Vincent Massey

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The Right Honourable
 Charles Vincent Massey
 PC CH CC CH GCJ CD LLD (hc) DCL (hc) MA (Oxon) BA FRSC
Vincent Massey
In office
February 28, 1952 – September 15, 1959
Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, John Diefenbaker
Monarch Elizabeth II
Preceded by Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
Succeeded by Georges Vanier
Born February 20, 1887(1887-02-20)
Toronto, Ontario
Died December 30, 1967 (aged 80)
London, United Kingdom
Spouse Alice Massey
Profession Diplomat
Religion Methodist/United, then Anglican

Charles Vincent Massey PC CH CC CD[1] (February 20, 1887 – December 30, 1967) was the eighteenth Governor General of Canada and the first who was born in Canada.

Contents

[edit] Background

Vincent Massey was the son of Chester D. Massey who owned the Massey-Harris Co., predecessor to the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. The family was one of Toronto's wealthiest and Vincent grew up among Toronto's elites. When he was young, he attended St. Andrew's College. His family was strongly Methodist and played an important role in supporting local religious, cultural and educational institutions, including Victoria College at the University of Toronto where Massey was sent for his university education, Massey College, also at the University of Toronto where he joined the Kappa Alpha Society through which he met his long-time friend William Lyon Mackenzie King , Massey Hall, a concert hall in Toronto endowed by the Masseys and Metropolitan Methodist Church (now Metropolitan United Church).

Massey then continued his education at Balliol College, Oxford. After his father donated a new residence, Burwash Hall, constructed at Victoria College, he returned there to be appointed its first Dean of Men in 1914. On 4 June 1915, he married Alice Parkin, daughter of Sir George Parkin, a former principal of Upper Canada College and secretary of the Rhodes Trust. Mrs. Massey died in July 1950, just 18 months before her husband's appointment as Governor General. As a result, his daughter-in-law, Lilias, acted as Chatelaine of Rideau Hall while Massey was in office.

Before beginning his career in diplomacy, Vincent Massey spent four years as president of the business his father had founded. During this time, he pursued philanthropic interests – promoting the arts, education and letters. He also began compiling one of Canada's great art collections and through the Massey Foundation, was the principal influence on the construction of Massey College at the University of Toronto, to which his protegé Robertson Davies was appointed as first Master.

His younger brother was Canadian actor Raymond Massey and he is therefore the uncle of British actors Anna Massey and Daniel Massey.

[edit] Military career

Massey was a member of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada, enlisting in 1907.

[edit] Political career

Massey was appointed Minister without portfolio to the Cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in September 1925. He did not have a seat in the House of Commons and Massey needed to win a seat in the 1925 federal election held on October 29 in order to retain his posting; however, he was defeated and had to leave cabinet.

[edit] Diplomatic career

Sir Esme Howard, Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King, Vincent Massey at the Canadian Legation during a visit to Washington on November 22, 1927
Sir Esme Howard, Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King, Vincent Massey at the Canadian Legation during a visit to Washington on November 22, 1927

In 1926, King appointed Massey the first Canadian envoy to the United States of America with the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Washington. As such, he was Canada's first envoy with full diplomatic credentials to a foreign capital (that is, a capital outside of the British Empire). Massey resigned his posting to Washington in 1930 to accept an appointment from King as High Commissioner to London, however, the Liberal government was defeated in the 1930 election before he could take up his posting and the new Prime Minister, Conservative R.B. Bennett objected to Massey on the grounds that as a former Liberal cabinet minister he did not enjoy the political confidence of the new government that was needed for the position of High Commissioner to the British government. When King returned to power in 1935, Massey was again named High Commissioner to London and was, this time, able to take up his position.

While in London, Massey travelled in the same circles as Lord Astor and his wife Nancy and their largely aristocratic anti-Semitic and pro-German Cliveden set. According to Irving Abella and Harold Troper's book None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, Massey was an enthusiastic supporter of the Munich Agreement and worked with Ernest Lapointe to put obstacles in the way of Jewish refugees attempting to immigrate to Canada. However, Canadian immigration policy at the time favoured trained farmers, which excluded most Jews, who were largely city dwellers. [2] Seven decades later, his actions resulted in a campaign in Windsor, Ontario to rename a high school originally named in his honour.

Nevertheless, Massey was a Canadian and British patriot and worked to maximize Canada's war effort once World War II broke out. He made such a favourable impression in England that in 1946, King George VI invested him with the Companion of Honour.

[edit] Return to Canada

In 1949, Massey was appointed chairman of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. The ensuing report issued in 1951, known as the Massey Report, led to the creation of the National Library of Canada and the Canada Council.

[edit] Honours

Vincent Massey received another honour from the Queen when, on 11 December 1963, a Royal Warrant was signed assigning an Honourable Augmentation to his arms (he had already been granted armorial bearings in 1926 by the Kings of Arms at the College of Arms in London, England). It consisted of a blue square placed in the upper left bearing the crest from Her Majesty's Arms in right of Canada. Very few augmentations are granted, and even fewer to Canadians.

Massey was the recipient of many honours throughout his life. He was one of the first Canadians to be made a Companion of Honour (CH), would subsequently be invested with the Royal Victorian Chain by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960 after the Canadian Government refused to allow him to be made a Knight of the Garter (see McCreery's The Order of Canada, Its Origins, History and Development). In 1955 Massey became the first Canadian Bailiff Grand Cross of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (GCStJ). Massey was also amongst the first Canadians to be appointed to the Order of Canada, being appointed as a Companion (CC)in July 1967, being subsequently invested by Governor General Roland Michener on November 24, 1967, little more than two months before his death. His other medals included the 1935 King George V Silver Jubilee Medal, 1937 King George VI Coronation Medal, 1953 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, 1967 Centennial of Confederation Medal and the Canadian Forces Decoration (CD).

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Schools named after Vincent Massey

[edit] References

Adapted from http://www.gg.ca

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Massey's post-nominal letters are listed as PC, CH, CC on his Order of Canada citation [1]. It should be noted that he was entitled to far more letters than are listed. In particular his 1948 autobiography On Being Canadian lists him as C.H., DCL, LL.D (hon.), FRSC. The department of Veterans Affairs page about the Canadian Forces Decoration mentions that Massey was the first GG to be awarded the medal upon taking office in Rideau Hall which entitled him to utilize the postnominal letters CD. The same page lists him as The Right Honourable Vincent Massey CC CH GCJ CD, although this listing in inconsistent with the accepted Canadian/Commonwealth Order of precedence [2]
  2. ^ Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, volume 1, 1897-1948, by John English, Lester and Orpen Denys, 1989.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] Schools

Diplomatic posts
New title
establishment of diplomatic relations
 Canadian Minister to the United States of America
1927–1930		 Succeeded by
William Duncan Herridge
Preceded by
Howard Ferguson		 Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
1935–1946		 Succeeded by
Norman Robertson
Government offices
Preceded by
Chief Justice, The Right Honourable Thibaudeau Rinfret as administrator / acting Governor-General		 Governor General of Canada
1952–1959		 Succeeded by
Georges Vanier
Academic offices
Preceded by
Henry John Cody		 Chancellor of the University of Toronto
1947–1953		 Succeeded by
Samuel Beatty
v • d • e
Governors General of Canada since Confederation (1867 to present)
Monck · Lisgar · Dufferin · Lorne · Lansdowne · Stanley · Aberdeen · Minto · Grey · Connaught · Devonshire · Byng · Willingdon · Bessborough · Tweedsmuir · Athlone · Alexander · Massey · Vanier · Michener · Léger · Schreyer · Sauvé · Hnatyshyn · LeBlanc · Clarkson · Jean
v • d • e
Canadian Ambassadors to the United States
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (1926-1943) Massey · Wrong (Chargé d'Affaires a.i.) · Herridge · Wrong (Chargé d'Affaires a.i.) · Marler · Christie · McCarthy
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (1943-) McCarthy · Pearson · Wrong · Heeney · Robertson · Heeney · C. Ritchie · E. Ritchie · Cadieux · Warren · Towe · Gotlieb · Burney · de Chastelain · Chrétien · Kergin · McKenna · Wilson


Persondata
NAME Massey, Vincent
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Governor General of Canada
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1967
PLACE OF DEATH England
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Massey"
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