Charles Francis Greville PC FRS FRSE FLS FSA (12 May 1749 – 23 April 1809) was a British antiquarian, collector and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1790.

[1] Greville lived most of his adult life on a rigid income of £500 a year, generated from landowning and investments, with which managed to acquire antiquities from Gavin Hamilton in Rome.

As a Fellow of the Royal Society, his special interest was in minerals and precious stones, which were catalogued by the émigré Jacques Louis, Comte de Bournon[3] and were later purchased via Act of Parliament for the British Museum.

When it was the property of Sir William Hamilton, Greville applied for an Act of Parliament to enable Hamilton and his heirs to make docks, construct quays, establish markets, with roads and avenues to the port, to regulate the police, and make the place a station for conveying the mails.

[14] At a site on high ground in nearby Hakin, Greville planned to build the College of King George the Third to allow the study of mathematics and navigation, whose centrepiece would be an observatory.

[15] Greville never married, but had a liaison with Emma Hamilton for several years when she begged for his help after becoming pregnant with Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh's child in 1782 and he rejected her.

He later helped to engineer her meeting and subsequent marriage to his uncle Sir William Hamilton, perhaps in an attempt to win his favour and also to clear the way for him (Greville) to finding a wealthy wife.

[18] Grevillea, a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, is named after him, due to his role as a patron of botany and co-founder of the Royal Horticultural Society.