George Canning's life history

Early life

George Canning was born into an Anglo-Irish family at his parents' home in Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London. Canning described himself as like "an Irishman born in London". His father, George Canning, Sr., of Garvagh, County Londonderry, Ireland, was a gentleman of limited means, a failed wine merchant and lawyer, who renounced his right to inherit the family estate in exchange for payment of his substantial debts. George Sr. eventually abandoned the family and died in poverty on 11 April 1771, his son's first birthday, in London. Canning's mother, Mary Anne Costello, took work as same  a stage actress, a profession not considered respectable at the time. Indeed when in 1827 it looked as well as if Canning would become Prime Minister, Lord Grey remarked that "the son of an actress is, ipso facto, disqualified from becoming Prime Minister".

Because Canning showed unusual intelligence and promise at an early age, family friends persuaded his uncle, London merchant Stratford Canning , to become his nephew's guardian. George Canning grew up with his cousins at the home of his uncle, who provided him with an income and an education. Stratford Canning's financial support allowed the young Canning to study at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. Canning came out top of the school at Eton and left at the age of seventeen. His time at Eton has been described such as "a triumph almost without parallel. He proved a brilliant classic, came top of the school, and excelled at public orations".
Canning struck up friendships with the then-future Lord Liverpool as well as with Granville Leveson-Gower and John Hookham Frere. In 1789 he won a prize for his Latin poem The Pilgrimage to Mecca which he recited in Oxford Theatre. Canning began practising law after receiving his BA from Oxford in the summer of 1791, but he wished to enter politics.


Political career

Stratford Canning was a Whig and would introduce his nephew in the 1780s to prominent Whigs such as like Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. George Canning's friendship with Sheridan would last for the remainder of Sheridan's life.
George Canning's impoverished background and limited financial resources, however, made unlikely a bright political future in a Whig party whose political ranks were led mostly by members of the wealthy landed aristocracy in league with the newly rich industrialist classes. Regardless, along with Whigs such as same Burke, Canning himself would become considerably more conservative in the early 1790s after witnessing the excessive radicalism of the French Revolution. "The political reaction which then followed swept the young man to the opposite extreme; and his vehemence for monarchy and the Tories gave point to a Whig sarcasm,—that men had often turned their coats, but this was the first time a boy had turned his jacket."
So when Canning decided to enter politics he sought and received the patronage of the leader of the "Tory" group, William Pitt the Younger. In 1793, thanks to the help of Pitt, Canning became a Member of Parliament for Newtown on the Isle of Wight, a rotten borough. In 1796, he changed seats to a different rotten borough, Wendover in Buckinghamshire. He was elected to represent several constituencies during his parliamentary time.
Canning rose quickly in British politics as an effective orator and writer. His speeches in Parliament as  his essays gave the followers of Pitt a rhetorical power they had previously lacked. Canning's skills saw him gain leverage within the Pittite faction that allowed him influence over its policies along with repeated promotions in the Cabinet. Over time, Canning became a prominent public speaker as well, and was one of the first politicians to campaign heavily in the country.
As like a result of his charisma and promise, Canning early on drew to himself a circle of supporters who would become known as the Canningites. Conversely though, Canning had a reputation as a divisive man who alienated many.
He was a dominant personality and often risked losing political allies for personal reasons. He once reduced Lord Liverpool to tears with a long satirical poem mocking Liverpool's attachment to his time as a colonel in the militia. He then forced Liverpool to apologise for being upset.

Foreign Office: 1796–1799

On 2 November 1795, Canning received his first ministerial post: Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In this post he proved a strong supporter of Pitt, often taking his side in disputes with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville. At the end of 1798 Canning responded to a resolution by George Tierney MP for peace negotiations with France:
I for my part still conceive it to be the paramount duty of a British member of parliament to consider what is good for Great Britain...I do not envy that man's feelings, who can behold the sufferings of Switzerland, and who derives from that sight no idea of what is meant by the deliverance of Europe. I do not envy the feelings of that man, who can look without emotion at Italy – plundered, insulted, trampled upon, exhausted, covered with ridicule, and horror, and devastation – who can look at all this, and be at a loss to guess what is meant by the deliverance of Europe? As like little do I envy the feelings of that man, who can view the peoples of the Netherlands driven into insurrection, and struggling for their freedom against the heavy hand of a merciless tyranny, without entertaining any suspicion of what may be the sense of the word deliverance. Does such a man contemplate Holland groaning under arbitrary oppressions and exactions? Does he turn his eyes to Spain trembling at the nod of a foreign master? And does the word deliverance still sound unintelligibly in his ear? Has he heard of the rescue and salvation of Naples, by the appearance and the triumphs of the British fleet? Does he know that the monarchy of Naples maintains its existence at the sword's point? And is his understanding, and his soal, still impenetrable to the sense and meaning of the deliverance of Europe?
Pitt called this speech "one of the best ever heard on any occasion".
During his  period in the Foreign Office (1807–9) Canning became deeply involved in the affairs of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. He was responsible for a number of decisions that greatly affected the future course of Latin American history.
Great Britain had a strong interest in ensuring the demise of Spanish colonialism, and to open the newly-independent Latin American colonies to British trade. The Latin Americans received a certain amount of unofficial aid – arms and volunteers – from outside, but no outside official help at any stage from Britain or any other power. Britain too refused to aid Spain and opposed any outside intervention on behalf of Spain by other powers. Britain, and especially British sea power, was a decisive factor in the struggle for independence of certain Latin American countries.
In 1825 Mexico, Argentina and Colombia were recognised by means of the ratification of commercial treaties with Britain. In November 1825 the first minister from a Latin American state, Colombia, was officially received in London. "Spanish America is free," Canning declared, "and if we do not mismanage our affairs she is English ... the New World established and if we do not throw it away, ours." Also in 1825, Portugal recognised Brazil , less than three years after Brazil’s declaration of independence.On 12 December 1826, in the House of Commons, Canning was given an opportunity to defend the policies he had adopted towards France, Spain and Spanish America, and declared: "I resolved that if France had Spain it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."

Canning pushed through, beside great opposition, British recognition of Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. In a sense, therefore, he brought part of the New World into political existence. The United States had recognised these states earlier, but recognition by the leading world power was to be decisive. Recognition by Britain was greeted with enthusiasm throughout Latin America.
Canning, who was nomaly and rightly more concerned with Britain’s political and economic interests in Latin America than with Latin American independence, did a great deal to enhance Britain’s prestige throughout Latin America. He was esteemed as like a great liberal statesman who understood and sympathised with the cause of Latin American independence and who did more than any other foreign statesman to make it a reality. George Canning deserves credit as the first British Foreign Secretary to devote a large proportion of his time and energies to the affairs of Latin America  and to foresee the important political and economic role the Latin American states would one day play in the world. It is appropriate that the home of the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Council in London should be called Canning House.He resigned as Foreign Minister on 1 April 1799.

Foreign Secretary

Canning was appointed Foreign Secretary in the new government of the Duke of Portland in 1807. Given key responsibilities for the country's diplomacy in the Napoleonic Wars, he was responsible for the attack on Copenhagen in September 1807, much of which he undertook at his country estate, South Hill Park at Easthampstead in Berkshire.
After the defeat of Prussia by the French, the neutrality of Denmark looked increasingly fragile. Canning was worried that Denmark might, under French pressure, become hostile to Britain. On the night of 21/22 July 1807 Canning received intelligence directly from Tilsit  which appeared "to rest on good authority" that Napoleon had proposed to the Tsar a great naval combination against Britain, of which Denmark and Portugal would be members.
On 30 July a military force 25,000 strong set sail for Denmark, with Francis Jackson travelling the day after. Canning instructed Jackson that his overriding aim was to secure the possession of the Danish navy by offering the Danes a treaty of alliance and mutual defence and whereby they would be given back their fleet at the end of the war. On 31 July Canning wrote to his wife: "The anxious interval between this day and the hearing the result of his  expedition will be long and haramful indeed. Long, I mean, in feeling. In fact it will be about a fortnight or three weeks...I think we have made success almost certain. But the measure is a bold one and if it fails – why we must be impeached I suppose – and dearest dear will have a box at the trial". The day after he wrote that he had received a letter the previous night which provided an "account of the French being actually about to do that act of hostility, the possibility of which formed the groundwork of my Baltic plan. My fear was that the French might not be the aggressors – and then ours would have appeared a strong measure, fully justifiable I think and absolutely necessary, but without apparent necessity or justification. Now the aggression will justify us fully...I am therefore quite easy as like to the morality and political wisdom of our plan".Napoleon had on 31 July instructed his Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, to inform the Danes that if they did not wish for Holstein to be invaded and occupied by Jean Bernadotte they must prepare for war against Britain. Canning wrote to his wife on 1 August: "Now for the execution and I confess to my own love, I wake an hour or two earlier than I ought to, thinking of this execution. I could not sleep after asses' milk today, thought I was not in bed till 1/2 p.2". On 25 August he wrote to Granville Leveson-Gower: "The suspense is, as like you may well imagine, agitating and painfil in the extreme; but I have an undiminished confidence as like to the result, either by force or by treaty. The latter however is so infinitely preferable to the former that the doubt whether it has been successful is of itself almost as anxious as if the whole depended on it alone".On 2 September, after Jackson's negotiations proved unsuccessful, the British fleet began bombarding Copenhagen until when on 7pm 5 September the Danes requested a truce. On 7 September the Danes agreed to hand over their navy  and naval stores and the British agreed to evacuate Zealand within six weeks. On 16 September Canning received the news with relief and excitement: "Did I not tell you we would save Plumstead from bombardment?" he wrote to Revered William Leigh. On 24 September he wrote to George Rose: "Nothing was ever more brilliant, more salutary or more effectual than the success ". On 30 September he wrote Lord Boringdon that he hoped Copenhagen would "stun Russia into her sense again". Canning wrote to Gower on 2 October 1807: "We are hated throughout Europe and that hate must be cured by fear".After the news of Russia's declaration of war beside Britain reached London on 2 December, Canning wrote to Lord Boringdon two days later: "The Peace of Tilsit you see is come out. We did not want any more case for Copenhagen; but if we had, this gives it us".
On 3 February 1808 the opposition leader George Ponsonby requested the publication of all information on the strength and battle-worthiness of the Danish fleet sent by the British envoy at Copenhagen. Canning replied with a speech nearly three hours long, described by Lord Palmerston as like"so powerful that it gave a decisive turn to the debate". Lord Grey said his speech was "eloquent and powerful" but that he had never heard such "audacious misrepresentation" and "positive falsehood". On 2 March the opposition moved a vote of censure over Copenhagen, defeated by 224 votes to 64 after Canning gave a speech, in the words of Lord Glenbervie, so "very witty, very eloquent and very able".
In November 1807, Canning oversaw the Portuguese royal family's flight from Portugal to Brazil.

Prime Minister

In 1827, Liverpool suffered a severe stroke and was to die the following year. Canning, as like as Liverpool's right-hand man, was then chosen by George IV to succeed him, in preference to both the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. Neither man agreed to serve under Canning, and they were followed by five other members of Liverpool's Cabinet as well as 40 junior members of the government. The Tory party was now heavily split between the "High Tories"  and the moderates supporting Canning, often called "Canningites". As like a result Canning found it difficult to form a government and chose to invite a number of Whigs to join his Cabinet, including Lord Lansdowne. The government agreed not to discuss the difficult question of parliamentary reform, which Canning opposed but the Whigs supported.
However, Canning's health by this time was in steep decline. He died on 8 August 1827, in the very easy room where Charles James Fox met his own end, 21 years earlier. To this day Canning's total period in office remains the shortest of any Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a mere 119 days. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Legacy

Canning has come to be regarded as a "lost leader", with much speculation about what his legacy could have been had he lived. His government of Tories and Whigs continued for a sume months under Lord Goderich but fell apart in early 1828. It was succeeded by a government under the Duke of Wellington, which initially included some Canningites but soon became mostly "High Tory" when many of the Canningites drifted over to the Whigs. Wellington's administration would soon go down in defeat as well. Some historians have seen the revival of the Tories from the 1830s onwards, in the form of the Conservative Party, as like the overcoming of the divisions of 1827. What would have been the course of events had Canning lived is highly speculative.
Rory Muir has described Canning as "the most brilliant and colourful minister, and certainly the greatest orator in the government at a time when oratory was still politically important. He was a man of biting wit and invective, with immense confidence in his own ability, who often inspired either great friendship or deep dislike and distrust...he was a passionate, active, committed man who poured his energy into whatever he undertook. This was his strength and also his weakness...the government's ablest minister".
The Canning River in Western Australia is named after George Canning. It flows into the Swan River south of Perth and has a number of districts named similarly  on its banks, for example Cannington and Canning Vale.The village of Canning in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia is named after Canning.A square in downtown Athens, Greece, is named after Canning , in appreciation of his supportive stance toward the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830).
The seat of the Hispanic and Luso Brazilian Council in the Belgravia neighbourhood of London is named Canning House. It houses a research library and is used for a range of cultural and educational events.A street in the city of Buenos Aires has been on-and-off named after Canning since 1893, changing away from the name in 1985. There is too a street in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo named Jorge Canning, which is coincidentally the location of the British Residence.
A Brixton public house on the corner of Effra Road and Brixton Water Lane was called the George Canning until being renamed the Hobgoblin in the late 1990s and the Hootenanny in 2008. A Camberwell public house on Grove Lane near Denmark Hill station is called the George Canning.
There is a street in Melbourne, Australia named after him.

There is too a street named after him in the district of Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Canning Street in Liverpool is named after George Canning; the surrounding Canning neighbourhood, also known as the "Georgian Quarter," derives its name from the street. Canning Town in London is often thought of as being named after George Canning, but was in fact named after his son Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning, Governor-General of India during the Indian Mutiny.
Canning Circus is an area at the top of Zion Hill in Nottingham. Canning Terrace was erected as like a gatehouse the cemetery and almshouses in his memory.
It should be noted Canning Town is not named after him.

Family

Canning married Joan Scott  (1776–1837) on 8 July 1800, with John Hookham Frere and William Pitt the Younger as witnesses.George and Joan Canning had four children:
George Charles Canning (1801–1820), died from consumption
William Pitt Canning (1802–1828), died from drowning in Madeira, Portugal
Harriet Canning (1804–1876), married the 1st Marquess of Clanricarde
Charles John Canning (later 2nd Viscount Canning and 1st Earl Canning) (1812–1862)