Fox–North coalition
Government of Great Britain
The Fox–North coalition was a government in Great Britain that held office during 1783. As the name suggests, the ministry was a coalition of the groups supporting Charles James Fox and Lord North. It was headed by William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, who became Prime Minister on 2 April 1783.
History
Fox was a Whig by background, and North came from the nominal Tory Party; however, both had fallen out with the government of Lord Shelburne. They combined their forces in the House of Commons to throw out Shelburne's ministry and then form a government of their own.
King George III despised the government, and Fox in particular, but found that no other ministry could be formed at this stage despite several offers to William Pitt the Younger. Consequently, the King declined to provide the government with the normal tools of patronage, and it was forced to look elsewhere.
The Treaty of Paris was signed during this government on 3 September 1783, formally ending the American Revolutionary War. The government also came under strain when, from the opposition, Pitt introduced a proposal for electoral reform to tackle bribery and rotten boroughs. The proposal did not pass, but caused tensions within the coalition which contained both proponents and opponents of political reform.
The public source identifies “Fox–North coalition” as government of Great Britain. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around North, coalition and Government.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5477357. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1783.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fox–North coalition” 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.