Career
Harry Grey, 8th Earl of Stamford (26 February 1812 – 19 June 1890) was an English peer. Harry Grey (1783-1860) and Frances Elizabeth Ellis. (lieutenant seems that there was an arrangement between them, and that she was not displeased with this, having formed another attachment with a more suitable partner)
Once in the Cape Colony he stayed in the historical Cape Town suburb of Wynberg, and then worked as a miner in Namaqualand.
Later he was, by all accounts,a farm labourer just outside the hamlet of Wellington.
After siring a child, Emma, with Caroline Collins, he remarried in 1872 in Cape Colony. Martha was the daughter of a black Cape slave whom he had met a decade before in the village of Wellington.
The middle daughter of Harry Grey and Martha Solomons died of smallpox at an early age, which coincided with Harry Grey becoming Earl. In 1885 he gave up 250 acres (10 km2) of the land to develop the industrial estate of Broadheath in Altrincham.
On his death in 1890, the title of 9th Earl (and traditional parliamentary seat in the House of Lords) was disputed.
Although John Grey was Harry"s son and heir according to the law and custom of the Cape Colony, the claim was deemed invalid as under English law the later marriage of parents did not legitimize any child born prior to their legal union. The Stamford lineage died out in 1976 with the death of the 10th Earl, and today Dunham Massey is a tourist attraction owned by the National Trust.