Head, Edmund Walker

Edmund Walker Head was born in 1805 near Maidstone ( Kent ) in Wyrton Place - the estate of his father John Head, 7th Baronet Head. Edmund's father lived in Essex for many years ^[3] , holding the post of rector of the parish of Railay in this county ^[4] . Edmund’s grandfather emigrated from England to South Carolina , but after the American Revolution , during which he supported the loyalists , he lost his possessions in America and returned to his homeland ^[3] .

Edmund Head received school education at Winchester College . Upon graduation, he entered the Oriel College of Oxford University in 1823, four years later receiving a bachelor 's degree in classical philology , and in 1830 a master 's degree ^[4] . In the same year, he was accepted into the teaching staff of Merton College in Oxford as a Fello and later taught classical disciplines there ^[3] and held a number of administrative posts ^[4] . Back in his studies, Head took a two-year trip to Europe. After taking a teaching position at Merton College, he continued his European studies, having visited Spain, Italy and Germany. Beginning in 1833 he was published as a philologist and art critic ^[3] .

In 1836, in view of the financial difficulties of the family, Head, without abandoning a scientific career, simultaneously entered the civil service. He received the post of assistant commissioner for the implementation of the Law on the Poor , having taken control of western England and part of Wales (from 1840 he was transferred to London) ^[3] . On January 4, 1838, after the death of his father, he inherited the title of baronet, and in November of the same year he married Anna Maria York (subsequently, a son and two daughters were born from this marriage) ^[4] , after which he left his post at Oxford in accordance with the charter University ^[3] . In the light of Head’s conscientious fulfillment of his duties as Secretary of the Interior, Lord Normanby was recommended to be promoted, but Head was not appointed as one of the three National Commissioners for the Enforcement of the Poor Law until 1841 under Normanby’s successor, James Graham. ^[4] At the same time as Commissioner, Head continued to publish as a scientist, in 1846 publishing the first volume of his three-volume book on the schools of European painting (the last volume was published in 1854) ^[3] . Having published Kugler’s textbook on German, Dutch, Spanish and French schools of painting in his translation, Head was dissatisfied with the quality of the material and in 1848 published a new textbook devoted to the same subject after his own authorship ^[4] .

When the Law on the Poor expired in 1847 and Head lost a bureaucratic salary of £ 2,000 a year, he was offered the post of Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick , providing a salary one and a half times higher. He took office in April 1848. As lieutenant governor, Head promoted the establishment of a responsible government in New Brunswick, which provided for the responsibility of ministries to a democratically elected legislature; he began the transfer of authority to the first responsible government of New Brunswick in May 1848, however, and in the early 1850s he was periodically forced to take power into his own hands due to deep-seated contradictions in the New Brunswick parliament. Thanks to his efforts, the development of education in the colony began, which had previously been in decline (by 1850, there were more teachers than students at Royal College of Fredrickton ). Head also made every effort to establish closer economic ties with the neighboring colony of Nova Scotia . At the same time, he repeatedly opposed the idea that the development of democratic institutions and the strengthening of ties between the colonies (up to the formation of a sea-to-sea federation, including the province of Canada ) would certainly end in their independence from the metropolis ^[3] .

Already in 1851, Lord Gray , Secretary of State for Military Affairs and the Colonies, called Head's appointment the most successful move since taking office. After Head, referring to the poor health of his wife, refused the proposed appointment to the post of governor of British Guiana , he was offered the post of governor-general of the province of Canada on the recommendation of Lord Elgin ^[3] . The appointment took place in September 1854 ^[4] , taking office in December of the same year ^[3] .

In his new place, Head continued to promote the independence of local governments, rarely appearing at meetings of the Executive Council, an analogue of the cabinet. However, during this period, in the province, united only in 1840, centrifugal aspirations grew and its structure as a twin formation was threatened. Under these conditions, Head in 1856 had to make efforts to form the government of Tache and MacDonald , relying on the majority in both Upper and Lower Canada . In time, this coincided with the formation in Canada of full-fledged parliamentary parties in place of disparate factions. Head also continued to consistently uphold the idea of ​​a federation of North American provinces, which the Colonial Department was cold at the end of the 1850s. Together with representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company, he prepared in 1856-1857 a memorandum on the prospects of transferring company-controlled lands west of the Great Lakes to colonization. This memorandum in many respects formed the recommendations of the commission specially appointed by London for the Hudson's Bay Company. Head, who arrived in London in 1857 to participate in the commission, during this visit was promoted to knight-commander of the Order of the Bath and included in the Privy Council of Great Britain ^[3] .

As Governor-General of Canada, Head also made recommendations to the British government regarding the choice of the provincial capital and, in the long run, the capital of the federation it promotes. Five cities claimed the role of capital - Quebec , Kingston , Montreal , Ottawa and Toronto . Although Head publicly stated that the choice of these candidates was entirely within the Queen’s jurisdiction, in a secret memorandum he unequivocally advocated Ottawa as the “least evil”. It was Ottawa that the Queen established as the capital; this decision was made at the end of 1857, when Head was still in England. In the province subordinate to him, this choice caused a political crisis: the legislature needed 14 votes to ratify the queen's decision, and the government of John A. MacDonald resigned. This was followed by the so-called “double shuffle”: Head offered the post of prime minister to the reformist George Brown , but warned that he would not support the new parliamentary elections, since the previous ones had taken place only last year and there was no certainty that Brown’s supporters would gather the majority votes. As a result, when a vote of no confidence was passed to the Brown and Dorion government in a short time, Head did not agree to an early election, thereby securing a hostile attitude from the Brown-controlled Globe newspaper until the very end of his tenure as governor general. The new cabinet was formed by conservatives Cartier and MacDonald ^[3] .

In his final years as Governor General of Canada, Head has worked to establish economic and diplomatic ties with the United States. In view of the unequivocal threat of a civil war in the United States, he also sought ways to strengthen the defenses of the province entrusted to him. When the war began in 1861, in the last year of his tenure, he made considerable efforts to ensure Canada's complete neutrality, hindering attempts to mobilize volunteers in the North Army or to supply arms to belligerents ^[3] .

Head handed over the powers of the Governor General in September 1861 to Viscount Monk after several British politicians rejected this appointment. Upon his return to the mother country, he made an attempt to get elected to the House of Commons from Yorkshire , which was unsuccessful. In April 1862, he was appointed to the unpaid post of Commissioner of Civil Services, and in July 1863 he was elected Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. He continued to hold both of these posts until his death. As head of the Hudson's Bay Company, he negotiated with the British government on the transfer of its controlled territories as a crown colony, but these negotiations were not completed by 1868 ^[3] .

At the conclusion of his work in the colonies, Oxford and Cambridge University awarded Head honorary degrees; he was also elected a member of the Royal Society of London , as well as secretary and treasurer of the Ateneum literary club ^[3] . In London, Head continued his scientific work. In 1864, his efforts published "Essays on the Governments of Great Britain" by his friend, philologist and historian J.K. Lewis , and in 1866, his own translation of Icelandic sagas. Another of his books, a collection of ballads and poems previously published in the press, was published in 1868, after the death of the author ^[4] .

Edmund Walker Head died suddenly in London in January 1868 from a heart attack ^[3] . Since his only son died in 1859 (having drowned while his family was in Canada ^[3] ), the clan of the Head Baronets broke off on this ^[4] .

• JA Hamilton. Head, Edmund Walker // Dictionary of National Biography. - Vol. Xxv. Harris - Henry I. - P. 323-324.
• James A. Gibson. Head, Sir Edmund Walker // Dictionary of Canadian Biography. - University of Toronto / Université Laval, 2003. - Vol. 9.

• Sir Edmund Walker Head . - article from The Canadian Encyclopedia : thecanadianencyclopedia.com . Date of treatment December 9, 2017.
•   Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Head, Sir Edmund Walker" , Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press , < https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Head,_Sir_Edmund_Walker >