Grey entered the Royal Navy on 17 July 1822, In 1834 Grey reached the rank of
post-captain and a year later, soon after his brother became Secretary at War, had the distinction of being given the first command of the new
frigate HMS Cleopatra, on 12 August 1835. On the way there,
Cleopatra ran aground near the Danish island of
Læsø in the
Bay of Kattegat, and to free her several cannons had to be offloaded onto the Dutch ship
Ypres. A
court-martial into the grounding in November cleared Grey of any negligence. Grey was on half-pay from 1838 until 1841, when he got command of the elderly
Apollo class frigate HMS Belvidera in the Mediterranean. In 1846 he was made captain of the port of
Gibraltar, remaining there some ten years. On 12 November 1856, he was promoted to
rear-admiral and in 1858 was posted as Admiral Superintendent at Portsmouth. In 1863 he was promoted to
vice-admiral, and in 1867 to admiral. Grey was mentioned in a debate in the
House of Commons in April 1858, when
Sir Charles Wood, until a few weeks before
First Lord of the Admiralty, praised his work at Gibraltar for greatly contributing to British successes in the
Crimean War, while
Admiral Sir Charles Napier doubted that either Grey or his brother would have
become admirals if they had not been brothers-in-law of the First Lord (meaning Wood). From 24 to 26 February 1862, on board
HMS Victory, Grey presided over a court martial which considered serious allegations against Captain Richard Crawford concerning events off
Zanzibar. Grey joined the retired list of officers in 1866 and from that year received a
Greenwich Hospital flag officer's pension of £150 a year. He served as King of Arms of the
Order of the Bath. ==Personal life==