Stratford de Redcliffe, SIR STRATFORD CANNING, K.G., G.C.B., first Viscount, the famous ambassador, known as 'the Great Elchi,' was descended from the Cannynghes of Bristol, but was born in London, 4th November 1786, the fifth and youngest child of Stratford Canning, a merchant, and was first cousin to George Canning the statesman. He was educated at Eton, and proceeded in due course as scholar to King's College, Cambridge, where, however, his terms were interrupted by diplomatic appointments, and he did not take his degree till 1812, when it was granted by royal mandamus. In 1807 he acted as précis-writer to his cousin at the Foreign Office, and in the same year went as second secretary with Merry's mission to Copenhagen. In 1808 he was appointed first secretary to Sir Robert Adair's embassy to Constantinople, and succeeded him as minister-plenipotentiary in 1810. His duty was to counteract the influence of France at the Porte, and he succeeded on his own initiative and without the smallest countenance from his government or the Foreign Office in negotiating the important treaty of Bucharest in 1812 between Russia and Turkey, who were then at war, just in time to release the Russian army of the Danube and enable it to fall upon Napoleon on his retreat from Moscow. This signal service was recognised by Lord Castlereagh's government, who appointed him minister in Switzerland, 1814; there he assisted in framing the Swiss constitution, and visited Vienna as commissioner during the famous Congress of 1815. He resigned the mission in 1819, and was immediately appointed minister to the United States, and remained at Washington till 1823. In the following year he was sent on a special mission to Vienna and St Petersburg, connected with the Greek question, and in 1825 went to Constantinople as full ambassador. Here he witnessed the massacre of the Janizaries, and exerted himself on behalf of the insurgent Greeks. After the battle of Navarino the embassy was necessarily withdrawn, and, in consequence of serious differences with Lord Aberdeen on the policy to be adopted towards Greece, Canning resigned his post in 1828, but his services were recognised by the decoration of the Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1831 he was again sent to Constantinople on a special mission, to draw the boundaries of the new kingdom of Greece, and on his return was gazetted ambassador to St Petersburg; but the czar, without alleging a reason, declined to receive him—probably because he dreaded so keen an eye at close quarters. In 1833 Sir Stratford went to Madrid on a special mission relating to the Portuguese succession, but his efforts were, as it was foreseen they must be, fruitless. During the intervals in his diplomatic career he sat in the House of Commons as a moderate Tory, or 'Stanleyite,' for Old Sarum, 1828-30; Stockbridge, 1831-32; and King's Lynn, 1834-42; but failed to make his mark as an orator or a debater. From 1842 to 1858 he was again ambassador at Constantinople, and built up that extraordinary influence so eloquently described by Kinglake, which gained him the name of the 'Great Elchi.' He induced the sultan to inaugurate a series of reforms, and to authorise numerous improvements in the condition of the Christian rayas, culminating in the celebrated Hatti-Humayun of 1856, which may be termed the Magna Charta of the Christian subjects of the Porte. His diplomatic skill and his unbounded influence over the Turks were never seen to greater advantage than in 1853, in his negotiations with Prince Menschikoff, the Russian special ambassador, concerning the dispute about the Holy Places and the Russian claim for predominating influence on behalf of the Christians of Turkey. His strenuous and unflagging exertions to preserve peace were, however, defeated by the obstinacy of the Czar Nicholas and the vacillating weakness of Lord Aberdeen's government; the war which ensued between Russia and Turkey involved England and France; and the result was the expedition to the Crimea, and the siege of Sebastopol. At the close of the war, after obtaining the proclamation of the Charter of Reform, Lord Stratford, who had been created a viscount in 1852, resigned his embassy in 1858, at the age of seventy-one, and a diplomatic career of unexampled distinction, lasting over half a century, came to an end. Stratford de Redcliffe was the last of the old style of semi-royal and half-independent ambassadors: the telegraph-wire has made ministers of his mettle and character impossible if not superfluous. After his retirement he occasionally took part in the debates on foreign policy in the House of Lords, and devoted part of his leisure to the writing of poetry, which had been a favourite occupation with him since he wrote a fine poem on Buonaparte, which attracted the admiration of Byron, in 1814. Some articles on the Eastern Question were collected after his death and edited by Dean Stanley. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1869 at Mr Gladstone's recommendation, and died in the full enjoyment of his mental powers though at the great age of almost ninety-four, 14th August 1880. His statue was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1884.
See Life of Stratford Canning, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, by the present writer (2 vols. 1888; 1 vol. 1890).