Vincent Massey

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Vincent Massey : biography

February 20, 1887 – December 30, 1967

As governor general-designate

It was on February 1, 1952, announced from the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada that George VI had, by commission under the royal sign-manual and Great Seal of Canada, approved Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent’s choice of Massey to succeed the Viscount Alexander of Tunis as the King’s representative. Within five days, however, the King was dead and Massey, upon his swearing-in, would thus be the first Canadian-born representative of George’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. To respect the king’s death, there was little fanfare around Massey’s appointment; Lord Alexander quietly departed Canada shortly after the announcement of Massey as his successor, leaving Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret as administrator of the government in his place, as Massey was, at the time, in London. As he was a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, he attended Elizabeth’s Accession Council on February 7.

In Canada, there was some commentary about the soon-to-be representative of the new queen. The notion of a Canadian-born governor general, and one also not elevated to the peerage, was viewed as somewhat controversial by traditionalists. Massey, thus, was to be a compromise: while it was known he was closely associated with the Liberal Party, having been the group’s chairman during the 1930s, the governor general-designate was a commoner Canadian by birth but he also embodied loyalty, dignity, and formality, as expected from a viceroy. Massey stated that, for his role as governor general, he looked for inspiration to one of his predecessors and a man Massey had known for decades: the Baron Tweedsmuir, whom Massey said he "greatly admired" and had "learnt much from" his tenure as governor general.

Life magazine ran a profile piece on Massey in which the Marquess of Salisbury described Massey as an elegant individual—citing Massey’s Oxford schooling and tailored clothing as illustrations—and thoroughly Canadian, though noting that "Vincent’s a fine chap, but he does make one feel like a bit of a savage." But the elite demeanour he was sometimes criticised for was not evident in Massey’s belief that the Crown belonged to Canadians and that it was his task as viceroy to act as a link between the people and the monarch. He similarly believed that the arts were a way to assert Canadian sovereignty and that the various artistic fields should be accessible to all Canadians.

In office

On February 26, 1952, Massey was sworn in as governor general of Canada in a ceremony in the Senate chamber, where he was presented with the Canadian Forces Decoration (subsequently given to all governors general upon taking office). However, Massey’s first months as the viceroy were muted, due to the ongoing 16-week period of official mourning. It was not until the coronation of Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953, that Massey was called upon to take charge of any national celebration. For the occasion, he revived the use of the state carriage when he rode in it, with an accompanying guard of Royal Canadian Mounted Police, from the royal and viceroyal residence of Rideau Hall to Parliament Hill, where he introduced to the gathered crowd the Queen’s coronation speech, broadcast around the world via radio. He also gave a silver spoon to each child born on that day.

Massey welcomed the Queen and her consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Ottawa on three occasions from 1957 on; when the royal couple were engaged in a cross-country tour, Massey invited them to stay at his private estate, Batterwood, near Port Hope, Ontario. He also hosted a number of foreign heads of state, including United States president Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 13, 1953. As a return gesture, Massey was invited by Eisenhower to Washington, D.C., where, on May 4, 1954, he addressed a joint session of the United States Congress.

It was Massey’s intent as governor general to work to unite Canada’s diverse cultures. He travelled across the country, using any and all available transportation, including canoe and dog sled, and delivered speeches promoting bilingualism, some 20 years before it became an official national policy. Along with the usual ceremonial duties undertaken by a viceroy, such as opening in 1955 the new home of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and, with his 1958 Dominion Day speech, innaugurating the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s first national televised broadcast, the Governor General toured the Canadian arctic extensively, journeying to such places as Frobisher Bay and Hall Beach in the Northwest Territories, meeting with local Inuit residents, participating in their activities, and watching their performances. During his governor generalship, Massey also became actively involved with Upper Canada College, donating funds and his time to the school and seeing a number of spaces there named in his honour in return. As part of his effort to unify Canadians, it was Massey’s desire to see established an entirely Canadian honours system. Though such a thing was never realised during his viceregal tenure, he helped lay the groundwork for the system that would be implemented by his successor, and in 1967, just months before his death, Massey was inducted as one of the first companions of the Order of Canada.