Grey Cup: Fourth Earl Grey left his mark in Canada, and his trophies
Kamila Hinkson Staff Reporter

This article was published on Saturday November 24, 2012 in the Toronto Star during Grey Cup week.

Earl Grey Trophy

The Fourth Earl Grey, former Governor General, not only donated the famous CFL trophy that's up for grabs Sunday, but also this trophy that is awarded to the most outstanding choir at the Winnipeg Music Festival.

Every year, Canadians come together to celebrate the awarding of two trophies named for one of our past governors general.

The Fourth Earl Grey, after whom our country’s top football prize is named, was a big supporter of the arts as well as sport. He donated the Grey Cup to the Canadian Rugby Union in 1909, but two years earlier, he donated the Earl Grey Trophy to the Grey Competition for Music and Drama.

It was first awarded to the Winnipeg Dramatic Club and made its way over to the Manitoba Musical Competition Festival in 1923, where it has been given out every March since.

The Earl Grey Trophy is now awarded at the Winnipeg Music Festival to the most outstanding choir in Grades 7 to 12. It is the most prominent of the choral trophies, according to Joanne Mercier, the festival’s executive director.

At first, only public schools could win the silver trophy, but now the competition has been opened to both private and public schools.

It is fitting that the two trophies have a shared history. As Mercier explains, there are obvious parallels between sports and the arts.

“A choir is very much a team, just like a sports team, and if everybody pulls their share of the weight and has a great performance, then you will achieve a goal,” she said.

Next year’s edition will be the festival’s 95th year and the organizers are looking to expand upon the connection between the two prizes. They hope to have members of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers speak to the participants about the parallels between sport and choir, though nothing has been confirmed yet.

The idea is to showcase how Earl Grey appreciated a balance, one that Mercier said she understands firsthand.

“I come from a family of musicians who have participated in the festival, but we’re sports people too, so you can do both,” she said with a laugh.

Facts

Canada’s ninth Governor General, birth name Albert Henry George Grey, was in office from Dec. 10, 1904 to Oct. 13, 1911.

The three Earls Grey who preceded him were his great-grandfather, grandfather, and uncle; an army general, British prime minister, and English statesman, respectively.

The most famous Canadian relic of the Fourth Earl Grey is indisputably the Grey Cup, but here are a few more Canadian homages to the Fourth Earl Grey.

A few schools

Earl Grey Senior Public School on the Danforth, Earl Grey School in Winnipeg and Earl Grey School in Calgary are all named after him.

A tea

Well, not quite. The name Earl Grey is synonymous with a popular blend of tea — black tea flavoured with bergamot orange.

But it’s actually named for Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey and British prime minister from 1830 to 1834.

The story goes that he was offered the tea as a gift, and liked it enough to ask British merchants to recreate it.

A village

According to the village history book, Lord Grey was travelling across the prairies by train in 1906 and stopped off in a village. The community, unnamed at the time, decided to take the name of Earl Grey in his honour.

Earl Grey, Sask., is about 45 minutes north of Regina. The majority of the agricultural village’s 264 inhabitants commute to Regina to work.

Mayor Denise Krochak moved to Earl Grey about 11 years ago, and says the community is close-knit and the people are friendly.

There are no plans to celebrate the 100th Grey Cup in the village, but she said since the Grey Cup game will be in Regina next year, the town is hoping the Cup will be able to make an appearance in Earl Grey, where many are Roughrider fans.

Krochak, who owns a sign business, designed a new sign for the town. It features a black, metal teapot and reads “Welcome to Earl Grey, Your Cup of Tea!”

She’s also thinking of creating a Grey Cup replica to replace the town’s bulletin board, or to add to the welcome sign.

“We’re trying to kind of run with both the Grey Cup thing and the teacup thing,” she said.

“That’s kind of what’s going to put us on the map.”