Charles Bagot

Who was Charles Bagot?

Sir Charles Bagot GCB was an English diplomat and colonial administrator who served as Governor General of the Province of Canada 1841-1843.

He was the second son of William Bagot, 1st Baron Bagot of Blithfield Hall, Staffordshire. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church College, Oxford. He entered Lincoln’s Inn, but left and returned to Oxford to complete his Master's.

His marriage to Mary Charlotte Anne Wellesley-Pole, the niece of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and other Bagot family connections made possible his subsequent diplomatic career.

He was named minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinaire to the United States 31 July 1815 in the aftermath of the War of 1812. With Richard Rush he negotiated the Rush-Bagot Agreement to limit naval forces on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. He also contributed to negotiations leading to the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 which defined the border between British North America and the United States from Lake of the Woods to the Pacific Ocean.

He subsequently served as British Ambassador to Russia where he took part in negotiations leading to the 1825 Treaty of Saint Petersburg and as British Ambassador to the Netherlands where he was involved in negotiations leading to the establishment of Belgium in 1831.