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Life
| [“The Elder”]; disinherited with £150 a year by his father, Stratford Canning, an estate-owner at Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, on account of a youthful love-affair; etered Middle Temple, 23 June 1952; bar. 1764; associated with Wilkes and Churchill; failed as lawyer and wine-merchant [var. and found work as actor]; trans. Horace’s First Satire, modernised (1762), and the Anti-Lucretius [of Cardinal de Polignac] (1766); also issued Poems (London 1767) and An Appeal to the Public Against the Critical Review (1766); |
| m. Mary Ann Costello [infra], Marylebone Church, 21 May 1768; a son and namesake b. 1797; planned to publish love letters but failed to make a literary living; died in abject poverty, Middle Temple, 11 April 1771 - reputedly of a broken heart but actually from inflammation of the bowels; bur. Marylebone Church; his son George Canning (q.v.) became British Prime Minister in 1827. PI DIW OCIL |
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Works
[Anon.], Horace’s First Satire Modernized, and addressed to Jacob Henriques (London 1762), 4o.; A Translation of [the first five books] of Anti-Lucretius [by Cardinal Polignac] (London 1766). 4o.; Poems (London: for the Author 1767), iii, 91pp., 4o.
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Notes
Mary Ann Costello (1747–1827), the mother of George Canning; dg. of a squire in Connaught; orphaned young; brought up in London by maternal grandfather; renowned for her great beauty; married George Canning, 1768; lost a first child (a girl) soon after; her son George b. 11 April 1770; suffered death of her husband while pregnant, being penniless; took to the stage; made debut in Jane Shore (Drury Lane, Nov. 1773); moved to provincial theatre; lived with Samuel Reddish, with whom five children; prob. unmarried; permitted to see George after eight years; married Richard Hunn, a Plymouth silk mercer, Feb. 1783, with whom five more children - her offspring including 3 sets of twins; deemed unfit for society, as George was told [aetat 12]; received 100 guineas from him in June 1791, with warning that her stage career was injurious to his; retired from stage, 1790s, having left Hunn, a commercial failure; received an annual pension of £500 in 1803; met her dg-in-law and grandchildren in 1804; Lord Grey declares Canning unfit to serve as First Minister in view of her, 1827; d. Bath, 1827, shortly before his occupancy of that office. (See RIA Dictionary of Irish Biography, and Irish Times [rep. of article therein by Patrick Geoghegan], 2 Oct. 2010, Weekend Review, p.5.)
Kith & Kin (1): His f. Stratford Canning was married to Letitia Newburgh with an estate at Garvagh and was deemed to be ferociously strict as to the conduct of his children. His younger br. Stratford Canning was - like him - disowned by his strict father Stratford Canning of Garvagh but became a successful Whig banker and took charge of his son George Canning (the Younger - later Prime Minister); the youngest and remaining br. Paul inherited the estate and became father to George Canning, 1st Baron Garvagh (1778-1840) [as infra.]
Kith & Kin: George Canning, 1st Baron Garvagh (1778-1840), married Lady Georgiana Stewart, dg. of 1st marquis of Londonderry (m. July 1803; d. Nov. 1804); elected MP for Co. Sligo, 1806-12; FRS, 1810; FSA, 1814; elected MP for Petersfield, 1812-20; supported Catholic Relief Bill and sided with his cousin and namesake in a dispute with Castlereagh, his half-brother by marriage to Lady Georgiana; created lord baron in the Irish peerage after a campaign that involved embarrrassment for his supporter Lord Liverpool; m. Rosabella Charlotte Isabella Bonham, dg. of Henry Bonham, MP, having prev. sued unsuccessfully for hand of the Gascoyne heiress, 1819; lord lieutenant of Co. Londonderry, 1831-40; lieut.-col. in Londonderry militia; d. 20 Aug. 1840, Chalon-sur-Marne, returning from Wiesbaden; bur. Derry; two sons and a dg. by second wife; succeeded as 2nd Baron Garvagh by his eldest son Charles Henry Spencer George Canning (1826-71).
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