{{Short description|British Army officer and colonial administrator}} {{for|the British lawyer, politician, and High Court Justice|Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling}} {{Use British English|date=March 2012}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = Sir Charles Darling | honorific_suffix = KCB | image = Charles Henry Darling.jpg | office = 3rd Governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands | term_start = 1841 | term_end = 1841 | predecessor = Sir Evan Murray-Macgregor | successor = Sir Charles Grey | office1 = 10th Lieutenant-Governor of St. Lucia | term_start1 = 1848 | term_end1 = 1852 | predecessor1 = Sir Arthur Torrens | successor1 = Henry Clermont Cobbe | office2 = ''Acting'' Governor of Cape Colony | term_start2 = 1854 | term_end2 = 1854 | predecessor2 = Sir George Cathcart | successor2 = Sir George Grey | office3 = 48th Governor of Newfoundland | term_start3 = 1855 | term_end3 = 1857 | predecessor3 = Ker Baillie-Hamilton | successor3 = Sir Alexander Bannerman | office4 = Governor of Jamaica | term_start4 = 1857 | term_end4 = 1863 | office5 = 3rd Governor of Victoria | term_start5 = 1863 | term_end5 = 1866 | predecessor5 = Henry Barkly | successor5 = Sir John Manners-Sutton | birth_date = 19 February 1809 | birth_place = Annapolis Royal, 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;<ref name=dcb>{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref name=adb>{{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}}</ref>
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.<ref name=dcb/>
==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 1856 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.
In Victoria, Darling was embroiled in a constitutional crisis when he obeyed the advice of premier James McCulloch to authorise payments servicing a £40,000 loan made by London Chartered Bank of Australia, of which McCulloch was a director, without appropriation by the Legislative Council. The loan had been extended after McCulloch's government had lost supply when attempting to force the Legislative Council to approve a new tariff my attaching it to the annual appropriation bill.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Crowley |first1=F. K. |title=Sir Charles Henry Darling (1809–1870) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/darling-sir-charles-henry-3367 |website=Australian Dictionary of Biography |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |access-date=20 October 2025 |language=en}}</ref>
Following his early recall as Governor of Victoria, the colonial parliament attempted to compensate Darling through a £20,000 payment to his wife. Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, the colonial secretary, sent messages to both the Darlings and the Legislative Assembly that this would not be permitted. He also instructed the new governor, Sir John Manners-Sutton, to refuse assent to any such bill passed while Darling remained in the Colonial Service. Victoria was Darling's final posting.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Twomey |first1=Anne |author1-link=Anne Twomey (academic) |title=Why supply crises are risky for Governors |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHp21LN2qpc&t=780s |website=YouTube |access-date=18 October 2025 |date=17 September 2025}}</ref>
==Personal life== In 1835, Darling married Anne Wilhelmina Dalzell, a member of a wealthy plantation-owning family from Barbados.<ref name=adb/> 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.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref name="Coventry">{{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}}</ref>
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).{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
Charles Henry Darling died at Lansdown Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, aged 60.{{citation needed|date=June 2025}}
==Legacy== Darling Street in the Ballarat south suburb of Redan is named for him.<ref name=rosi>City of Ballarat, 5 January 2012. ''Roads and Open Space Index'', pg.14, Ballarat: City of Ballarat</ref>
==See also== * Governors of Newfoundland * List of people of Newfoundland and Labrador * Governor of Victoria
==References== {{reflist}}
==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]}}
{{s-start}} {{s-gov}} {{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 | years=1854}} {{succession box|title=Governor of Newfoundland| before=Ker Baillie Hamilton | after=Sir Alexander Bannerman | years=1855–1857}} {{succession box|title=Governor of Jamaica| before=Edward Wells Bell | after=Edward John Eyre | years=1857–1863}} {{succession box|title=Governor of Victoria| before=Sir Henry Barkly | after=Sir John Manners-Sutton | years=1863–1866}} {{s-end}}
{{NLLG}} {{Governors of Victoria}} {{British Governors of the Cape Colony}} {{Governors of Barbados|state=collapsed}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darling, Charles Henry}} Category:1809 births Category:1870 deaths Category:Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Category:57th Regiment of Foot officers Category:Governors of Barbados Category:Governors of Newfoundland Colony Category:Governors of Victoria (Australia) Category:Governors of Jamaica Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:Governors of the Cape Colony Category:Governors of British Saint Lucia Category:19th-century Australian politicians Category:19th-century British Army personnel Category:Canadian military personnel from Nova Scotia Category:People from Annapolis County Category:Politicians from the Colony of Victoria