Canning, George 1770-1827
English statesman

Born in London, he was raised and educated by his uncle after the death of his father when Canning was only one year old. He attended Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was admitted to the Bar before entering Parliament in 1794 and becoming Under-Secretary of State under William Pitt, the Younger (1796). He was navy treasurer (1801), and as Foreign Affairs Minister from 1807 in Lord Portland's Cabinet he planned the seizure of the Dutch fleet that prevented Napoleon I's planned invasion. His dispute with Lord Castlereagh over the Walcheren expedition resulted in a duel between them in which Canning was slightly wounded. As MP for Liverpool from 1812, he was a strong advocate of Catholic emancipation, and continued to support Lord Liverpool until resigning in 1820 in protest at the Government's action against Queen Caroline. After Castlereagh's suicide in 1822, he became Foreign Minister again, and on the death of Liverpool in 1827 he became Prime Minister in a coalition with the Whigs, but died later the same year. A notable orator, he was buried in Westminster Abbey near Pitt.

Bibliography: H W V Temperley, Life of Canning (1905)