| |
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
George Canning
|
|
|
(1770–1827)
Prime minister for five months in 1827, but best known for his achievements as foreign secretary in the previous five years. His mother, widowed a year after his birth, became an actress to support the family – a fact often used against him by aristocratic political opponents. He entered parliament in 1793 as a protégé of William *Pitt, but his career in the Tory party was blighted by the intense antipathy between himself and *Castlereagh.
|
|
|
|
|
When Canning became foreign secretary, in 1807, Castlereagh was secretary of state for war. After a series of military disasters in 1809, beginning with *Corunna, Canning so undermined Castlereagh's position that the two men fought a duel (Canning was wounded in the thigh) and both resigned. For the next decade it was Castlereagh who was at the centre of affairs, but his suicide in 1822 led to Canning following him as foreign secretary.
|
|
|
|
|
His originality, in the charged atmosphere of liberation politics after the Napoleonic wars, was to support those demanding liberty – in Greece and above all in South America, where he protected Spain's rebellious colonies from European intervention. 'I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old', he said in a speech in 1826. After the resignation for reasons of health of the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, Canning was asked in 1827 to form a government. He had barely done so (his caustic wit had made many enemies who would not serve under him, and his support for Catholic *emancipation alienated others) before he himself died.
|
|
|
|