[1] The eldest son of Richard Grenville (1678–1727) of Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, and of Hester, later Countess Temple, he was educated at Eton College, and in 1734 was returned to Parliament as member for the borough of Buckingham.

In 1752, on the death of his mother, he inherited her titles together with the rich estates of Stowe and Wotton; and he then took the name of Temple in addition to his original surname of Grenville.

A few weeks later the king offered terms to induce Pitt to form or join an administration; "a ministry directed by that great statesman," wrote William Edward Hartpole Lecky "would have been beyond all comparison the most advantageous to the country; it had no serious difficulty to encounter, and Pitt himself was now ready to undertake the task, but the evil genius of Lord Temple again prevailed.

Macaulay's comparison of him with a mole working below "in some foul, crooked labyrinth whenever a heap of dirt was flung up," from Horace Walpole, was partisan; but his character was rated very low by his contemporaries.

He served as a vice president for the Foundling Hospital from 1760 to 1768, which was dedicated to the salvation of the large number of children abandoned by their parents in London each day.

However, it is possible that it also had to do with the achievement of status and access to other notable supporters, such as the Duke of Bedford, Lord Vere Beauclerk, and the Earl of Dartmouth, among others.

In addition to the estates he inherited, Temple gained a considerable fortune by his marriage in 1737 with Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Chambers of Hanworth, Middlesex;[4] a volume of poems by her was printed at the Strawberry Hill Press in 1764.