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. Following his father's death in , Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 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. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in In , 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 , George suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales , was named Prince Regent the following year. 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.
As he was born two months prematurely, and thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker , who was both Rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly , and Bishop of Oxford. George grew into a healthy, reserved and shy child. The family moved to Leicester Square , where George and his younger brother Edward later Duke of York and Albany were educated together by private tutors. Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German, as well as comment on political events of the time, by the age of eight.
Apart from chemistry and physics, his lessons included astronomy, mathematics, French, Latin, history, music, geography, commerce, agriculture and constitutional law, along with sporting and social accomplishments such as dancing, fencing and riding.
