Legislative Library '"^^VMfiose SewcmtDS^ U)B7 ^--j(ji,i*^?**6^=^^i ^ ~ LIBRARFo^ TORONTO JAN 2 1994 A CAZON LL "7 ^ .- ; -a. "Whose Servant I Am " Speakers of the Assemblies of the Provinces of Upper Canada, Canada and Ontario, 1792-1992 Clare A. Dale iToronto )ntario Legislative Library [1992 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Dale, Clare A., 1964- "Whose servant I am" : speakers of the assemblies of the provinces of Upper Canada, Canada and Ontario, 1792-1992 Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7729-9343-2 1. Ontario. Legislative Assembly—Speaker—History. 2. Upper Canada. Legislature. House of Assembly—Speaker—History. 3. Canada. Legislature. Legislative Assembly—Speaker—History. 4. Legislative bodies—Ontario- Presiding officer. I. Ontario. Legislative Library. II. Title. III. Title: Speakers of the assemblies of the provinces of Upper Canada, Canada and Ontario, 1792-1992. JL274.S65D34 1992 328.713*0762 C92-092524-3 Cover: "The First Legislature of Upper Canada," by Frederick S. Challener based on a watercolour sketch by Charles W. Jefferys. (The Ontario Art Collection.) Photo: Thomas Moore Photography Inc. Cette publication existe 6galement en frangais sous le titre : «Dontje suis le serviteur» : les presidents des assemblies des provinces du Haut-Canada, du Canada et de I 'Ontario de 1792 d 1992. Errata, page 330. ® "Whose Servant I Am" Contents Foreword i Introduction iv The House of Assembly of the Province of Upper Canada, 1792-1841 John McDonell (Aberchalder) 1 David William Smith 8 Samuel Street 17 Richard Beasley 27 Alexander McDonell (Collachie) 34 Allan McLean 41 Levius Peters Sherwood 49 John Willson -. 56 Marshall Spring Bidwell 62 Archibald McLean 69 Allan Napier MacNab 77 Henry Ruttan 85 The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, 1841-1867 Austin (Augustin) Cuvillier 91 Allan Napier MacNab (Photograph only) Augustin-Norbert Morin 98 John Sandfield Macdonald 106 Louis-Victor Sicotte 114 Henry Smith, Jr. 120 Joseph-Edouard Turcotte 127 Lewis Wallbridge 131 I 'Whose Servant I Am' The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, 1867-1992 John Stevenson 136 Richard William Scott 142 James George Currie 151 Rupert Mearse Wells 156 Charles Kirk Clarke 161 Jacob Baxter 167 Thomas Ballantyne 172 William Douglas Balfour 177 Francis Eugene Alfred Evanturel 184 William Andrew Charlton 189 Joseph Wesley St. John 195 Thomas Crawford 199 William Henry Hoyle 204 David Jamieson 208 Nelson Parliament 213 Joseph Elijah Thompson 218 William David Black 222 Thomas Ashmore Kidd 227 Norman Otto Hipel 233 James Howard Clark 237 William James Stewart 242 James de Congalton Hepburn 248 Myrddyn Cooke Davies 253 Alfred Wallace Downer 257 William Murdoch 261 Donald Hugo Morrow 266 Frederick Mcintosh Cass 270 Allan Edward Reuter 276 Russell Daniel Rowe 282 John Edward "Jack" Stokes 288 John Melville Turner 293 Hugh Alden Edighoffer 298 David William Warner 304 Appendices: Speakers of the Legislative Council 309 of the Province of Upper Canada, 1792-1841, and the Province of Canada, 1841-1867 Bibliography 311 Index 332 "Wiose Servant I Am' Foreword This reference work features biographical sketches and portraits of the Speakers of the Assemblies of the Province of Upper Canada (1792-1841), the Province of Canada (1841-1867) and the Province of Ontario (1867- 1992). During the past two hundred years, 52 persons have served in the important post of Speaker, 12 of them during the period of Upper Canada, eight during the period of the united Canada (including Sir Allan Napier MacNab who also had served during the earlier period), and 33 after Confederation in 1867 when the present Province of Ontario was created. The office of the Speaker dates back to 1377, when the first Speaker of the British Parliament was appointed. However, it was several centuries before the Speaker attained the position of independence which the occupant of the office holds today. In the early days, the principal ftmction of the Speaker was to act as the spokesperson of the House of Commons and to communicate its resolutions to the King. In the era of monarchical government, this sometimes proved to be a dangerous responsibility ~ at least nine Speakers are known to have died violently at the hands of their political enemies. By Tudor times in the 16th century, however, the Speaker had become a royal instrument responsible for the management of the Crown's business in the House. He frequently held high office under the Crown in addition to the Speakership. It has been argued that the practice of the British House of Commons and many other parliaments (including the Ontario Legislature), whereby the Speaker leaves the Chair when the House resolves itself into Committee of the Whole, dates back to this period. Then as now, the Commons enjoyed greater freedom of debate when the Speaker was not in the Chair and in a position to manipulate procedure on the Crown's behalf. The independence of the Speaker first emerged as a fundamental principle of the office during the struggle for power between the Commons and the Crown under Charles I. It was Charles' armed entry into the House in 1642, demanding the surrender of five MPs on treason charges, that provoked Speaker William Lenthall's famous defence of his office. Falling to his knees before his King, Lenthall declared his reftisal to give up the Members in these words: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, \^hose servant I am here, and I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon that I cannot "Whose Servant I Am" give any other answer than this to what Your Majesty is pleased to demand of me." The Members fled and the King was forced to leave empty handed. After this epic occasion, attempts by the Crown to interfere with the appointment and conduct of the Speaker rarely met with success. For example, when, in 1679, Charles II refused to approve the Commons' selection of Sir Edward Seymour as Speaker, he failed to secure the election of his own candidate and was compelled to compromise with the House on a third choice. By the 18th century, the threat to the Speaker's independence no longer came from the Crown, but from party government. The office became a prize to be bestowed on one of its supporters by the government controlling a majority of parliamentary seats. It was often combined with ministerial office. The independence of the Speakership took a giant step forward with the election of Speaker Arthur Onslow to the Chair in 1728. The greatest Speaker of the 18th century, Onslow resigned from the office of Treasurer i of the Navy, which was regarded as a perquisite of the Speakership, when ' he acceded to the Chair. During his 33 years as Speaker he set standards of impartiality and independence which were not achieved again for a century. It was not until 1841, when the Liberal Speaker Charles Shaw-Leffevre was re-elected to the Chair by a House controlled by the Conservatives, that the nonpartisanship of the office was decisively established in the British House of Commons. Representative legislatures were established by the British and took root in their North American colonies during the 18th century, before Westminster had agreed that a nonpartisan Speaker was a settled principle of parliamentary government. As the introduction indicates, the office of the Speaker in the provinces of Upper Canada, Canada and Ontario has been engaged in its own evolution towards independence and nonpartisanship; in fact, changes were made to the office as recently as 1989. This book is one of several publications issued by the Legislative Library to mark the 200th anniversary of the first session of the first Parliament of Upper Canada which took place at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) on 17 September 1792. I would like to express appreciation to Colonel Jean Dor6, Gentleman Usher I of the Black Rod of the Senate of Canada, and to the Honourable John j Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, for permission to "Whose Servant I Am' reproduce copies of pre-Confederation portraits in their possession, and to the National Archives of Canada for making available colour transparencies of these portraits. I also appreciate the co-operation of Fern Bayer, Chief Curator of the Ontario Government Art Collection, for making available colour transparencies of post-Confederation Speakers. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the author, Clare Dale, a former student employee of the Legislative Research Service of the Legislative Library and now a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Toronto, whose dedication and diligent research have made possible this collection of biographies. Her book will be of special interest to historians, politicians, political scientists and others interested in learning more about an important part of our parliamentary heritage. R.B. Land Executive Director Ontario Legislative Library Ul "Whose Servant I Am' Introduction The history of the Speakership in Ontario owes much of its ideological and procedural heritage to its ancient British precursor. The earliest years of the Speakership - those of the Upper Canadian period of 1792-1841 - coincide with the years in which the British Speakership made great strides towards independence and nonpartisanship. However, subtle differences evolved between the election of Speakers in Westminster and in Upper Canada. In the British House of Commons, election to the Speakership was a formality of procedure, with agreement upon the proposed candidate made between the government and the opposition parties prior to the vote in the Commons. In the colony, however, the election of the Speaker sometimes occasioned heated debates and the need to propose several candidates before one attained a simple majority.