George Grieve

Who was George Grieve?

George Grieve, was the persecutor of Madame Du Barry.

Grieve was the son of Richard Grieve, an attorney, of Alnwick, by Elizabeth Davidson. Both Richard and the grandfather, Ralph, a merchant, had been prominent at Alnwick in political contests, and George's elder brother, Davidson Richard, was high sheriff of Northumberland in 1788. Grieve, on coming of age, had to go to law with the corporation to take up his freedom, their plea being that his father, who had died in 1765 at the age of eighty-four, had been temporarily disfranchised at the time of George's birth.

In 1774 he took an active part in defeating the Duke of Northumberland's attempt to nominate both of the members for the county, and in 1778 he headed a mob in levelling the fences of a portion of the moor which the corporation had presented to the duke's agent. About 1780, having wasted his patrimony, he emigrated to America, where he became acquainted with Washington and other founders of the republic. He is said to have been sent on a mission to Holland, and about 1783 he took up his abode at Paris. He probably represented America in revolutionary demonstrations, and in the winter of 1792, during Madame Du Barry's visit to London in search of her stolen diamonds, he took lodgings at an inn at Louveciennes, won over two of her servants to the side of the revolution, held a club in her house, and procured an order for seals to be placed on her papers and valuables.