Charles Henry Darling

{{Short description|British Army officer and Australian politician}}

{{for|the British lawyer, politician, and High Court Justice|Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = Sir Charles Darling

| honorific-suffix = KCB

| office = Governor of Victoria

| order = 3rd

| termstart = 11 September 1863

| termend = 7 May 1866

| monarch = Victoria

| image = Portrait of Sir Charles Darling 1863 wood engraving.jpg

| successor = John Manners-Sutton, 3rd Viscount Canterbury

| predecessor = Sir Henry Barkly

| birth_date = 19 February 1809

| birth_place = Nova Scotia, Canada

| death_date = 25 January 1870 (aged 60)

| death_place = Lansdown Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England

}}

Sir Charles Henry Darling {{post-nominals|country=GBR|KCB}} (19 February 1809 – 25 January 1870) was a British colonial governor.

Early life

Darling was born on 19 February 1809 in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. He was the son of Isabella ({{nee|Cameron}}) and Henry Charles Darling. His father was a British Army officer who was attached to the colonial militia in Nova Scotia;{{cite news|url=https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/darling_charles_henry_9E.html|title=Darling, Sir Charles Henry|first=Frederic F.|last=Thompson|work=Dictionary of Canadian Biography|volume=9|publisher=University of Toronto/Université Laval|year=1976}} he later attained the rank of major-general and served as lieutenant-governor of Tobago. His maternal grandfather Charles Cameron was a long-serving governor of the Bahamas.{{cite AuDB |first=F. K. |last=Crowley |title=Darling, Sir Charles Henry (1809–1870) |volume=4 |edition=MUP |year=1972 |id2=darling-sir-charles-henry-3367 |access-date=9 April 2019}}

Darling was educated in England at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In December 1826 he enlisted as an ensign in the 57th Regiment of Foot and was posted to the colony of New South Wales. He served for a period as assistant private secretary to his uncle, Governor Ralph Darling. He was promoted lieutenant in 1830 and the following year return to England to complete further training at Sandhurst. He was appointed military secretary to Lionel Smith, Governor of Barbados, in 1833 and followed Smith to Jamaica in 1836.

Colonial governor

He started his colonial service while in Jamaica, during which time he often clashed with leaders of the free people of color who were elected to the island's Assembly, such as Robert Osborn. He became Lieutenant-Governor of St. Lucia in 1847, and he became Lieutenant-Governor of the Cape Colony in South Africa in 1851. A town in South Africa, on the West Coast of the country was named after Darling. He became Governor of Newfoundland in 1855. Darling became governor and captain-chief of Jamaica in 1857 then governor of Victoria, Australia from 1863 to 1866.

During his time in Newfoundland, Darling came into disagreement with prominent people in the colony regarding fishing rights. He supported the British recommendations to grant the French more fishing rights in waters of Newfoundland between Cape St. John and Cape Ray. Ultimately, the dispute ended his term in office.

Personal life

In 1835, Darling married Anne Wilhelmina Dalzell, a member of a wealthy plantation-owning family from Barbados. They had a son who died in infancy and Anne herself died in 1837. Through Anne's will, Darling would have received some money, although she died before her mother who had owned the slaves.{{cite web |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146652311 |title=Ann[e] Wilhelmina Darling (née Dalzell) - Profile & Legacies Summary |publisher=University College London |work=Legacies of British Slave-ownership}}{{cite journal |doi=10.17613/d8ht-p058 |year=2019 |last1=Coventry |first1=C.J. |title=Links in the Chain: British slavery, Victoria and South Australia |journal=Before/Now |volume=1 |issue=1}}

He was then married, at Christ Church, Barbados, on 14 December 1839 to Mary Ann Nurse (who died of yellow fever in St Lucia on 6 November 1848). His third marriage, at Ilfracombe, North Devon, was on 10 December 1851 to Elizabeth Isabella Caroline Salter ({{circa}} 1820 – 10 December 1900).{{cn|date=June 2025}}

Charles Henry Darling died at Lansdown Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, aged 60.{{cn|date=June 2025}}

Legacy

Darling Street in the Ballarat south suburb of Redan is named for him.City of Ballarat, 5 January 2012. Roads and Open Space Index, pg.14, Ballarat: City of Ballarat

References

External links

[http://www.heritage.nf.ca/govhouse/governors/g47.html Biography at Government House The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador]
[http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=4386 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
[http://www.stluciagovernmenthouse.com/page_11.html Biography at Saint Lucia Government House]
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060615060538/http://www.kittybrewster.com/ancestry/darling.htm Family tree]}}

{{succession box

| before=Sir Evan John Murray MacGregor

| title=Governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands | years=1841

| after=Sir Charles Edward Grey

}}

{{succession box|title=Lieutenant-Governor of St. Lucia|

before=Arthur Wellesley Torrens |

after=Henry Clermont Cobbe |

years=1848–1852}}

{{succession box|title=Governor of the Cape Colony, acting|

before=Sir George Cathcart |

after=Sir George Grey |