George III

George III
Full-length portrait in oils of a clean-shaven young George in eighteenth century dress: gold jacket and breeches, ermine cloak, powdered wig, white stockings, and buckled shoes.
Reign25 October 1760 – 29 January 1820
Coronation22 September 1761
PredecessorGeorge II
SuccessorGeorge IV
RegentGeorge, Prince of Wales (1811‍–‍1820)
Born(1738-06-04)4 June 1738 [NS][c]
Norfolk House, St James's Square, London, England
Died29 January 1820(1820-01-29) (aged 81)
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England
Burial16 February 1820
Spouse
(m. 1761; died 1818)
Issue
Names
George William Frederick
HouseHanover
FatherFrederick, Prince of Wales
MotherPrincess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
ReligionAnglicanism
SignatureHandwritten "George" with a huge leading "G" and a large capital "R" at the end for "Rex"

George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language,[1] and never visited Hanover.[2]

George was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, King George II, as the first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Following his father's death in 1751, Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 1760. The following year, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had 15 children. George III's life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, Britain lost 13 of its North American colonies in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire.

In the later part of his life, George had recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness. The exact nature of the mental illness is not known definitively, but historians and medical experts have suggested that his symptoms and behaviour traits were consistent with either bipolar disorder or porphyria. In 1810, George suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent the following year. The King died aged 81, at which time the Regent succeeded him as George IV. George III reigned during much of the Georgian and Regency eras. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, having reigned for 59 years and 96 days; he remains the longest-lived and longest-reigning male monarch in British history.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ "George III". Official website of the British monarchy. Royal Household. 31 December 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  2. ^ Brooke, p. 314; Fraser, p. 277.

Developed by StudentB