His father, another George, married (1793) Selina, daughter of Henry Peckwell (1747–1787), minister of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon's chapel in Westminster, and his wife Bella Blosset (descended from a Huguenot officer Salomon Blosset de Loche who left the Dauphiné on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), and had one daughter and ten sons, of whom George was the eldest.

He spent all his spare time in the study of classics, history, metaphysics and political economy and in learning German, French and Italian.

Driven by his mother's Puritanism and his father's contempt for academic learning, he sought other friends, one of whom was Charles Hay Cameron, who strengthened him in his love of philosophy.

Through another friend, George W. Norman, he met his wife, Harriet Lewin (1792–1878), a writer and later the biographer of the artist Ary Scheffer.

During Mrs Grote's convalescence at Hampstead, he wrote his first published work, the "Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform" (1821), in reply to Sir James Mackintosh's article in the Edinburgh Review, advocating popular representation, vote by ballot and short parliaments.

In April 1826 Grote published in The Westminster Review a criticism of William Mitford's History of Greece, which shows that his ideas were already in order.

In 1830, owing to a difference with Mill as to an appointment to one of the philosophical chairs (Grote objected to John Hoppus), he resigned his position.

[2] During these years of active public life, his interest in Greek history and philosophy had increased, and after a trip to Italy in 1842, he severed his connection with the bank and devoted himself to literature.

The formation of the Sonderbund (20 July 1847) led him to visit Switzerland and study for himself a condition of things in some sense analogous to that of the ancient Greek states.

He had finished the Organon and was about to deal with the metaphysical and physical treatises when he died at his home in Mayfair, London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Grote's time on the Council at University College London was characterised by his contentious approach to two liberal nonconformists: John Hoppus and James Martineau, both of whom found ways to work around his opposition.