George Canning Biography

Dromo's Den

CANNING, George (1770-1827). A distinguished British statesman and orator, born in London, April 11, 1770. His father, who died in poverty when his son was a year old, came of an ancient Bristol family, whose ill-will he incurred by marrying beneath his station. His mother earned a precarious subsistence on the stage, and married twice again, first an actor, and, after his death, a Plymouth linen draper. Through Canning's filial affection she subsequently lived in comfort and participated in his success and good fortune. When eight years of age, his uncle, Stratford Canning, a banker, provided for his education and sent him to Eton, where he soon distinguished himself. He founded a school magazine, The Microcosm, for the copyright of which a publisher paid him £50, an unparalleled remuneration for a schoolboy author. In 1788 he proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford; the following year he won the Chancellor's prize with his Pilgrimage to Mecca, and in 1790 graduated B.A. He entered Lincoln's Inn and studied law. At school and college he made influential friends, notably the Hon. Charles Jenkinson, afterward Lord Liverpool, and at his uncle's house met Fox and Sheridan, and through them Burke and other well-known men. Burke persuaded him to abandon law for a parliamentary career, and, under the ægis of Pitt, he entered Parliament as member for Newport, Isle of Wight, in 1793. In 1796 he became Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and in 1798 acquired fame as orator and statesman by his speeches for the abolition of the slave trade and against making peace with the French Directory. In debates on other important questions he supported the ministry, not only by voice but also by his pen in a satirical paper called the Anti-Jacobin, which, with more violence than good taste, lashed the "new philosophy" promulgated by the French Republicans. In 1800 he made a happy marriage with the wealthy heiress Joan Scott, sister to the Duchess of Portland. In 1801 Pitt resigned, and Canning joined the opposition against the Addington ministry, but excited serious and lifelong enmities by his caustic wit and criticisms. In 1804 Pitt returned to power, and Canning became Treasurer of the Navy, continuing in office until Pitt's death in 1806. Lord Grenville offered him an office in the All-the-Talents ministry, but Canning declined. In 1807 he was appointed Foreign Minister in the Portland cabinet and displayed brilliant qualifications. He originated Cathcart's secret expedition and seizure of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, which upset Napoleon's northern confederacy. Differences, running through several years, with Lord Castlereagh culminated in 1809 and led to a duel, in which both were hit, though neither was seriously injured. In 1812 Canning's eloquence was enlisted in favor of Catholic emancipation. The same year Liverpool sent him to Parliament and repeated the honor three successive times. In 1814 he was Ambassador at Lisbon, and in 1816, on his return, became President of the Board of Control. He supported the Liverpool ministry in their repressive measures until 1820, when he resigned in consequence of the governmental action against Queen Caroline. He was on the eve of departure for India as Governor-General in 1822, when the suicide of his former antagonist Castlereagh called him to the head of foreign affairs. In this capacity he infused a more liberal spirit into the cabinet, asserted the independence of British politics against entanglement with the Holy Alliance, and gave new direction and impetus to commerce by a gradual suspension of the prohibitive system. He arranged the relations of Brazil and Portugal, drew the French cabinet into agreement with the British respecting Spanish-American affairs, and was the first to recognize the free states of Spanish America, when he pronounced his famous dictum that "the New World had been called into existence to redress the balance of the Old, and would in time outweigh and topple over the fabrics of kingcraft, upon which so many wise men had labored for thousands of years." He promoted the treaty combining England, France, and Russia for the settlement of the affairs of Greece; protected Portugal from Spanish invasion and, among other important home measures, prepared the way for the repeal of the corn laws. In February, 1827, paralysis attacked his old friend the Earl of Liverpool, and Canning was called upon to form a new administration. His health, however, succumbed to the cares of office, and he died at Chiswick on August 8. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near Pitt. Consult: Canning's Speeches, ed. by Therry (6 vols., 2d ed., London, 1830); Stapleton, Political Life of Canning (London, 1831); Stapleton, George Canning and his Times (London, 1859); Lord Dalling, Historical Characters (London, 1867); Temperley, Life of Canning (London, 1905); Marriott, George Canning and his Times (London, 1905); Bagot, George Canning and his Friends (London, 1909).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 466-467.