8 August: Boreham on George Canning

The Model Statesman
Today we mark the anniversary of the death of a very ordinary man who achieved a very extraordinary triumph. Vast as was the authority of George Canning, and salutary as was his influence, he does not cut a picturesque or romantic figure in the nation's history.

Commenting on his personal appearance, Macaulay points out that he was one of those men who make the work of the caricaturist extremely difficult. He was neither remarkably short nor remarkably tall, neither remarkably stout nor remarkably slim. Not one feature was outstanding or overcharged. He dressed in a way that suited him perfectly without attracting the slightest attention. He was the sort of man that you would pass on the street without conferring a second glance. There was absolutely nothing about him that lent itself to the exaggerations of a cartoon.

Much the same is true of his mental endowments and public behaviour. A hard-working and most valuable statesman, he took his work seriously, cherished the loftiest ideals, and applied himself to his difficult task with such concentration and intensity that he prematurely exhausted his fame and completely undermined his health.

But it was all done without ostentation or display. He indulged in no fireworks; he threw no bombs; he attempted no thrills or sensations. He loved his country with disinterested and passionate devotion, and he dedicated himself to its service with such unstinted abandonment, and applied himself to his onerous duties with such tireless diligence, that he became Prime Minister at the age of 57.

From The Sordid To The Sublime
Born in poverty, he had little for which to thank his parents. His father, having married a penniless Irish beauty of 18, died on his boy's first birthday. Shortly afterwards, the mother embarked upon a hectic career upon the stage, contracting, in the course of the years, two other marriages. And, if the child's uncle, Mr. Stratford Canning, had not come to the rescue by taking the lad under his wing, we should probably, never have heard of him.

Yet the extraordinary thing is that, although the mother inhabited one world and the son another, he never for a moment forgot the obligation under which she had laid him by bringing him into the world. She lived to be 81; yet he wrote to her regularly once a week, never permitting the crushing tasks of his exalted offices to excuse him from this filial duty. When, in recognition of his distinguished public services, a pension was conferred upon him, he arranged that it should be transferred to her. And in his will he left her an annuity of £300 a year; but, as she went down to the grave five months before he did, this generous provision proved of no use to her. The mother was inordinately proud of her son's letters and always carried one or two of them to display exultantly to her friends.

Happily for George, and for the world, the uncle, on taking charge of the boy, resolved that only the best should be good enough for him. Sending him first to Eton and then to Oxford, he made possible to him a destiny worthy of his latent powers. Then, just as the youth was preparing to leave the university, he had the rare good fortune to attract the attention, and win the friendship of William Pitt, with the result that through Pitt's influence, he entered Parliament at the age of 23 as member for Newtown in the Isle of Wight.

From that moment he never looked back. Working assiduously and speaking forcefully, he compelled all men to pay heed to his opinions, whilst his commanding personality made him a tower of strength to his friends and a source of anxiety to his foes.

Power To Magnetise The Mightiest
The most eloquent tribute to his superb character is to be found in the influence that he exerted on men who were not directly attached to the realm in which he himself moved. Thus, Mr. Gladstone was a youth of 18 at the time of Canning's death, whilst Sir Walter Scott was showing unmistakable signs of decrepitude and decay. Yet both Gladstone and Scott testify to the way in which they were completely captivated by the magnetic individuality of Canning.

Sir Walter used to say that, of all the statesmen of his time, Canning alone added to great talents and good taste that higher order of parts which men call genius. Scott mourned the death of Canning as a desolating personal bereavement. And Lord Morley tells us that the death of Canning was the most moving event in the early life of Gladstone. He could think and talk of nothing else. Every boy has his idol. Canning was the divinity at whose shrine the youthful Gladstone offered the oblation of his ardent devotion. His letters overflow with rhapsodies concerning his hero, and, on the occasion of the statesman's funeral, he even burst into poetry as an outlet for the profound emotions that he then experienced.

It was in 1827 that Canning became Prime Minister. Those who saw him assume that exalted office knew that it could not be for long. Although in the fifties, death was stamped upon his features. His countenance wore an unnatural and almost ghostly hue. His followers felt that a situation had developed as tragic and as pathetic as anything in our records. He held office for only four months, and then, in the very room in which his illustrious friend Charles James Fox, had died 21 year earlier, he himself passed with a sigh from the scene of his toils and his triumphs.

Not since the death of Nelson had the nation known such poignant grief as it experienced when it laid Canning to rest beside Pitt in the Abbey. In him the people mourned one whose public brilliance was matched by the beauty of his private life. And whenever Great Britain champions, as she so often does, the cause of the smaller nations, and whenever she takes her stand for the rights of the oppressed, she is but pursuing the path to which she was pointed by the discerning foresight and penetrating genius of Canning.

F W Boreham

Image: George Canning