CANNING, CHARLES JOHN, Eng lish statesman, governor-general of India during the Mutiny of 1857, was the youngest child of George Canning, and was born in London on Dec. 14, 1812. In 1836 he entered parliament and filled in succession the offices of under-secretary for foreign affairs, commissioner of woods and forests and postmaster-general. From 1837, on the death of his mother, he had sat in the House of Lords as Viscount Canning. In July 1855 Lord Palmerston offered him the governor-generalship of India, and Lord Canning took up his duties at the close of Feb. 1856.
He was soon faced with a dangerous situation in Afghanistan, which involved Great Britain in war with Persia at the beginning of 18S7. The policy Canning laid down for dealing with the question of Afghanistan was in principle that which he used to cope with the Mutiny and with the difficulties of its suppression and the subsequent reorganization of northern India. It was to give help liberally whenever it was needed for honest purposes, to punish wrong-doing quickly and sharply, to discourage tribal feuds on the divide et impera theory, and to be always better than his promises.
When the existence of British rule in India was at stake, he reinforced the British troops by intercepting the regiments being sent out to China and transferring them to the scene of the Mutiny on his own responsibility. In Oct. he issued the procla mation, which earned for him the name of "Clemency" Canning. British residents in India and the British public at home were clamouring for indiscriminate reprisals on the inhabitants of the disaffected areas. He maintained that, although he was prepared to strike down resistance without mercy wherever it showed itself, once resistance was over, "deliberate justice and calm patient reason" were to resume their sway. Hence not only did Canning do all that was possible to check the spread of the Mutiny and to re-establish order in north India, but his work of reconstruction established a more liberal policy and a sounder financial system, and left the people more contented than they had been before.
While rebellion was raging in Oudh he issued a proclamation de claring the lands of the province forfeited ; and this step gave rise to much angry controversy. Lord Ellenborough, Secretary for India in Lord Derby's administration, published the despatch in which he had censured the viceroy for the proclamation. So strong was the condemnation of the article that Lord Ellenborough resigned. Canning, however, remained at his post, although strongly tempted to resign on account of the implied censure of the Government. In April 1859 he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament for his services during the Mutiny. He was also made an extra civil grand cross of the order of the Bath, and in May of the same year was raised to the dignity of an earl. On his return to England he seemed destined to become Palmer ston's successor, but the strain of his years in India, aggravated by the death of his wife towards the end of his term of office, had undermined his health. He died in London on June 17, 1862. About a month before his death he was created K.G. As he died without issue the title became extinct.
See Sir H. S. Cunningham, Earl Canning ("Rulers of India" series) (1891) ; A. J. C. Hare, The Story of Two Noble Lives (1893) ; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, The Life of Lord Granville, vol. i. (1906) .
(E. F. M.-S.)