Sir George Arthur and His Administration of Upper Canada

BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA.
NO. 28, JULY, 1918
BY WALTER SAGE
The Jackson Press, Kingston

The last Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada before the Union of 1841 was Sir George Arthur. To most Canadians of to-day he is little more than a name, but still he played an important part in the stirring events of our political life fourscore years ago. He lacked the picturesqueness of that extraordinary personage, his predecessor in office, Sir Francis Bond Head, and he was overshadowed completely by both Lord Durham to Poulett Thomson, better known as Lord Sydenham, who were in succession as Governors-General placed in authority over him. None the less he lives in Canadian history as the man who refused to reprieve Lount and Matthews, and who made common cause with the Family Compact against the Reformers. Although nominally he was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from his appointment in 1837 until the Act of Union went into force, his real term of office lasted only a little more than a year and a half, from March 23rd, 1838, until November 22nd, 1839. After that time he was directly subordinate to Sydenham. During that brief period Sir George Arthur proved himself an energetic if not always merciful governor.
By training Sir George Arthur was a soldier. Before he ever embarked on his administrative career as governor of one colonial dependency after another he had served many years in the army. Born in 1784, the youngest son of John Arthur of Norley House, Plymouth, George Arthur entered the army at the age of twenty. He saw service in Italy, Egypt—where he was wounded at Rosetta in 1807—and also in Sicily in 1808. He took part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition of 1809 and seems to have distinguished himself in it, since we read that he was thanked in general orders and also that he received the freedom of the city of London. After being military secretary to Sir George Don, the governor of the island of Jersey; Arthur, in 1812, became a major in the Seventh West India Regiment. We next find him in Jamaica as assistant quartermaster-general of the forces on that island.