Lord North was born Frederick North in 1732 in Piccadilly into an aristocratic family. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Oxford. After a customary Grand Tour, including nine months in Leipzig, in 1754, aged 22, he was elected unopposed as the MP for Banbury. From 1752, he used the courtesy title ‘Lord North’.

He was appointed a Lord of the Treasury in the Newcastle-Pitt government in 1759.  He briefly served as an officer in the North Somerset militia over 1759-61. In 1763, North introduced a motion to Parliament, expelling the radical MP John Wilkes.

North left office in 1765, at the onset of Rockingham’s premiership, because he was suspicious of the Whig grandees that formed the government. He returned to office with Pitt the Elder, who, due to his health problems, was often absent, allowing Grafton to run the government, with North as a senior member. In 1767, North was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. During this period, North became gradually associated with the ‘Tory’ faction in Parliament, though the division between them and the Whigs he served in power was never clearly defined.

In 1770, with Grafton’s resignation, George III appointed North to be the Prime Minister. He liked North, who had earned a reputation as a diligent administrator, and was well liked by his Parliamentary colleagues. Though he lacked the stature or oratorical skill of some of his contemporaries, North was a good speaker, with a self-deprecating sense of humour.

The decision seemed to be swiftly justified – North was a good manager of ministers and formed a stable government after several failed starts during the 1760s. North quickly stared down a Spanish attempt to retake the Falklands Islands in 1770. Over the years that followed, North focused on administrative reform and was able to reduce the nation’s debts by £10 million by 1775.

But, Lord North is not remembered as a successful administrative Prime Minister. In 1774, colonists in Boston protested at what they saw as unjust taxes by throwing a shipment of East India Company tea into the harbour. In response, North – whose priority was boosting Britain’s tax revenues after the enormous debts left by the Seven Years’ War – passed the Coercive Acts, which were designed to punish Boston. The colonists dubbed these the ‘Intolerable Acts’. Eventually, in spring 1775, North decided upon a more conciliatory policy, but it was too late.

In April 1775, British forces were dispatched to seize militia arms from Lexington in Massachusetts. There the redcoats were confronted by the militia, shots were fired, fighting broke out, and war began. The British forces faced a rapidly developing rebellion against Parliament’s authority. Now, Lord North’s government chose a military response, deciding that the American rebels would be compelled to abandon the rebellion.

It seemed, for a while, that the government’s decision was well founded. An American attempt to take Canada failed at Quebec in December 1775 and in August 1776 a large British army seized New York, sweeping aside George Washington’s Continental Army. In July 1776, the colonists declared independence, but foreign recognition was not forthcoming, let alone assistance. During the following year, British forces defeated Washington again and seized the American capital of Philadelphia.

However, disaster followed. A British army was forced to surrender at Saratoga, and France, eager to avenge its humiliation in the Seven Years’ War, declared war on Britain in 1779. A year later, Spain declared war too. Now Britain was faced with a naval war all around the world, with threats to Gibraltar, the Caribbean, and India. By 1780, Britain had effectively given up the Northern American colonies, but tried to hang on to the South, igniting a brutal conflict in the Carolinas and Virginia.

North was not a good war leader. He delegated military strategy to other figures in his Cabinet, including Lord Germain. Nor was he truly confident about the war; he asked George III if he might resign on several occasions, but the King, who was fully committed to the American war, refused. North, who felt that loyalty overrode all else, believed that he was the King’s instrument, and was obliged to execute his wishes. Moreover, the King had paid off some of North’s personal debts, blurring the lines between professional and personal loyalties.

In October 1781, besieged by American and French forces on land, and a French fleet at sea, a large British army surrendered at Yorktown in Virginia. When he heard the news, North was horrified, pacing around Downing Street, saying ‘It’s all over’.

Despite the defeat, and, in the face of military and strategic reality, George III wished to continue the war. But, over the months that followed Yorktown, the Parliamentary opposition whittled away Lord North’s majority. On 27 February 1782, Lord North lost a vote of no confidence and, on 20 March, he resigned. George III initially refused to accept, but North insisted, helping to set the precedents that a Prime Minister resigns when they have lost the confidence of the House and that their Cabinet leaves with them.

Once out of power, North continued to be active in politics. In April 1783, he even returned to power as Home Secretary in an alliance with the radical Charles James-Fox under the Duke of Portland’s nominal leadership in a government that posterity records as the ‘Fox-North Coalition’. This arrangement, which George III deeply disliked, finally collapsed in late 1783.

In 1790, North was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Guildford. By then, he had largely lost his sight.

Lord North married Anne Speke in 1756 and they had seven children.

Lord North died in 1792.