Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Doyle, Charles Hastings
DOYLE, Sir CHARLES HASTINGS (1805–1883), general, eldest son of Lieutenant-general Sir Charles William Doyle, C.B., G.C.H. [q. v.], by Sophia, daughter of Sir John Coghill, was born in January 1805. He was educated at Sandhurst, and entered the army as an ensign in the 87th, his great-uncle, Sir John Doyle's, regiment, on 23 Dec. 1819. He was promoted lieutenant on 27 Sept. 1822, captain 16 June 1825, major 28 June 1838, and lieutenant-colonel on 14 April 1846. He went on the staff in 1847, after having served with his regiment in the East and West Indies and in Canada, as assistant adjutant-general at Limerick. He was promoted colonel on 20 June 1854, and was appointed assistant adjutant-general to the third division of the army, sent to the East in that year, but his health broke down at Varna, and he had to return to England without seeing any service in the Crimea. He next acted as inspector-general of the militia in Ireland, until his promotion to the rank of major-general on 15 Sept. 1860, and in the following year he was appointed to command the troops in Nova Scotia. Here he had several difficult questions to settle owing to the great American civil war, which was raging across the frontier, but he showed great tact in all the questions of emergency which arose, and received the thanks of the Canadian House of Assembly and of the English and American governments for his management of the Chesapeake affair. Lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick in 1866–1867, he was in 1867 appointed lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia; in May 1868 became colonel of the 70th regiment; in 1869 K.C.M.G.; in 1870 promoted lieutenant-general and transferred to the colonelcy of his old regiment, the 87th. In May 1873 he resigned his governorship and left Nova Scotia. He acted as general commanding the southern district at Portsmouth from April 1874 to May 1877, and was in that year promoted general and placed on the retired list. He died suddenly of heart disease in Bolton Street, London, on 19 March 1883.
[Hart's Army Lists; Times, 20 March 1883.]