Charles Hastings Doyle

Sir Charles Hastings Doyle, (10 April 1804 – 19 March 1883) was a British military officer and he was the second Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia post Confederation and the first Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick.

Born in London, England, the eldest son of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles William Doyle and Sophia Cramer Coghill, he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and joined the army as an ensign of the 24th, 2nd Warwickshire, Regiment of Foot on 23 December 1819. He was promoted to the ranks of Lieutenant on 27 September 1822 and Captain on 16 June 1825. He received a Brevet-Major on 28 June 1838. Rising through the ranks, he reached Major General in 1860. After service in the Crimean War, he was stationed in Nova Scotia and, during the American Civil War, resolved the Chesapeake Affair, which took place in Halifax. Next Charles Hastings Doyle countered the threat of Fenian Raid on Canada's Maritime Provinces by ending the Campobello Island Raid (1866). By April 1866 the menace of a Fenian invasion of New Brunswick was at its most serious, and Doyle quickly responded to Lieutenant Governor Gordon’s request for military aid. On 17 April 1866 he left Halifax with Royal Navy warships carrying over 700 British regulars and proceeded to Passamaquoddy Bay where the Fenian force was concentrated, under the command of John O'Mahony. This show of British armed might discouraged the Fenians, and the invaders dispersed.

He was appointed the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick in 1867, the first Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick after Confederation. From 1867 to 1873, he was the second Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia post-Confederation.

In 1869, he became a lieutenant general and a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George.

There is a full length portrait of him by Adolphus Robert Venables in Province House (Nova Scotia).