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Frederick North Facts & Worksheets

From 1770–1782, Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, PC served as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

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From 1770–1782, Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, PC (better known from 1752 to 1790 by his courtesy title Lord North), served as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The main way Lord North is regarded now is as the Prime Minister “who lost America”.

See the fact file below for more information on Frederick North, or you can download our 25-page Frederick North worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

BACKGROUND OF FREDERICK NORTH

  • He served as Great Britain’s leader during most of the American War of Independence. He also held the posts of Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the cabinet.
  • The status of the North among historians has fluctuated. His portrayal as a king’s creation and an idiot who lost the American colonies brought it to its lowest ebb in the late 19th century.
  • Early in the 20th century, revisionism highlighted his abilities to manage the House of Commons and the Treasury and to support the Church of England. 
  • However, historian Herbert Butterfield said his laziness prevented him from effectively managing the crisis and disregarded his responsibility for overseeing the overall war effort.

EARLY LIFE (1732 – 1754)

  • Lord North was born in London on April 13, 1732, at the family home in Albemarle Street, off Piccadilly. Several of his formative years were spent at Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire.
  • Contemporaries speculated that North might have been the birth father of George III’s father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, making North the king’s half-brother.
  • This idea was consistent with the prince’s reputation but was only partially supported by circumstantial evidence. 
  • About the famous statement made by King George IV that “either his royal grandmother or North’s mother must have played her husband false”, North’s father, Francis North, 1st Earl of Guilford, served as Frederick, Prince of Wales’s godfather from 1730 to 1751. 
  • The infant may have been named Frederick in honor of his birth father. 
  • In addition to being related to Samuel Pepys and the 3rd Earl of Bute, North was descended from Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich’s paternal uncle.
  • Though they were quite close, he occasionally had a problematic relationship with his father, Francis North. 
  • His family was not fortunate in his early years, but things changed for the better in 1735 when his father received an inheritance from a distant relative. 
  • Frederick’s mother, Lady Lucy Montagu, passed away in 1734. She was the first child of George Montagu, the 1st Earl of Halifax, and Ricarda Posthuma Saltonstall.
  • His stepmother, Elizabeth Kaye, died in 1745 when Frederick was thirteen.
  • He received his education at Eton College between 1742 and 1748 and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he received an MA in 1750.
  • He embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe with Lord Dartmouth after finishing at Oxford. They stayed in Leipzig for over nine months, studying under the constitutional scholar Johann Jacob Mascot. 
  • They kept going via Austria and Italy, remaining in Rome from December 1752 to Easter 1753, then through Switzerland to Paris, before finally making their way back to England in early 1754.

MARRIAGE AND PROGENY

  • The daughter of George Speke, MP of Whitelackington in Somerset, Anne Speke (about 1741-1797), married Lord North on May 20, 1756. 
  • She was the sole heir to the Drake family of Ash’s Devonshire holdings, which Lord North later sold in pieces. He had seven children with Anne.
  • George Augustus North, 3rd Earl of Guilford (September 11, 1757–April 20, 1802), first wed Maria Frances Mary Hobart-Hampden, a descendant of the 3rd Earl of Buckinghamshire, on September 30, 1785; she passed away on April 23, 1794.
  • On February 28, 1796, he wed Susan Coutts, who passed away on September 24, 1837.
  • After marrying Sylvester Douglas, the first Baron of Glenbervie, Catherine Anne North (1760–1817) had no children.
  • Lady Charlotte North (died October 25, 1849) wed Lt. Col. John Lindsay (died 1826), Fifth Earl of Balcarres James Lindsay’s son, in 1800. She served as Queen Caroline’s lady-in-waiting.
  • Lady Anne North (before 1783 – January 18, 1832) had two children after marrying the first Earl of Sheffield on January 20, 1798.
  • The fourth Earl of Guilford, Francis North (1761–1817), was the second son of Frederick North.
  • The fifth Earl of Guilford, Frederick North (1766–1827), was a younger son of Frederick North.

PREMIERSHIP OF FREDERICK NORTH

  • North, 22 at the time, was chosen without opposition as the representative for the Banbury seat on April 15, 1754.
  • He served in Parliament from 1754 to 1790. He joined the Pitt-Newcastle cabinet on June 2, 1759, as a junior Lord of the Treasury (an alliance between the Duke of Newcastle and William Pitt, the Elder). 
  • He rapidly earned a reputation as a good administrator and parliamentarian and was well-liked by his colleagues. 
  • He first identified as a Whig, but because of his lack of support for any of the Whig groups in Parliament, it became clear to many of his contemporaries that he had a robust Tory bias.
  • He was chosen to represent the administration in November 1763 regarding radical MP John Wilkes. 
  • In his daily, The North Briton, Wilkes had published a vicious attack that many people considered libelous against the king and the prime minister. 
  • North’s motion to oust Wilkes from the House of Commons was approved by 273 to 111. 
  • Wilkes was expelled while he was away because he had already left to go to France after a duel.
  • In 1765, when a Whig-led administration led by Lord Rockingham took office, North resigned from his position and briefly served as a backbench MP. 
  • He declined Rockingham’s invitation to rejoin the administration because he did not want to be linked with the Whig grandees who controlled the Ministry.
  • When Pitt took over as the leader of a second ministry in 1766, he was reinstated. In Pitt’s cabinet, North was named Joint Paymaster of the Forces and elevated to the position of Privy Counselor. 
  • Pitt was frequently ill; thus, the Duke of Grafton, with North as one of its most senior members, virtually ran the administration.

RESIGNATION OF FREDERICK NORTH

  • After Sir Robert Walpole in 1742, North was the second British Prime Minister to lose his job due to a lack of confidence. 
  • On March 20, 1782, Lord North submitted his resignation due to the British loss at Yorktown the previous year. 
  • He put up the Conciliation Plan to end the conflict, in which he pledged that Great Britain would stop all offensive behavior in exchange for the colonies to end the conflict.
  • Since achieving complete independence was now their aim, the colonies rejected the idea.
  • Lord Shelburne proposed in a cabinet in April 1782 that North be on trial in front of the public for how he handled the American War, but the idea was quickly dropped. 
  • Ironically, Great Britain’s fortunes in the war began to change once more in 1782 as a result of naval triumphs, partly due to decisions made by Lord North and the Earl of Sandwich. 
  • Following the overthrow of the government, the British navy won the Battle of the Saintes. Gibraltar managed to hold out despite forecasts that its fall was imminent, which was welcomed.
  • In 1783, Great Britain reached a considerably more amicable peace than had been likely when North was driven out. 
  • Despite this, North criticized the Shelburne government’s demands because he believed they undervalued the strength of the British negotiation position.

LATER LIFE (1783-1792)

  • Until he started to go blind in 1786, North was a prominent speaker. 
  • On August 4, 1790, he succeeded his father as the 2nd Earl of Guilford and, by the time he entered the House of Lords, had completely lost his sight. 
  • Lord Guilford passed away in Mayfair, England (now a neighborhood of London) and was laid to rest close to his ancestral seat of Wroxton Abbey at All Saints’ Church in Wroxton, Oxfordshire. 
  • John Flaxman RA created the sculpture for his memorial.
  • In 1792, his son George North, Lord North, assumed control of the Banbury district and succeeded to his father’s title.
  • Ironically, Fairleigh Dickinson University, an American university, now owns Wroxton Monastery. American students can now study abroad in England at the modernized abbey.

LEGACY OF FREDERICK NORTH

  • A hangman’s scaffold marked “Lord Nord” is depicted on a restored 18th-century door on exhibit in Edinburgh Castle. The scaffold was carved by a prisoner taken prisoner during the American War of Independence.
  • In London, he inspired the naming of Lord North Street and Guilford Street.

Frederick North Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Frederick North across 25 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, PC (better known from 1752 to 1790 by his courtesy title Lord North), who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Frederick North Facts
  2. Time Track
  3. Judgment Time
  4. Who Are We?
  5. Seven Shade
  6. Correct My Mistakes
  7. Make the Story Short
  8. You’re the Interviewee
  9. Your Facts
  10. Review History
  11. We Are One!

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Frederick North?

Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, also known as Lord North, was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782. He is best known for his role as the leader of the British government during the American Revolutionary War.

What were some of Frederick North’s political beliefs?

Frederick North was a Tory, which means that he was a member of the conservative political party in Britain at that time. He believed in a strong centralized government and was opposed to the idea of American independence.

How did Frederick North’s policies contribute to the American Revolutionary War?

Frederick North’s policies, such as the Proclamation of 1763, the Quartering Acts, and the Coercive Acts, which were intended to assert British authority over the American colonies, were deeply unpopular among colonists and contributed to the growing tensions that led to the Revolutionary War.

What was the outcome of Frederick North’s premiership?

Frederick North’s premiership ended in 1782, after the British government lost the support of the House of Commons over the handling of the American Revolutionary War. He resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham.

What was Frederick North’s legacy?

Frederick North’s legacy is mostly associated with the loss of the Thirteen Colonies and the American Revolutionary War. He is often criticized for his policies towards the American colonies, which led to the war and ultimately to the loss of British control over them. However, some historians also argue that North’s government was able to maintain the stability and prosperity of Great Britain during a difficult period in its history.

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