Creevey, Thomas ___ 1768-1838 ___ British ___ politician

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Thomas Creevey, the son of a merchant sea captain who transported slaves, was born in Liverpool. He studied at Queens' College, Cambridge, and then trained as a lawyer. He married a widow with six children. In 1802, thanks to his uncle, he became a Whig MP in the House of Commons. In 1806, the Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, appointed Creevey as Secretary to the Board of Control, but he lost the job when Grenville resigned the following year. After unsuccessfully fighting against the development of the railways, and supporting Lord Grey and his plans for parliamentary reform, Creevey lost his seat, as a result of those reforms. Grey made him Treasurer of the Ordnance in 1830, and then Lord Melbourne made him treasurer of Greenwich Hospital. From 1818 on, after his wife died, Creevey was a rather poor man, although he remained popular. He is mostly remembered because his writings, including intermittent diary extracts, were published, in 1903, under the title of 'The Creevey Papers'. The book is considered important because of gossipy, almost Pepysian, insights into many of the main characters of the period. However, most of the 'full spice' (as Ponsonby calls it) comes out in Creevey's letters not in the diary extracts, and it seems that much of the diary may not have survived due to deliberate intervention by those who were afeared of its contents.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Dining at the Pavilion

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1809-1818 ___ political society people

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
couple of quotes
etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Northumberland Collections Service

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Creevey Papers

May 2005, September 2008, March 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.