James Grigg

The son of Frank Alfred Grigg, a carpenter, James Grigg was born in Exmouth and won a scholarship to Bournemouth School and St John's College, Cambridge[1] where he studied mathematics, achieving first-class honours in both parts of his tripos.

Grigg came first in the civil service examination in 1913, and commenced work at the Treasury. During and after the First World War he served successive Chancellors including Winston Churchill. Grigg then became Chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise and Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. In 1934, he was transferred to New Delhi, India where he became Finance Member of the Government of India in anticipation of limited self-rule that began in 1935. He remained in New Delhi until 1939, and afterward continued to influence British imperial policies on India, especially after his patron Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. Grigg became Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War in 1939; he oversaw a turbulent department, which in 1940 witnessed no fewer than four different Secretaries of State (Leslie Hore-Belisha, Oliver Stanley, Anthony Eden and David Margesson).

Grigg proved an effective departmental head, but it came as a great shock to many when in February 1942 Churchill dismissed Margesson and replaced him with Grigg – who had to convey the news to Margesson himself. Amongst the many Ministerial appointments made by Churchill from outside the sphere of Westminster politics, this was seen as one of the most unusual, but was a response to considerable military setbacks such as the fall of Singapore, and the need to appease critics by replacing some ministers. Grigg retained his post for the rest of the war, holding it also in Churchill's 1945 "Caretaker Government". In 1942 he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cardiff East, beating Fenner Brockway. Alan Brooke the wartime Army CIGS said that with PJ he had the "best and most valuable advice on any matter I discussed with him" (unlike Lawson, who replaced Grigg).[2]

But in the 1945 general election Grigg lost his seat, and retired from public life.

In his later years Grigg held many directorships, including those of the Imperial Tobacco Company, the Prudential Assurance Company, the National Provincial Bank and the Distillers Company. In 1946, he became the first British executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He died on 5 May 1964, aged 73.

He married Gertrude Charlotte Hough, daughter of the Reverend George Frederick Hough, in July 1919. The marriage was childless.

• Grigg, James. Prejudice and Judgment. Jonathan Cape, 1948.

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by P. J. Grigg
• Newspaper clippings about James Grigg in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW