Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gresley, Roger

by Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds

GRESLEY or GREISLEY, Sir ROGER (1799–1837), author, born on 27 Dec. 1799, was son of Sir Nigel Bowyer Gresley, 7th baronet, of Drakelow Park, Burton-on-Trent, by his second wife, Maria Eliza, daughter of Caleb Garway of Worcester. He succeeded his father in 1808 and entered Christ Church, Oxford, 17 Oct. 1817, where he remained until 1819, leaving the university without a degree. After an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a seat in parliament at Lichfield in 1826, he was returned for Durham city in 1830, New Romney, Kent, in 1831, and South Derbyshire in 1835, but failed at the election of July 1837. He was a moderate tory. In June 1821 he married Lady Sophia Catharine, youngest daughter of George William Coventry, seventh earl of Coventry, and had issue one child only, Editha, who died an infant in 1823. He was groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Sussex, captain of the Staffordshire yeomanry cavalry, and an F.S.A. He died on 12 Oct. 1837, and was buried on 28 Oct. at Church Gresley, Derbyshire. Gresley, who usually wrote his name Greisley, was the author of the following:

1. `A Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Peel on Catholic Emancipation. To which is added an account of the apparition of a cross at Migné on the 17th. December, 1826,' translated from the Italian, London, 1827, 8vo.
2. 'A Letter to … John, Earl of Shrewsbury, in reply to his reasons for not taking the Test,' London, 1828, 8vo.
3. 'Sir Philip Gasteneys; a Minor,' London, 1829, 12mo. This tale contains a spirited description of the evils of contemporary Rome, but is otherwise thin and puerile.
4. 'The Life and Pontificate of Gregory the Seventh,' an antipapal essay, London, 1832, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. 1837, pt. ii. p. 649; Burke's Baronetage; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Athenæum, 1832 p. 615, 1829 p. 547; Return of Members of Parliament, vol. ii.]

W. F. W. S.