Lace making was one of the most prosperous industries in Buckinghamshire until the Napoleonic Wars. The main manufacturing centres were at Newport Pagnell, Olney, High Wycombe and Aylesbury.

As the Grenville family grew in status and power in Buckinghamshire, they made strenuous efforts to associate themselves with the local lace industry.  In 1761, the 2nd Earl Temple presented King George III with a pair of fine lace ruffles made at Newport Pagnell. In the early 1800s, Mary Nugent and Anna Eliza Brydges gave lace garments as presents to their friends (Lady Nugent’s Journal, page 257 & 280). In 1821, Richard Temple gave his daughter-in-law a lace gown to be worn at her son's christening (transcript) and in 1827 he gave Rosa Nugent five Guineas worth of Buckinghamshire Lace. 

After the Napoleonic Wars, the prosperity of the lace trade collapsed and workers were impoverished. The Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor in London offered £300 to Richard Temple for relief of the workers but he declined the offer, because it conflicted with his role as Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and because he thought that lace workers were not a special case (transcript).  

In April 1827, Temple notes in his diary that Mr Hughes and Mr Heaviside have been 'active in my lace concerns' (HEH ST 98 Vol 1; 5 & 9 April 1827). In August of the same year, Temple tried to establish an export market for Buckinghamshire  lace in Gibraltar (transcript).