He was one of the Pages of Honour to George III, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; but he left the university early, having been appointed private secretary to Earl Bathurst before he was twenty.

[2] The interest of the Duke of Portland had secured for him the secretaryship of the island of Jamaica, which was a sinecure office, the duties being performed by a deputy, and the reversion of the clerkship of the council.

Greville entered upon the discharge of the duties of a Clerk of the Council in ordinary in 1821, and continued to perform them for nearly forty years, until his retirement in 1859.

[3] Greville died at Mayfair, London, and the celebrity now attached to his name is entirely due to the posthumous publication of a portion of a Journal or Diary that it was his practice to keep during the greater part of his life.

These journals were regarded as a faithful record of the impressions made on the mind of a competent observer, at the time, by the events he witnessed and the persons with whom he associated.

He records not so much public events as the private causes which led to them; and perhaps no English memoir-writer has left behind him a more valuable contribution to the history of the 19th century.

Greville published anonymously, in 1845, a volume on the Past and Present Policy of England in Ireland, in which he advocated the payment of the Roman Catholic clergy; and he was also the author of several pamphlets on the events of his day.

Wells and the Doubleday publishing house produced The Greville Diary in two volumes in 1927; however, these were criticised for poor editing and containing some inaccurate statements.

Mr Greville's indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude, betrayal of confidence and shameful disloyalty towards his Sovereign make it very important that the book should be severely censored and discredited".