Charles Edmund Wilkinson (1801–1870) was a British army officer who rose to the rank of Major-General and served as acting

Governor of British Ceylon The governor of Ceylon was the representative in Ceylon of the British Crown from 1795 to 1948. In this capacity, the governor was president of the Executive Council and Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in Ceylon. The governor was the ...

Life

He was the only son of the naturalist Jacob Wilkinson (1773–1844) and his first wife Olivia Maria Cranke Stephen (1771–1815). Pursuing a military career in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, he rose to captain in 1846, lieutenant-colonel in 1854, brevet-colonel in 1858, and in 1859 was promoted to full colonel. On 30 July 1860 he was appointed acting Governor of

British Ceylon British Ceylon ( si, බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය ලංකාව, Britānya Laṃkāva; ta, பிரித்தானிய இலங்கை, Biritthāṉiya Ilaṅkai) was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between ...

, a post he held until 22 October 1860 when he was succeeded by

Charles Justin MacCarthy Sir Charles Justin MacCarthy (1811–1864) was the 12th Governor of British Ceylon and the 12th Accountant General and Controller of Revenue. He was appointed on 22 October 1860 and was Governor until 1 December 1863. He also served as acting gov ...

. In 1866 he achieved his final promotion to major-general and died on 3 June 1870 at his London home, his will being proved in London on 24 June 1870 and in Dublin on 22 August 1870 with effects valued at under 30,000 pounds (equivalent to about 2.6 million pounds in 2015).

Family

On 12 July 1837 he married Mary Drought Armstrong (1806–1902), daughter of an Irish landowner John Warneford Armstrong (1770–1858) and his wife Anne Turner (−1869), and they had six children, two of whom married: * Lora St Lo Elizabeth Wilkinson (1838–1934) in 1880 married John Ball (−1887): and * Charles St Lo Wilkinson (1849–1927) who in 1887 married Jessie Simons (1864-after 1927). Lora left a diary of her time in Ceylon in 1860, excerpts from which can be read here.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Charles Edmund Governors of British Ceylon British expatriates in Sri Lanka 19th-century British people 1801 births 1870 deaths Royal Engineers officers