George Canning — in the Footsteps of Pitt

Abstract

The shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history was George Canning, whose premiership lasted a mere 119 days, before he died in office. The irony is that he could well have been one of the longest-serving — if it was not for his unbridled ambition and apparent passion for intrigue, which alienated both the King and his Cabinet colleagues, he might have been appointed 18 years earlier. On the other hand, the wonder was that somebody from his own unconventional background reached high office at all. Born in London, on 11 April 1770, of Protestant Irish descent, his father’s family were minor gentry who had been established in co. Londonderry since 1618. His father — also George — was a raffish figure, who had been a barrister, radical pamphleteer and a failed wine merchant in London, before being disinherited by his own father. He had married Mary Ann Costello, a ravishing beauty, also from Ireland, in 1768, and rapidly had three children, of whom only George survived, before dying in 1771, on George’s first birthday, leaving his still only 24-year old wife destitute, with an allowance from his grandfather of only £40 a year to bring up the young George. A resourceful woman, she decided to seek her fortune on the stage, but after an unsuccessful debut at the Drury Lane Theatre, tried her luck in the provinces, where she did rather better. She became the mistress of a dissolute actor, Samuel Reddish, by whom she had five illegitimate children (including two pairs of twins), of whom only three survived infancy.