Canada’s future Governor General, Major-General Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, was born in the U.K. on this date in 1874. He was a member of the Royal Family and was an uncle to both King Edward VII and King George VI.
First nominated to the position of Governor General of Canada in 1914, this appointment was cancelled so Athlone could serve with his unit in the First World War. Afterwards, he was sent to South Africa as Governor General, serving there from 1924 to 1930. It was not until 1940 that he again was nominated to serve as the King’s representative to Canada.
Athlone held his vice-regal post until 1946. With Canada and the Empire at war, His Excellency gave particular support to the military and visited troops who were training across Canada. Upon the completion of his term, he returned to his native England and passed into history in 1957.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.