George Canning was born in 1770 into genteel poverty - his father died when he was one year old, leaving the family destitute. His early life was unconventional: to earn money for her family, Canning's mother went on to the stage and subsequently lived with the actor, Samuel Reddish. However, George Canning still managed to get himself to Eton and to Christ Church, Oxford, and subsequently trained in the law, although he was never called to the bar. Throughout his life, he pursued office eagerly and hungrily - because he had no money of his own.
A Whig in his formative years, Canning fell under the influence of Charles Fox, but in 1792 fell under the influence of Pitt the Younger and crossed the floor to join the Tories. Politically, however, Canning was always on the "wet" rim of the Tory party, championing Catholic Emancipation as early as the 1800s. As treasurer of the navy, Canning had a serious disagreement about the conduct of the Napoleonic War with Castlereagh, which resulted in a dual on Putney Heath in 1809 and Castlereagh wounding Canning on the thigh.
Along with Pitt and Fox, Canning supported the abolition of slavery. In 1807 it became illegal to carry slaves on British ships and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 condemned slavery, without recommending any measures against it.
After having briefly flirted with the idea of becoming Governor-General of India (at a salary of £25,000 per year, the biggest attraction for this poverty-stricken man) in April 1822, Canning became Foreign Secretary in Lord Liverpool's Enlightened Tory administration, following Castlereagh's suicide. As Foreign Secretary, Canning tried to demistify foreign affairs, by working through the House of Commons, rather than conduct Britain's business abroad as an Elder Statesman, through periodic "summits" of the "powers", as Castlereagh had done. Canning took the view that Britain held the middle ground beween the despotism of many of the old monarchies in Europe and Jacobinism, but sensibly refused to allow Britain to become involved in the Continental Europe's internal squabbles. He leant support to the Greek Revolt in 1826 and, when the poet Byron joined the revolt and got killed in it, this whole cause became a very popular and "romantic" one. Canning also supported Bolivar and his rebels in South America in throwing off their Spanish conquistadors and made the famous comment, that he had brought the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old. (Actually freeing up the Spanish colonies was enormously beneficial to British trade in the region.)
When Lord Liverpool resigned in 1827, George IV invited Canning to form a government, but many of his Enlightened Tory colleagues, such as Peel, resigned, and Canning was therefore forced to turn to the Whigs again for support. By this time, anyway, Canning's health was not good and he died in August 1827, at the home of the Duke of Devonshire, incidentally, in the room as, his old hero, Charles Fox, had died in 1806.