George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore
| The Right Honourable Lord Baltimore |
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George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore
Portrait by Daniel Mytens |
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| Secretary of State | |
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In office 1618–1625 |
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| Proprietor of the Avalon Colony (Newfoundland) | |
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In office 1620–1632 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 1579 Kiplin, Richmondshire |
| Died | 15 April 1632 (aged 52–53) Lincoln's Inn Fields, London |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | 13, including: |
| Religion | Roman Catholic (previously Anglican and prior to that, raised Catholic but converted under pressure) |
| Signature |  |
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (1579 – 15 April 1632) was an English politician and coloniser. He achieved domestic political success as a Member of Parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I. He lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish House of Habsburg royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was created Baron Baltimore in the Irish peerage upon his resignation. Baltimore Manor was located in County Longford, Ireland. The name Baltimore is an Anglicisation of the Irish Baile an Tí Mhóir, which means "town of the big house."
Calvert took an interest in the British colonisation of the Americas, at first for commercial reasons and later to create a refuge for English Catholics. He became the proprietor of Avalon, the first sustained English settlement on the southeastern peninsula on the island of Newfoundland (off the eastern coast of modern Canada). Discouraged by its cold and sometimes inhospitable climate and the sufferings of the settlers, Sir George looked for a more suitable spot further south and sought a new royal charter to settle the region, which would become the state of Maryland. Calvert died five weeks before the new Charter was sealed, leaving the settlement of the Maryland colony to his son Cecil, (1605–1675). His second son Leonard Calvert, (1606–1647), was the first colonial governor of the Province of Maryland.
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