GRENFELL, PASCOE (1761-1838), politician, was born at Marazion in
Cornwall, and baptised at St. Hilary Church 24 Sept. 1761. His father,
Pascoe Grenfell, born in 1729, after acting as a merchant in London, became
commissary to the States of Holland, and died at Marazion 27 May 1810,
having married Mary, third child of' Wllliam Tremenheere, attorney, Penzance.
The son went to the grammar school at Truro in 1777,where he was
contemporary with Richard Polwhele, the historian and Dr John Cole, rector of
Exeter College, Oxford. Afterwards proceeding to London he entered
into business with his father and uncle, who were merchants and large dealers in tin and
copper ores. In course of time he connected himself with Thomas Williams of Temple House,
Great Marlow, then occupied with the development of the industries of
Anglesey and Cornwall, and the largest manufacturer in the products of those
districts in the kingdom. Grenfell soon became principal managing partner of
these concerns, and having purchased Taplow House as a residence, was chosen
parliamentary representative residence for Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire on the death of
Williams in1802, for which place he sat from 14 Dec. 1802 to 29 Feb. 1820. He
represented Penryn in Cornwall from 9 March 1820 to 2 June 1826. In
parliament he was a zealous supporter of William Wilberforce in the debates
on
slavery, a vigilant observer of the actions of the Bank of England, and a
great authority on finance. On the latter subject he made many speeches, two
of which he published in 1816, and it was chiefly through his efforts that
the periodical publication of the accounts of the bank was commenced (Hansard,
vols. xxii. xxx-xxxvii.) He was governor of the Royal Exchange
Insurance Company, and a commissioner of the lieutenancy for London. He
died at 38 Belgrave Square, London, 23 Jan. 1838. He married, first, his
cousin, Charlotte Granville, who died in 1790, and secondly, on 16 Jan. 1798, Georgiana St. Leger,
seventh and youngest daughter of St. Leger St. Leger, first viscount
Doneraile. She died 12 May 1818.
[Private information; Gent. Mag. April 1838, p. 429; D.Gilbert's Cornwall,
ii. 216; Polwhele's Reminiscences (1836), i. 12, 110; Lipscombe's
Buckinghamshire, i; 304; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. pp. 189, 1205;
Duke of Buckingham's Memoirs of Court of George 1V (1859), i.
282-3]
G.C.B.
Text reproduced from the Dictionary of National Biography, Earliest Times
to 1900 Vol. V111, edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, by permission of
Oxford University Press.
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