Louis Leisler Greig

Group Captain Sir Louis Leisler Greig, KBE, CVO (17 November 1880 – 1 March 1953) was a British naval surgeon, courtier and intimate of King George VI.

The son of a Glasgow merchant, Greig was educated at Glasgow Academy and Merchiston Castle School before studying medicine at Glasgow University. Academically gifted, Greig was also an excellent rugby union and tennis player. After a few years practicing as a junior doctor in the Gorbals, he joined the navy in 1906 and won the gold medal during his training at Haslar.

In 1909, Greig entered officer training at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, where he met Prince Albert, later George VI. He served as a mentor for the gauche and diffident prince, and the two served together in HMS "Cumberland", where Greig was posted as a surgeon. He was transferred to the Royal Marines in 1914, and was captured at the fall of Antwerp, spending eight months as a prisoner of war.

Released by a prisoner exchange, Greig married Phyllis Scrimgeour on 16 February 1916, by whom he had three children: [cite web | url=http://blgweb.thomastechsolutions.com/images/greigfamilytree1.gif| title=Greig Family Tree | accessdate=2007-08-07]
*Bridget Greig (b. 1917), married Sir Ninian Buchan-Hepburn, 6th Baronet in 1958
*Jean Greig (1920–1973), married Joseph Cooper in 1947
*Captain Sir (Henry Louis) Carron Greig, KCVO, CBE, DL (b. 1925), a ship broker, Gentleman Usher in Ordinary to Queen Elizabeth II 1961–1995, married Monica Stourton and has issue

Greig joined the company of HMS "Malaya" in June 1917, rejoining Prince Albert, and helped cure the prince of the severe peptic ulcers from which he suffered. During the next seven years, he was extensively in attendance on the Prince, receiving an appointment as an equerry to the Prince in 1918. Prince Albert and his Equerry both joined the Royal Air Force in 1919 (Greig rising to the rank of Wing Commander), and the two were partners at Wimbledon, an event which brought Greig's influence with the Prince into public light.

Greig continued to act as a mentor and advisor to the Prince (created Duke of York in 1920), acting as a surrogate father and encouraging his social life. He encouraged the Duke of York's courtship of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, which was ultimately to have significant consequences for Greig's relations with the Duke. While he was made a CVO (26 April 1923) for his services, Elizabeth, as Duchess of York, gradually displaced him as an intimate of the Duke. Ultimately, Greig was omitted from a royal tour of the Balkans and consequently resigned his equerryship. However, he was created a Gentleman Usher in Ordinary on 1 March 1924.

Greig's subsequent life was uneventful. He successfully joined J&A Scrimgeour (a firm connected with his wife) as a stockbroker, and formed a friendship with Ramsay MacDonald. Greig played a small role in the formation of the National Government, and was persuaded by MacDonald to accept a KBE on 3 June 1932, in which year he was also created deputy Ranger of Richmond Park.

Greig went into a brief eclipse under King Edward VIII, who disliked him, and resigned his ushership on 21 July 1936. However, upon the accession of his old friend George VI, he was appointed an Extra Gentleman Usher (1 March 1937), and was also elected chairman of Wimbledon. He rejoined the RAF in 1939, serving as a liaison with the Air Ministry and reaching the rank of Group Captain. He was operated on for cancer in 1952, but succumbed in early 1953 and was buried in Ham, Surrey.

References

*cite book | first=Philip | last=Ziegler | chapter=Greig, Sir Louis Leisler (1880–1953) | title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2004 | url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/72391 | accessdate=2007-08-06
*The "London Gazette"