[1][27][28][29] Traditionally held to have arisen in Northumbria,[30][31][32] modern scholarship suggests the name may instead derive from medieval woodland clearance in the former Forest of Arden in the English Midlands,[a] before later spreading northward with the family.

[2][31][33][34][37] The surname is of territorial origin and historically attributed to either the ancient village of Grinnla, now Greenlaw in the Scottish Borders,[38][30] or the medieval hamlet of Greenley near Haltwhistle in Northumberland,[31][32][39][40] both formerly of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

[65][66] Although some of the lands awarded included areas held by the family prior to 1066, they continued as manorial lords of many of their ancestral estates, holding them in fief or knight's fee in return for homage and fealty to their Norman overlords as tenants-in-chief.

[99][100] He and his successors held the lordship, and a knight's fee in Tempsford,[101] until the college was eventually dissolved in 1547 following the dissolution of the monasteries by King Edward VI,[102] and subsequently bequeathed to Sir William Fitzwilliam in 1549.

[107][108] Stephen fought with the Earl of Shrewsbury during his campaign to reclaim Pays de Caux throughout the late 1430s, continuing as part of his close military affinity during the relief of Harfleur in 1440, and the sieges of Pontoise, Conches-en-Ouche, and Louviers in 1441.

[107] Thomas saw fighting alongside his brother at Conches-en-Ouche and Louviers, was detached to the garrison of Rouen to oversee the escorting of supplies to Sir William Peyto and his forces during the siege of Dieppe in 1442, before joining the Duke of Somerset for the Cherbourg offensive in the summer of 1443.

[3][12] As members of the "New English" class granted plantation lands on the border of the Earldom of Ormond, the family line that settled there supported the establishment of the Church of Ireland and the continued Anglicisation of the country.

During the British Civil Wars in Ireland the family were loyal to the Crown as Protestant Royalists and remained so throughout the Protectorate and into the Restoration, typified by those such as John Grinley (c. 1635), a King's Royal Guardsman, who joined the company of Sir William Flower, the agent and informer of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, in 1662.

[147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154] From the end of the 18th century onwards, the family actively participated in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,[155][156][157] the Industrial Revolution,[158] the expansion of the British Empire,[21][159] and the global conflicts of WWI and WWII,[160][161] both civically and militarily.

[172][173][174] During the 19th and 20th centuries, a number of the family became prominent Freemasons, acting as members, officers, masters, and founders of multiple Masonic lodges across the country, but particularly in Warwickshire and the wider English Midlands.

[1][30][190][191][192][193][194][195][196][197] The interchangeability of lee, lay and law in Scottish and northern spellings of the surname,[191][198][199][200] particularly the medieval instances of Genelawe and Grenelay, and the congruity of their coats of arms, is illustrative of the familial connection.

[212] When he died in 1568, Sir John left these lands and others, including areas across the city of Edinburgh, to his heirs and successors, forming the basis of an expansive estate which was home to the family for the next 300 years.

[13][204] A century later, following the Restoration, members of the family fought in the Covenanter rebellions against the increasing persecution of Presbyterians arising from sectarian struggles for control of the Church of Scotland, known as "The Killing Time".

[213][214] The most notable was William Grindlay or Grinlaw of Monklands (c. 1640),[214][215] who in June 1679 fought with the Covenanter army at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge against the Scottish government troops of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth.

[214] Consequently, on 15 November he was put aboard the Crown of London in Leith for transportation to Virginia in the British Colonies, however he drowned on 10 December when the vessel was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Deerness, Orkney.

Edward 'Teddy' Grindlay, of the 4th and 10th Scottish Rifles, close friend and patron of Sir Herbert James Gunn,[223][224] William 'Spread Eagle' Grinly, QM of the Royal Leith Volunteers, soldier, mariner, and merchant,[225][226] and The Right Hon.

[11][34][83][84][239][240][241] Direct ancestral ties to both the noble Norman families of Grelley, formerly spelt Gredley, Greidley and Gredleye,[242][243][244] decedents of Albertus Greslet or Albert 'd'Avranches' de Greslé (c.1050 – c.1100),[245][246][247] avowed Viscount of Avranches,[248] and the 1st Baron of Manchester (see House of Grailly),[249][250][251][252][253] and Gresley, formerly spelt Greseleye,[34] Baronets of Drakelow Hall and decedents of Robert de Stafford (see House of Tosny),[254] have been presented by a number of 19th century historians, though are still the subject of research.

[6][26][144][237] The arms of the related but distinct lines of the Grindlay family, are identifiable by their differing heraldic crests, which among them include a buffalo (Northumberland and Berwickshire), a peahen (Warwickshire and Staffordshire), and a dove.

[26][237][259][260] Examples of the recorded arms of Grindlay and Grindley, illustrating their relatively fluid interchangeability up until the 19th century, are as follows: The Warwickshire line of the family gave rise to two separate cadet branches, one in Nottinghamshire and then a second in Sussex.

[77] First documented in the Catalogue of Seals of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum 1894,[10] and later in the Dictionary of British Arms – Medieval Ordinary Vol I,[261] the armorial bearings are described as:"A bend bretessed, between three crescents"Identified by Walter de Gray Birch, the arms were recovered from a gothic panel and described as dark red but indistinct in colour,[10] indicative of a gules escutcheon and likely faded argent charges,[t] due to the tendency for silver paint to oxidise and darken over time (see Tincture: Argent).