Sir John Jc Abbott

SIR JOHN J. C. ABBOTT : BARRISTER AND SOLICITOR PAUL P. HUTCHISON Montreal Seven of the prime ministers of Canada have been lawyers, but none of them had a more distinguished career at the Bar than the first to be born in the Dominion, Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, K.C.M.G., P.C., Q.C., D.C.L. For forty years he was a practising advocate and in his time many considered him the most outstanding lawyer in the Dominion. John Abbott was born at St. Andrews in Lower Canada on the 12th of March, 1821. He was the eldest son of a pioneering missionary, the Reverend Joseph Abbott, first Anglican incum bent of St. Andrews Parish in Argenteuil County, who had come to Canada during 1818. Joseph Abbott came of a well-to-do North Country family of Little Strickland in Westmoreland and, prior to crossing the Atlantic, had been a curate at Norwich. He was a distinguished scholar, a well-known writer of his time and for a decade was a sort of general factotum at McGill College - its registrar, bursar, secretary, lecturer in ancient and modern history, geography and logic, vice-principal and first librarian. John Abbott's mother, Harriet Bradford, was the daughter of the Reverend Richard Bradford, onetime midship- man under the famous Captain Cook and laterChaplain in the 49th Regiment during the American Revolutionary War, who came to Canada in 1805 to become the first rector of Chatham in Argenteuil County. The future Member of Parliament for Argenteuil and Senator for Inkerman in that County had his roots, therefore, well planted in the Lower Ottawa Valley, which had been so largely settled by United Empire Loyalists and hardy Scots from the Highlands. When John Abbott was but four years of age his father, after creating and building one church and rectory, passed these on to his younger brother, the Reverend William Abbott, and with his small family trekked a hundred miles across country through the woods to another new settlement, Yamaska Mountain (later to be called Abbottsford), there to build a new church. In 1830 .the family moved again, to Granville near the father's first mission at St. Andrews, where he founded a third parish. John Abbott obtained his early education under George Wanless of Edinburgh, who for nearly half a century conducted an academy school at Carillon, and reading in the 1948] Sir John J. C> Abbott - -- 935 fine library of the- Granville Rectory. While at school the boy lived for the most part with his clergyman uncle at The - Priory at St. Andrews. There too he 'was tutored by a retired, sea captain in the use of the compass, astronomy and higher mathematics. At seventeen young Abbott went to Montreal and secured a position in a mercantile house, Laurie and Company. -Because of a severe illness, however, he gave this up after a few months and returned to his home in the country . As soon as- he re- covered his health he entered the general business establishment of the Macdonalds at Gananoque, where he was to continue until 1843. John Abbott never forgot this early business train- ing and in later years spoke with authority of selling calico, how apples were packed and other intricacies of trade. But in 1843 his father retired from his third, parish, accepted an ap- pointment at McGill College and, moved his family to Montreal, where it was hoped the sons would have better educational facilities than in the country. John Abbott then returned to the parental roof to continue his studies at McGill during the term 1843-1844. In the latter year, however, he returned to business and is said to have worked in a general store at I)eserônto for a time; towards the end of that year he was busy - at Oshawa buying grain. Soon he returned to Montreal, determined to become ,a lawyer, and was Articled to the firm of Meredith & Bethune. As a young man about town he mixed freely in the military society of the day. -In addition to his legal studies he was then studying vocal music, in . which, with his fine tenor voice, he later excelled locally. For six years at this period . he directed the choir of Christ Church -Cathedral ; this which was then largely made up of various members of the Abbott and Bethune families. In -1847 young Abbott 'appeared before a committee of local judges to be examined on his knowledge of the law, passed successfully and, on October 25th. of that year, he -was granted his commission to practise as. an advocate. This he began to do immediately at Montreal and two years later he went into partnership with William Badgley. That same year Abbott married Mary Bethune, 'daughter of the tempestuous first Dean of Montreal, the Reverend John Bethune, who for eleven years was Principal of McGill. When the firm of Badgley & Abbott was formed Montreal was a city of 50,000 people, the capital of the recently- united provinces of Upper and Lower 936 _The Canadian Bar Review [Vol. XXVI Canada. It was a troublesome time politically; that year at Montreal Lord Elgin was pelted with stones and rotten eggs in the streets and the unruly mob set fire to the Parliament Buildings. The young advocate's subsequent career was to be greatly influenced by his senior partner, the Honourable William Badgley (1801-1888), who was himself a distinguished lawyer, politician and teacher of the law. Badgley was the scion of a wealthy Montreal fur-trading family of the old Nor' West Company and became one of the most prominent Canadians of his time. He began to practise law in 1823 and was the founder of one of the oldest law firms in Canada, which is still in active practice at Montreal.' Badgley built up a large practice, with John Abbott's assistance ; they specialized in commercial and bankruptcy matters. While still a young man Badgley plunged into the thick of the political turmoil of the day and became the leader of the Montreal group opposing the dominant party in Lower Canada led by Louis Joseph Papineau, which urged the severance of the Colony from the British Empire. It was he who prepared the address adopted by the Constitutional Association, setting out the grievances of the Canadian people and urging the Union of Upper and Lower Canada. This was carried to the Foot of the Throne by a Lower Canada delega- tion of three, of whom he was one. Their views and material were submitted to Lord Durham, who later made use of them in the Durham Report. When the Union of the two colonies was effected Badgley became the Member for Missisquoi in the Canadian Assembly, Attorney-General for Lower Canada, and later, after defeating Papineau at the polls, the Member for Montreal. For a time he was Commissioner of Bankrupts for the Montreal District, later Circuit Court Judge in Bank- ruptcy and eventually a justice of the Superior Court and then of the Quebec Court of Queen's Bench. Since there were then no law schools in Lower Canada, Badgley for some time taught law privately and McGill College made him a professor at large, without students or a faculty. But his private pupils and other articled law clerks themselves petitioned McGill to grant' the necessary degrees, with the result that the college authorities took over Professor Badgley and his class; with them started the McGill Faculty of Law. He was its first Dean of Law from 1847 to 1856 and was authorized by the University to charge each of his students £2 a term and retain the proceeds by way of stipend. 1 Now Heward, Holden, Hutchison, Cliff, Meredith & Ballantyne. 19481 Sir John J. C, Abbott 937 In his subsequent career John ; Abbott followed closely in the footsteps of his partner Badgley; and, like him, was to reach eminence in the three fields of practising advocate, politics, and teaching law. Very quickly he became a recognized authority on questions of commercial, bankruptcy and constitutional law and one of the first of the great corporation lawyers of Canada. He came to be regarded as the most able commercial lawyer in Lower Canada and a particularly thorough man of business, as well as an excellent administrator. But he :was - not entirely a desk lawyer and his services were frequently sought for trial work. Indeed, early in his practice at the Bar, his career almost took a turn which might have led him to a 'high position in the judicature, when for . three months in 1855 he served as a deputy judge of the Superior Court. Later he was affered a chief justiceship but declined. His legal inclinations led him more towards- corporation and commercial matters than to the general run of litigation. Nevertheless he frequently appeared in court as a pleader and for a lengthy period was engaged in most of the, important cases tried in the Montreal district.. _ One of his most interesting court appearances took place in, 1864. In this case Abbott acted for the leaders of the escaped Confederate soldiers who, . after. seeking asylum in Canada during the American Civil War, banded together to make a raid in plain clothes over the Border into Vermont, against the town of St. Albans. There the raiders seized the principal officials, confined them .in the market square, rifled various banks, tried to set the town on fire, and finally with- drew over the Canadian frontier. This breach of Canadian- neutrality could not be overlooked 'and the leaders were arrested.

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