Lady Eliza Lucy Grey

Lady Eliza Lucy Grey
Lady Grey portrait by William Gush (c. 1854)
Born	Elizabeth Lucy Spencer circa 1823 Lyme Regis, Dorset
Died	4 September 1898 (aged 75) Christchurch, Hampshire
Known for	Estranged wife of Sir George Grey

Lady Eliza Lucy Grey (née Spencer) (c. 1823 – 4 September 1898), was the daughter of British Royal Navy officer Captain Sir Richard Spencer and Lady Ann Warden Liddon. She was the wife of Sir George Grey.

In 1833, Sir Richard Spencer was appointed Government Resident at Albany, Western Australia. He purchased the Government Farm, and resided there with his wife and ten children. They lived in a pise cottage until, in 1836, the current two-storey stone house was built adjoining the older home.

George Grey was a visiting magistrate in Albany when he met young Eliza Lucy, the seventh child of Sir Richard and Lady Spencer, at their Strawberry Hill Farm. George and Eliza married on 2 November 1839 at the farm after a brief courtship. She was sixteen and he was twenty-seven.

Their only child, a son named George, born 1841, lived only five months. It has been said that George blamed Eliza for his death, claiming their child was neglected.

They journeyed to England but would return to Australia when Grey was appointed the third Governor of South Australia, from 1841 to 1845. From there they moved onto New Zealand where George was Governor of New Zealand from 1845 to 1853. In 1848 Grey was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, making Eliza Lady Grey.

Grey, a keen naturalist, sent a skin of a honey possum, together with a description, to the Zoological Society of London, suggesting that it be named Tarsipes spenserae, after his wife. These findings were published by the Society on 8 March 1842. The scientific name was accepted for nearly 150 years and it wasn't until post-1970 that an earlier claim by Gervais & Verreaux (albeit by only 5 days) was recognised.

Grey amassed a sizeable collection of artefacts in Australia and New Zealand. These, along with copious research notes he had made about the indigenous cultures of both lands, were intended as the basis for his later published works. When not occupied with government work involving bureaucrats or military officials Grey was sequestered with local Maori, recording their myths and songs and learning their language. Eliza's attitude to Grey's literary and anthropological interests is unknown, but it seems a fair guess she was probably indifferent.