Henry Grattan: Encyclopedia II - Henry Grattan - Death and Legacy

Henry Grattan - Death and Legacy

In the following summer, after crossing from Ireland to London when out of health to bring forward the Catholic question once more, he became seriously ill. On his death-bed he spoke generously of Castlereagh, and with warm eulogy of his former rival, Flood. He died on the 6th of June 1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey close to the tombs of Pitt and Fox. His statue is in the outer lobby of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Grattan had married in 1782 Henrietta Fitzgerald, a lady descended from the ancient family of Desmond, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.

The most searching scrutiny of his private life only increases the respect due to the memory of Grattan as a statesman and the greatest of Irish orators. His patriotism was untainted by self-seeking; he was courageous in risking his popularity for what his sound judgment showed him to be the right course. As Sydney Smith said with truth of Grattan soon after his death: "No government ever dismayed him. The world could not bribe him. He thought only of Ireland; lived for no other object; dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence."

Henry Grattan became a member of the Privy Council of Ireland on 19 September 1783. He was expelled 6 October 1798, but re-admitted on 9 August 1806.

Grattan served as a Whig member of the UK House of Commons for Dublin City from 1806 until his death in 1820.

Henry Grattan - Bibliography

Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. H. Grattan (5 vols., London, 1839-1846); Grattan's Speeches (ed by H. Grattan, junr., 1822); Irish Part. Debates; WEH Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth century (8 vols., London, 1878-1890) and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., 1903). For the controversy concerning the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam see, in addition to the foregoing, Lord Rosebery, Pitt (London, 1891); Lord Ashbourne, Pitt: Some Chapters of his Life (London, 1898); The Pelham Papers (Brit. Mus. Add. Manuscripts 33118); Carlisle Correspondence; Beresford Correspondence; Stanhope Miscellanies; for the Catholic question, W Anshurst, History of Catholic Emancipation (2 vols., London, 1886); Sir Thomas Wyse, Historical Sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (London, 1829); WJ MacNeven, Pieces of Irish History (New York, 1807) containing an account of the United Irishmen; for the volunteer movement Thomas MacNevin, History of the Volunteers of 1782 (Dublin, 1845); Proceedings of the Volunteer Delegates of Ireland 1784 (Anon. Pamph. Brit. Mus.).

See also F Hardy, Memoirs of Lord Charlemont (London, 1812); Warden Flood, Memoirs of Henry Flood (London, 1838); Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878); Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (London, 1833); WJ O'Neill Daunt, Ireland and her Agitators; Lord Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament (2 vole., London, 1792); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III (4 vols., London, 1845 and 1894); Lord Stanhope, Life of William Pitt (4 vols., London, 1861); Thomas Davis, Life of JP Curran (Dublin, 1846) this contains a memoir of Grattan by DO Madden, and Grattan's reply to Lord Clare on the question of the Union; Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and some of his Contemporaries (London, 1822); JA Froude, The English in Ireland (London, 1881); JG McCarthy, Henry Grattan: an Historical Study (London, 1886); Lord Mahon's History of England, vol. vii. (1858). With special reference to the Union see Castlereagh Correspondence; Cornwallis Correspondence; Westmorland Papers (Irish State Paper Office).

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