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eorge Canning was born in 1770 into an Anglo-Irish family. He became an MP in 1793. Three years later he was appointed parliamentary under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, under Lord Grenville. He briefly edited the pro-government, anti-republican, anti-reform journal, the Anti-Jacobin, for which he also wrote. At the age of thirty he married an heiress, paid off his debts, and acquired property. When Pitt’s government fell, Canning resigned his various offices, and refused to serve under the next Prime Minister, Addington. He was not a minister in the Grenville parliament either.
In 1808 he became Foreign Secretary in the government of Portland, who was his brother-in-law. He negotiated treaties with Portugal and Spain, and planned the seizure of the Dutch fleet, thus thwarting Napoleon’s scheme of invasion. He believed that Lord Castlereagh was mishandling the War Office, in particular the disastrous Walcheren expedition, and refused to work with him, threatening to resign from the Foreign Office unless Castlereagh was removed. Castlereagh got wind of this and challenged Canning to a duel, in the course of which Canning received a wound to his thigh. On Portland’s death, Canning offered himself to the King as the next Prime Minister, but was rejected. He then resigned as Foreign Secretary, refusing to serve under the ill-fated Spencer Perceval who was briefly Prime Minister until his assassination. Soon after this event, Canning carried a motion in the House of Commons in favour of Catholic Emancipation, to which Perceval had been staunchly opposed. Canning turned down Prime Minister Lord Liverpool’s offer of his old job as Foreign Secretary, because he did not wish to work under Castlereagh, now Leader of the House of Commons. He was elected MP for Liverpool in 1812, a seat he held for eleven years.
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Last modified 19 June 2020