Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe, (30 January 1785 – 5 September 1846), known as Sir Charles Metcalfe, Bt between 1822 and 1845, was a British colonial administrator. He held appointments including acting Governor-General of India,

Governor of Jamaica This is a list of viceroys in Jamaica from its initial occupation by Spain in 1509, to its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962. For a list of viceroys after independence, see Governor-General of Jamaica. For context, see History of Jamai ...

and Governor General of the Province of Canada.

Early life and background

Metcalfe was born on 30 January 1785 in Lecture House, Calcutta then part of the Bengal Presidency. He was the second son of Thomas Metcalfe and Susannah Selina Sophia Debonnaire. His father first went to India in 1767 as a cadet in the British Army, and at the time of Metcalfe's birth was serving as a major in the

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Govern ...

. He later became a Member of Parliament, director of the British East India Company and was created a baronet on 21 December 1802. Thomas Metcalfe married Susannah in Calcutta in 1782. She was the daughter of merchant John Debonnaire, a trader at

Fort St. George Fort St. George (or historically, White Town) is a fortress in the coastal city of Chennai, India. Founded in 1639, it was the first English (later British) fortress in India. The construction of the fort provided the impetus for further ...

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, who subsequently settled at the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

. It was her second marriage, her first being with Major John Smith in

from 1776 until his death. His parents returned to England shortly after the birth of their son. Metcalfe's elder sister was Emily Theophila, later becoming the

Viscountess Ashbrook Viscount Ashbrook is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1751 for Captain Henry Flower, 2nd Baron Castle Durrow. The title of Baron Castle Durrow, in the County of Kilkenny, had been created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1733 for ...

. A younger brother, Thomas, also went on to achieve distinction as a civil servant with the East India Company.

Education

Metcalfe spent four years at Eton College in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

, before arriving in Bengal on 1 January 1801, a month before his sixteenth birthday.Hall, D. G. "Sir Charles Metcalfe: Governor of Jamaica, Sept., 1839 to May, 1842". Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 2, 1953, pp. 90–100. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40652570. Accessed 14 February 2021. Thereafter He then studied Oriental languages as the first student at Lord Wellesley's Fort William College.

India

Early career

Portrait of Akbar II with Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalf and court dignitaries

At the age of nineteen, Metcalfe was appointed political assistant to General Lake, who was then conducting the final campaign of the Second Anglo-Maratha War against Yashwantrao Holkar. In 1808 he was selected by Lord Minto for the responsible post of envoy to the court of

Ranjit Singh Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839), popularly known as Sher-e-Punjab or "Lion of Punjab", was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, which ruled the northwest Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. He s ...

at Lahore; here, on 25 April 1809, he concluded the important Treaty of Amritsar securing the independence of the

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

states between the

Sutlej The Sutlej or Satluj River () is the longest of the five rivers that flow through the historic crossroads region of Punjab in northern India and Pakistan. The Sutlej River is also known as ''Satadru''. It is the easternmost tributary of the Ind ...

and the

Jumna The Yamuna ( Hindustani: ), also spelt Jumna, is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of about on the southwestern slopes of Ban ...

. His first tenure as Resident at Delhi began on 25 February 1811 for the East India Company (from 1813 for the British Government), and in 1819 he received from Lord Hastings the appointment of secretary in the secret and political department. From 1820 to 1825 Sir Charles (who succeeded his brother in the baronetcy in 1822) was resident at the court of the Nizam, and afterwards was summoned in an emergency to his former post at Delhi.

Agra

On 14 November 1834 Metcalfe was posted as Governor of the Presidency of Agra where he served for over four months till 20 March 1835.The India list and India Office list for 1905 By Great Britain, India Office #130
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Acting Governor-General

In 1827 he obtained a seat in the supreme council, and in March 1835, after he had acted as the first governor of the proposed new presidency of Agra, he provisionally succeeded Lord William Bentinck as the Governor-General of Bengal (1835–36). During his brief tenure of office (it lasted for only one year) he carried out several important measures, including that for the liberation of the press, which, while almost universally popular, complicated his relations with the directors at home to such an extent that he resigned the service of the Company in 1838. In 1835 he was also appointed a

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one ...

(GCB).

North-Western Provinces

Metcalfe was

Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces This is a list of lieutenant-governors of the North-Western Provinces. The provisional establishment of the lieutenant-governors of the North-Western Provinces happened in 1836 until the title was merged with Chief Commissioners of Oudh and was ...

from 1 June 1836 to 1 June 1838. In 1838 he retired from service with the East India Company and settled in England.

Jamaica

In 1839, Metcalfe accepted an appointment by the Second Melbourne ministry to the governorship of Jamaica, where labour difficulties created by the recent passing of the Slavery Abolition Act called for a high degree of tact and ability. Metcalfe's administration was successful in addressing the complaints of both labourers and their employers and bringing a greater sense of unity amongst the different factions. Ill health hastened his resignation and on 24 May 1842 he left Jamaica for England.

Canada

Six months afterwards he was appointed by the

Peel Peel or Peeling may refer to: Places Australia * Peel (Western Australia) * Peel Island, Queensland *Peel, New South Wales * Peel River (New South Wales) Canada * Peel Parish, New Brunswick * Peel, New Brunswick, an unincorporated communi ...

ministry to the post of Governor General of the Province of Canada with instructions to resist further development of

responsible government Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive bran ...

. A clash soon emerged between Metcalfe and the leaders of the legislative assembly, Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. Despite suffering from worsening cancer, he fought to preserve the prerogatives of the Crown and the governor's control over the administration and

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

. He nonetheless had to make some concessions to win support, and the most notable of these was persuading the Colonial Office to grant amnesty to the rebels of 1837-38, and to abandon forced anglicization of the French-speaking population.

Final years

Metcalfe's success in Canada carrying out the policy of the home government was rewarded with a

peerage A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks. Peerages include: Australia * Australian peers Belgium * Belgi ...

shortly after his return to England, with the title Baron Metcalfe, of

Fern Hill "Fern Hill" (1945) is a poem by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published in ''Horizon'' magazine in October 1945, with its first book publication in 1946 as the last poem in '' Deaths and Entrances''. Thomas had started writing ''Fern Hill'' ...

in the

County of Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Ber ...

in 1845. But his success did not endure and

would be conceded by his successor James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin. Metcalfe died of skin cancer at Malshanger in Oakley, near

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

, on 5 September 1846. His residence was however at Fernhill Park in Winkfield, near Windsor and it was in the parish church there that he was buried.

Personal life

When in Lahore, Metcalfe began a relationship with a

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

woman who bore him three sons.Sita Anantha Raman 2009 ''Women in India: a social and cultural history, volume 2.'' Praeger, p. 87. Metcalfe was open about this relationship, and sent all three sons to England to be educated. One of his sons, James Metcalfe, became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the

Honorific eponyms

* Ontario: Metcalfe * Victoria: Metcalfe

References

External links

Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Metcalfe, Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron 1785 births 1846 deaths Governors-General of the Province of Canada Governors-General of India Governors of Agra Lieutenant-Governors of the North-Western Provinces Governors of Jamaica Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath People from Winkfield British people in colonial India British East India Company people Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria