Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe

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. He later became a Member of Parliament, director of the British East India Company and was created a baronet on 21 December 1802.[3][4] Thomas Metcalfe married Susannah in Calcutta in 1782. She was the daughter of merchant John Debonnaire, a trader at Fort St. George, Madras, who subsequently settled at the Cape of Good Hope. It was her second marriage, her first being with Major John Smith in Madras from 1776 until his death. His parents returned to England shortly after the birth of their son.[5][6]

Metcalfe's elder sister was Emily Theophila, later becoming the Viscountess Ashbrook.[7] A younger brother, Thomas, also went on to achieve distinction as a civil servant with the East India Company.

Metcalfe spent four years at Eton College in Berkshire, before arriving in Bengal on 1 January 1801, a month before his sixteenth birthday.[8] He then studied Oriental languages as the first student at Lord Wellesley's Fort William College.

Monument of Charles Metcalfe in St. William Grant Park in Kingston, 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.[2] 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.[8]

Six months afterwards he was appointed by the Peel ministry to the post of Governor General of the Province of Canada with instructions to resist further development of responsible government. 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. 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.

Metcalfe's success in Canada carrying out the policy of the home government was rewarded with a peerage shortly after his return to England, with the title Baron Metcalfe, of Fern Hill in the County of Berkshire in 1845.[12] But his success did not endure and responsible government would be conceded by his successor James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin. Metcalfe died of skin cancer at Malshanger in Oakley, near Basingstoke, on 5 September 1846.[8] His residence was however at Fernhill Park in Winkfield, near Windsor and it was in the parish church there that he was buried.

When in Lahore, Metcalfe began a relationship with a Punjabi Sikh woman who bore him three sons.[13] Metcalfe was open about this relationship, and sent all three sons to England to be educated.[8] One of his sons, James Metcalfe, became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Bengal Army.

• Ontario: Metcalfe
• Victoria: Metcalfe

• Genealogy of Metcalfes
• J. W. Kaye, Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe (London, 1854)
• E. Thompson, The life of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (London, 1937).
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1894). "Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Bayly, C. A. "Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus, Baron Metcalfe (1785–1846)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18617. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles Theophilus Metcalfe.

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online