Charles Justin MacCarthy

Sir Charles Justin MacCarthy (1811–1864)^[1] was the 12th Governor of British Ceylon and the 12th Accountant General and Controller of Revenue. He was appointed on 22 October 1860 and was Governor until 1 December 1863. He also served as acting governor on two separate occasions. He was first appointed in 1850.^[2][3]

Sir Charles Justin MacCarthy
Tombstone of Charles Justin MacCarthy on the Spa cemetery in 2015.
12th Governor of British Ceylon
In office 22 October 1860 – 1 December 1863
Monarch	Queen Victoria
Preceded by	Charles Edmund Wilkinson (Acting governor)
Succeeded by	Terence O'Brien (Acting governor)
Acting 18 January 1855 – 11 May 1855
Monarch	Queen Victoria
Preceded by	George William Anderson
Succeeded by	Henry George Ward
Acting 18 October 1850 – 27 November 1850
Monarch	Queen Victoria
Preceded by	The Viscount Torrington
Succeeded by	George William Anderson
12th Accountant General and Controller of Revenue
In office 28 May 1847 – 1 October 1851
Preceded by	Henry Wright
Succeeded by	W. C. Gibson
Personal details
Born	1811 (1811) Brighton, England
Died	15 August 1864(1864-08-15) (aged 52–53) Spa, Belgium

Life

His parents were Donough and Mary MacCarthy, and he was born in Brighton.^[4][5] He was a relation of Nicholas Wiseman, and in the early 1830s was in Rome, with a view to entering the Roman Catholic priesthood. Under the influence of the ideas of Lamennais, however, he ceased theological studies. In Rome through Wiseman he met Monckton Milnes, who became a lifelong friend. Milnes then helped him into a colonial career.^[1][6]

MacCarthy was knighted in 1857.^[1] In office he adopted a policy of financial retrenchment. His main aim was to promote railway construction.^[7] He left Ceylon in December 1863, in poor health.^[8] He died at Spa, Belgium, on 15 August 1864.^[9]

Family

MacCarthy married in 1848 Sophia Brunel Hawes, botanist and eldest daughter of Sir Benjamin Hawes.^[5][10][11] They had a son, Charles Philip.^[12]

References

1. William Ewart Gladstone (15 February 1969). The Gladstone Diaries: 1825–1832 : 1833–1839. Oxford University Press. pp. 325 note 1. ISBN 978-0-19-821370-3.
2. "Sri Lanka". Rulers.org. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
3. "Former Auditor Generals". auditorgeneral.gov.lk. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
4. O'Hart, John (1892). "Irish Pedigrees". Internet Archive. p. 134. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
5. Robert P. Dod (1862). The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland for 1862. p. 385.
6. Stoddard, Richard Henry (1891). "The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton. Introd. by Richard Henry Stoddard". Internet Archive. p. 123. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
7. K. M. De Silva (January 1981). A History of Sri Lanka. University of California Press. pp. 285. ISBN 978-0-520-04320-6.
8. L. E. Blaze (1938). History of Ceylon. Asian Educational Services. p. 237. ISBN 978-81-206-1841-1.
9. William Skeen (1870). Mountain Life and Coffee Cultivation in Ceylon: A Poem on the Knuckles Range, with Other Poems. Edward Stanford. p. 179.
10. Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland, for ...: Including All the Titled Classes. S. Low, Marston & Company. 1865. p. 393.
11. D. E. Allen (November 1980). "The Women Members of the Botanical Society of London, 1836–1856". The British Journal for the History of Science. 13 (3): 240–254. doi:10.1017/S0007087400018057. ISSN 0007-0874. JSTOR 4026198. Wikidata Q113958660.
12. "MacCarthy, Charles Philip (MRTY877CP)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

Government offices
Preceded by The Viscount Torrington	Acting Governor of British Ceylon 1850-1850	Succeeded by George William Anderson
Preceded by George William Anderson	Acting Governor of British Ceylon 1855-1855	Succeeded by Henry George Ward
Preceded by Charles Edmund Wilkinson acting governor	Governor of British Ceylon 1860–1863	Succeeded by Terence O'Brien acting governor
Legal offices
Preceded by Henry Wright	Accountant General and Controller of Revenue 1847–1851	Succeeded by W. C. Gibson