Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933)

This is an unusual book. At its core is a nature diary that was kept by Sir Edward Grey and his first wife, Dorothy, of their time (mostly weekends) at a cottage on the river Itchen in Hampshire. It was published privately in the early 1900s and the editor has tracked down a copy and had more widely published. Beautifully illustrated with watercolours and period photographs, it records their travels on foot and by bicycle, records the seasons on the local flora and spends a great deal of time recording the bird song and sightings they make.
It also betrays that age-old preoccupation of the British with the weather. A good proportion of the entries give the weather and the impact on the country side. It was frequently too wet, too dry, too cold - we're never happier than having the weather to moan about. I was most struck by the frosts, as late as May and as early as October. I know we had a hard winter last year, but the year before I think I counted 5 frosty mornings in the entire season.
There are some footnotes from the person who has tracked this originally privately published diary down, and I think I wanted more of his notes. They were on the way that the countryside has changed, how the bird species mentioned have fared in this part of Hampshire, on one occasion how a new species has extended its range. In one case he was in the same place described 100 years after the Greys had described it. The notes were all useful and informative.
The Greys themselves are interesting. Edward was the Foreign Secretary at the start of WW1 but there is little of his public life in here.
I imagine this would appeal to the naturalist and those who have a passing acquaintance with the area .… (mehr)

The young fisherman putting together a library for himself should by no means neglect the secondhand bookshops. But he will not always prefer a first edition to a later one. I prize an old edition of Fly-fishing by Sir Edward Grey, but I should hate to be without Fly-fishing by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, published thirty years later and enriched by the new chapters, "Spring Salmon Fishing - the Cassley" and "Retrospect", which I read and re-read, though never without turning back to his description of leaving London by Waterloo at about six o'clock in a summer morning on the way to Test or Itchen. "There are places where hansoms can be found even at these hours in the morning; they are not numerous, and they seem quite different from the hansoms that are abroad at more lively hours, but they can be found if you will look for them at certain places." Like difficult fish or books out of print.

Arthur Ransome, Fishing (1955), p. 12.… (mehr)

2001 Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916 Volume I, by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, K.G. (read 10 May 1986)
2002 Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916 Volume II, by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, K.G. (read 11 May 1986)
These two volumes are Grey's account of his time dealing with foreign affairs for Britain. He was Foreign Minister from 1906 to 1916. I thought his defense of his acts as Foreign Minister convincing. Albertini reprimands Grey severely for not telling Berlin and Vienna that England would fight--Albertini says if Germany had known this it would not have started the war. Grey says until Germany invaded Belgium he did not know if England would join the war. Much of these two volumes deals with things not too current, and I suppose except for his account of pre-war diplomacy in 1914 these books would not be significant. But I rather liked the books, and Grey. He seems an OK guy: "More and more, as the years went on, I chafed at the life of restraint. Within grasp, if I chose to leave office, was life in a country home, and leisure for books, endless opportunities for observing the natural life of birds and beasts, the beauty of trees, the delights of a garden, the ever-varying and ever-recurring seasons, leisure for sport and exercise. For me there would be no want of occupation; the mind would be active outwardly and inwardly..." I'd like to read a good biography of Sir Edward Grey, born about 1862 and died in 1933.… (mehr)