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George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville

British Army officer and politician (1716–1785)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 28, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Major-General George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, PC was a British Army officer and politician who served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1775 to 1782. Serving in the North ministry during the American War of Independence, he was a hardliner, "the chief architect of the American War in Britain," receiving significant blame for Britain's defeat.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville” as british Army officer and politician (1716–1785). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around George, Germain and Viscount.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1775, 1782—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with George, Germain and Viscount providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville”, the useful work is to connect “british Army officer and politician (1716–1785)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1775 and 1782.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville primary sources, George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville archive and George research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.