George Canning Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Early life and education
George Canning (11 April 1770, 8 August 1827) was born in London into an Anglo-Irish family whose fortunes declined sharply when his father died while he was an infant. His mother, Mary Ann Costello, supported herself as an actress, and the young Canning was taken under the protection of a prosperous uncle, Stratford Canning, who financed his schooling and guided his early prospects. Sent to Eton College, he excelled as a classicist and as a brilliant writer of verse and satire, helping to produce the Etonian paper The Microcosm and developing the polished wit that later made him one of the House of Commons' most formidable speakers. From Eton he went to Christ Church, Oxford, winning distinction in Latin and Greek composition and forging friendships, notably with John Hookham Frere, that would shape his literary and political outlook. He read law at Lincoln's Inn but never practiced.

Entry into Parliament and the Pitt connection
Canning's eloquence and talent for political argument attracted the attention of leading statesmen. Introduced to William Pitt the Younger and to Pitt's circle, he was returned to Parliament in 1793 for a government borough. He quickly aligned himself with Pittite policy in the wars against Revolutionary France and earned reputation as a quick, incisive debater. He also helped organize the Anti-Jacobin (1797, 1798), a government-aligned satirical weekly that mocked radicalism and defended the administration in verse and prose; collaborators included Frere and George Ellis, with contributions that showcased Canning's distinctive blend of gaiety and political bite.

Advancement followed. He served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1796, 1799) under Lord Grenville, gaining an early apprenticeship in diplomacy. In 1800 he married Joan Scott, daughter and co-heiress of General John Scott of Balcomie, a match that stabilized his finances and broadened his social base. In Pitt's later administrations he held office as Paymaster of the Forces and, from 1804, Treasurer of the Navy, joining the inner counsels of a government struggling to contain Napoleon and to manage domestic pressures.

Foreign Secretary and the politics of war
The fall of the "Ministry of All the Talents" in 1807 brought the Duke of Portland to office and Canning to the Foreign Office. As Foreign Secretary (1807, 1809) he pursued a hard-headed wartime diplomacy. He helped shape the decision to seize the Danish fleet at Copenhagen to prevent its use by France, and he moved swiftly to recognize the Spanish juntas after the uprising against Napoleon, a step that aligned Britain with Iberian resistance and opened the way for the Peninsular War. During this period he worked alongside and sometimes against strong-minded colleagues such as Lord Castlereagh at the War Department and Spencer Perceval in the Commons, maneuvers that exposed deep fissures in the Tory leadership.

Duel, rupture, and the years out of office
Tensions with Castlereagh over the direction of military operations and ministerial management culminated in a notorious duel in 1809 on Putney Heath. Both men were wounded, and the incident discredited the Portland ministry, which soon fell. Canning left office and refused to serve again with Castlereagh, a personal and political breach that shaped the next decade. He opposed the Addington-Perceval governments at points and then negotiated, with difficulty, his return to the front rank.

After the assassination of Spencer Perceval in 1812 and the formation of Lord Liverpool's government, Canning re-entered parliamentary life as member for the great commercial constituency of Liverpool, cultivating ties to merchants and advocating policies sympathetic to trade. In 1814 he accepted a special mission as ambassador to Portugal, where he dealt with a monarchy divided between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. On returning home he became President of the Board of Control (1816, 1820), overseeing the East India Company's affairs and working with colleagues such as Robert Peel and Lord Bathurst on imperial and commercial questions. He broke with the court in 1820 over the treatment of Queen Caroline, whose cause he declined to attack; this stance estranged him from George IV and kept him, for a time, out of office.

Foreign Secretary again: from the Congress System to commercial liberalism
The suicide of Lord Castlereagh (now Marquess of Londonderry) in 1822 opened the path to Canning's second tenure as Foreign Secretary and his leadership of the House of Commons under Lord Liverpool. He redirected British policy away from the rigid concert that had emerged from the Congress of Vienna. While cooperating with Austria, Prussia, and Russia where interests coincided, he resisted Klemens von Metternich's attempts to make the "Congress System" an engine of reaction. He refused to sanction intervention to crush constitutionalism in Spain and Portugal, and instead upheld Britain's treaty obligations to Lisbon, sending troops in 1826 to secure Portugal against threatened incursions.

Canning also advanced a forward-looking commercial and hemispheric policy. He recognized the independence of several Spanish American republics, widened British trade with them, and, in 1825, recognized the Empire of Brazil, brokering a settlement with Portugal that stabilized the Atlantic relationship. In rhetoric that captured his ambition, he declared that he had "called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old". He worked closely with William Huskisson on a program of tariff reform and reciprocity treaties and appointed his cousin Stratford Canning to Constantinople to manage the Eastern Question as the Greek struggle sharpened. Although the definitive Treaty of London on Greece followed after him, his diplomacy laid much of the groundwork.

Prime Minister
When Lord Liverpool was incapacitated by a stroke in early 1827, George IV invited Canning to form a government. The effort exposed party fractures. Leading Tories, among them the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, refused to serve under him, wary of his support for Catholic emancipation and his more liberal diplomacy. Canning assembled a coalition that drew in moderates and Whigs such as Lord Lansdowne and Lord Holland, while keeping trusted associates like Huskisson and Henry John Temple (later Viscount Palmerston) in important posts. Lord Dudley took the Foreign Office, and John Charles Herries later assumed the Exchequer, though for a short interval Canning bore that burden himself alongside the premiership.

The ministry was short-lived. Beset by unrelenting opposition, the strains of coalition management, and declining health, he could not consolidate a stable majority. He died after only a few months as First Lord of the Treasury, passing away at Chiswick House in August 1827, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Character and legacy
Canning was celebrated in his lifetime for brilliance of mind and tongue: a satirist with a statesman's instinct, a reforming Tory who tried to reconcile the post-Napoleonic settlement with the expanding energies of commerce and constitutionalism. He could be combative, even divisive, as the Castlereagh rupture showed, yet he inspired loyalty in younger figures like Huskisson and Palmerston and commanded respect from continental interlocutors even when they disagreed. His advocacy of recognizing the new states of the Americas, his defense of Portugal's constitutional monarchy, and his cautious sympathy for the Greek cause marked a pivot toward a British policy grounded in maritime strength, open trade, and selective engagement rather than blanket reaction.

Family and personal life
Canning's marriage to Joan Scott brought companionship and financial security. They had several children; their son Charles Canning later became Governor-General and then the first Viceroy of India, while their daughter Harriet married into the Clanricarde family. After his death his widow was created Viscountess Canning, a mark of royal favor for a statesman who had never himself entered the peerage. He maintained affectionate ties with his cousin Stratford Canning, a distinguished diplomat, and with literary friends such as John Hookham Frere. Through a combination of literary gifts, administrative skill, and a clear sense of Britain's interests in a changing world, George Canning left an imprint on British politics out of all proportion to the brevity of his premiership.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by George, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Truth - Resilience - New Beginnings - Decision-Making.

Other people realated to George: Duke of Wellington (Royalty), James Monroe (President), Henry Addington (Statesman)