Date Published:
February 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Sir Charles Stanley, fourth Viscount of Monck

Monck, Sir Charles Stanley, fourth Viscount (1819-1894), governor-general of British North America (1861-7), and of the Dominion of Canada (1867-8), was born at Templemore, Tipperary county, Ireland, the eldest son of Charles Joseph Kelly, third Viscount Monck, and Bridget, youngest daughter of John Wellington of Tipperary county, Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin , and was called to the Irish bar in 1841. He succeeded his father in the peerage in 1849; but, since the peerage was Irish, he did not have a seat in the House of Lords, and in 1852 he was elected to the British House of Commons as Liberal member for Portsmouth. From 1855 to 1857 he was a lord of the treasury in the Palmerston administration; and in 1861 he was appointed governor-general of British North America. His period of office was notable for his successful efforts to maintain peace between Great Britain and the United States during and after the American Civil War, and for the energetic, though constitutional, part which he played in bringing about the federation of British North America. In 1867 he was the first governor-general of the Dominion of Canada; but he resigned in 1868, and returned to Ireland. From 1874 to 1892 he was lord-lieutenant of Dublin county, Ireland ; and he died on November 30, 1894. In 1844 he married his cousin, the Lady Elizabeth Louise Mary Monck, fourth daughter of Henry Stanley, first Earl of Rathdowne; and by her he had two sons and two daughters. In 1866 he was created Baron Monck of Bally-trammon, in the peerage of the United Kingdom ; and in 1869 he was created a G.C.M.G., and was called to the Privy Council. See R. G. Trotter, Lord Monck and the great coalition of 1864 (Can. hist. rev ., 1922).

Source: W. Stanley WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. IV, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 400p., p. 318