Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1844)
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, (30 May 1757 – 15 February 1844) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804.
Addington is best known for obtaining the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, an unfavourable peace with Napoleonic France which marked the end of the Second Coalition during the French Revolutionary Wars. When that treaty broke down he resumed the war, but he was without allies and conducted relatively weak defensive hostilities, ahead of what would become the War of the Third Coalition. He was forced from office in favour of William Pitt the Younger, who had preceded Addington as Prime Minister. Addington is also known for his reactionary crackdown on advocates of democratic reforms during a ten-year spell as Home Secretary from 1812 to 1822. He is the longest continuously serving holder of that office since it was created in 1782.
1757May, 30
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
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Events on 1757
- 5Jan
Robert-François Damiens
Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of capital punishment used for regicides. - 6May
Christopher Smart's asylum confinement
English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums. - 5Nov
Battle of Rossbach
Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great defeats the allied armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Rossbach. - 5Dec
Battle of Leuthen
Seven Years' War: Battle of Leuthen - Frederick II of Prussia leads Prussian forces to a decisive victory over Austrian forces under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine.