When Prime Minister Sir John Thompson died suddenly of a heart attack at the luncheon table of Queen Victoria in 1894, the High Commissioner to Britain, Sir Charles Tupper, made arrangements for his body to be sent back to Canada on the HMS Blenheim British armoured ship that was painted black for the occasion.
Twenty-one years later, the Blenheim was pressed into similar duty again, to return the body of former Prime Minister Sir Charles Tupper who had retired to England. Arrangements to return Tupper were made by High Commissioner Sir George Perley (who died in Canada, 11 years after the Blenheim was scrapped).
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