William IV of the United Kingdom
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William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover from 26 June 1830. William, the third son of George III and younger brother and successor to George IV, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the House of Hanover. He served in the Royal Navy in his youth and was, both during his reign and afterwards, nicknamed the "Sailor King". He served in North America and the Caribbean, but saw little actual fighting. Since his two older brothers died without leaving legitimate issue, he inherited the throne when he was 64 years old. His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all the British Empire, and the Reform Act 1832 refashioned the British electoral system. Though William did not engage in politics as much as his brother or his father, he was the last monarch to appoint a Prime Minister contrary to the will of Parliament. Through his brother, the Viceroy of Hanover, he granted that kingdom a
short-lived liberal constitution. At his death William had no surviving legitimate children, though he was survived by eight of the ten illegitimate children he had by the actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he cohabited for 20 years. British Prime Minister David Cameron is one of their descendants. William was succeeded in the United Kingdom by his niece, Victoria, and in Hanover by his brother, Ernest Augustus. William was born in the early hours of the morning on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House, the third child and son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He had two elder brothers, George and Frederick, and was not expected to inherit the Crown. He was baptised in the Great Council Chamber of St James's Palace on 20 September 1765. His godparents were his paternal uncles, the Duke of Gloucester and Prince Henry (later Duke of Cumberland), and his paternal aunt, Princess Augusta, then Hereditary Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Most of his early life was spent at Richmond and Kew, where he was educated by private tutors. At the age of thirteen, he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman, and was present at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1780. His experiences in the navy seem to have been little different from those of other midshipmen (though a tutor accompanied him on board ship) doing his share of the cooking and getting arrested with his shipmates after a drunken brawl on Gibraltar (he was hastily released when his identity became known). He served in New York during the American War of Independence. While
Early life