Italian villa which lay between Kensington and Brompton, and which derived its name from its first owner—the Duchess of Gloucester. From the Duchess it passed to her daughter, the Princess Sophia, and from her to Mr. Canning.
Here, on the 14th of December, 1812, George Canning's third son—the subject of the present biography—was born. He was named Charles John. At this time his two elder brothers, George Charles and William Pitt, were alive. A daughter, who became Marchioness of Clanricarde, was born in 1804. When Charles Canning was ten years old, and a student at Mr. Carmalt's, a famous private school in those days, at Putney, an event occurred which was very nearly altering the whole current of his father's life. In 1822, Mr. Canning,—whose refusal to prosecute the Queen had mortally offended his royal master, and, for the time, ruined his Parliamentary prospects, accepted the post of Governor-General of India, about to become vacant on Lord Hastings' retirement. His experience at the Board of Control, where it had been his duty to watch, sometimes to curb, and finally to sanction Lord Hastings' daring programme, may have reconciled him to the change. It was not fated, however, that Canning should quit the scene of his many triumphs. In the following autumn, while he was paying a farewell visit to his constituents at Liverpool[1], Lord Castlereagh's tragic end brought
- ↑ Canning, when at Liverpool, was a frequent guest of Mr. Gladstone of Seaforth House. It stood on a flat stretch of country,
