STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, STRATFORD CAN NING, VISCOUNT ( I 786-1880 , British diplomatist, was born in Clement's Lane in the city of London, on Nov. 4, 1786. His father, Stratford Canning, uncle of George Canning (q.v.), who had been disinherited for his marriage with Mehetabel Patrick, died when the boy was six months old. He was educated at Eton, and had kept two terms at King's College, Cambridge, when, in 1807, his cousin, George Canning, gave him an appointment in the foreign office. In 1808 he was appointed first secretary to Robert Adair, ambassador to Constantinople. When Adair was transferred to Vienna in 181o, Canning remained at Constanti nople as chargé d'affaires. Canning was left entirely to his own discretion. In May 1812 he helped to arrange the peace of Bucharest between Turkey and Russia, which left a powerful Russian army free to repel Napoleon's invasion. Canning was able to hasten the decision of the Turks, by making judicious use of Napoleon's plan for the partition of their empire. A copy of it had been left in his hands by Mr. Adair to be used at the proper moment. In July he left Constantinople with the desire to enter political life at home. But Castlereagh arranged for him to re ceive a retaining fee binding him to the service. He spent four years as minister at Berne (1814-18). In 1819 he was appointed minister at Washington, a station of great difficulty owing to the many questions outstanding between the British and the American. governments. Canning, who had a quick temper, came into occa sional collision with John Quincy Adams, the American secretary of State. Yet they parted with mutual respect. Canning returned to England in 1823. The general treaty he had arranged with Mr. Adams was rejected by the United States Senate.
In 1824 Canning was selected as ambassador to Turkey, and proceeded to Constantinople after a preliminary visit to Vienna and to St. Petersburg, where he discussed the Alaska boundary question and sounded the Russian Government as to the course to be taken with the Greek revolt against Turkey. He left for Constantinople in October 1825. At Constantinople he was engaged with the French and Russian ambassadors in the hopeless task of inducing Sultan Mahmud II. to make concessions to the Greeks, without the pressure of armed force. After the battle of Navarino (q.v.) on Oct. 20, 1827, the ambassadors retired to Corfu. Canning then went home, but was sent back on July 8,
1828. Canning did not agree on all points with Lord Aberdeen, and in 1829 he, for the time being, turned from diplomatic to parliamentary life. He sat for Old Sarum, for Stockbridge (rotten boroughs) and for Southampton, but did not make much mark in parliament. He was twice absent on diplomatic missions. At the end of 1831 he went to Constantinople to attend the con ferences on the delimitation of the Greek frontier, arriving imme diately after the receipt of the news of Mohammed Ali's invasion of Syria. (See MOHAMMED ALL) Sultan Mahmud now proposed to Canning an alliance between Great Britain and Turkey, and Canning strongly urged this upon Palmerston, pointing out the advisability of helping the sultan against Mohammed Ali in order to forestall Russia, and of at the same time placating Mohammed Ali by guaranteeing him certain advantages. This advice, which largely anticipated the settlement of 1841, was not followed; but Canning himself was in high favour with the sultan. In 1833 he was selected as ambassador to Russia, but the Tsar Nicholas I., who knew his peremptory methods, refused to receive him.
Canning was again sent to Constantinople in Jan. 1842 and remained there as ambassador until 1858. His tenure of office in these years was made remarkable—first by his constant efforts to induce the Turkish Government to accept reform and to con duct itself with humanity and decency ; then by the Crimean War (q.v.). Canning had no original liking for the Turks. He was the first to express an ardent hope that they would be expelled from Europe with "bag and baggage"--a phrase made popular in after times by Gladstone. But he had persuaded himself that under the new sultan Abd-ul-Mejid they might be reformed. On the fall of Palmerston's ministry in Feb. 1858 he resigned. He had been raised to the peerage in 1852. During his later years he wrote several essays collected under the title of The Eastern Question (1880. In 1873 he published his treatise, Why I am a Christian, and in 1876 his play, Alfred the Great at Athelney. The only son of his second marriage died before him. His wife and two daughters survived him. Lord Stratford died on Aug. 14, 1880, and was buried at Frant in Sussex. A monument to him was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1884.
See S. Lane Poole, Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (1888).