Abstract
Whoever succeeded the Younger Pitt was likely to be regarded as something of an anti-climax, and this was certainly the fate of Henry Addington, whose premiership lasted from March 1801 to May 1804, bridging the period between Pitt’s two administrations. The butt of a spiteful jibe by George Canning that ‘Pitt is to Addington as London is to Paddington’, he was long dismissed as ineffectual, though his reputation was, very belatedly, partially restored by a perceptive biography by Philip Ziegler, appearing only in 1965. This argued that he led his government with some ability, and that his major — and fatal — shortcoming was one of communication.
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Works consulted
J.E. Cookson, 2004, Article in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
John W. Derry, 1990, Politics in the Age of Fox, Pitt and Liverpool, Basingstoke, Macmillan.
William Hague, 2004, William Pitt the Younger, London, HarperCollins.
W.H., 1885, Article in The Dictionary of National Biography, London, George Smith.
Philip Ziegler, 1965, Addington, London, Collins.
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© 2008 Dick Leonard
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Leonard, D. (2008). Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth — Better than His Reputation?. In: Nineteenth-Century British Premiers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227255_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227255_3
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