed back to Berlin with the rank of Counsellor in 1911. In 1913 he was appointed to Paris, again as counsellor, and moved to Bordeaux when the French government relocated there in September 1914 as the German army approached the capital before the First Battle of the Marne.
On 1 January 1917 he was appointed Diplomatic Agent to the Greek provisional government of Eleftherios Venizelos in Salonika, shortly afterwards formalised as Minister Plenipotentiary.
In June 1917, King Constantine abdicated, the previous British Minister to the Greek Government, Sir Francis Elliot, departed and Granville became official Minister to Greece in Athens. He was Minister to Denmark 1921–26, Minister to the Netherlands 1926–28 and Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg 1928–33.
As a Privy Counsellor, Earl Granville took part in the official procedures legalising the accession of King Edward VIII in 1936 and, later that year, his abdication and the accession of King George VI.
Honours
Earl Granville was appointed MVO in 1904, raised to CVO in 1913 on the occasion of King George V's visit to Berlin, and knighted GCVO in the King's Birthday Honours of 1914. He was given the additional, senior knighthood of KCMG in the New Year Honours of 1924 and raised to GCMG in 1932.
He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1928. The King of Belgium awarded him the Order of Leopold.
He had also been a Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria in 1895, to King Edward VII from 1905–10 and to King George V from 1910–15.
Family
On 27 September 1900, he had married Nina Ayesha Baring (whose father, Walter Baring, was also a diplomat) but died without issue and his titles passed to his brother William.