Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, 1st Baron, Canadian History, Biographies

Related Category: Canadian History, Biographies

Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, 1st Baron 1785–1846, British colonial administrator, b. India. He entered the Indian civil service as a young man, rose quickly, and was provisional governor-general in 1835. He later served (1839–42) as governor of Jamaica. He was appointed governor-general of Canada in 1843. His experience in India and Jamaica had little prepared Metcalfe for service in a colony in which the movement for self-government was strongly under way. In 1843 his ministers, headed by Robert Baldwin and Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine of the Reform parties, resigned. He formed a Conservative administration, and a general election resulted in his favor. Impaired in health, he retired in 1845, the same year in which he was created a baron.

See D. N. Panigrahi, Charles Metcalfe in India (1968).