Alexander McMicken
Alex McMicken was born on August 27, 1837 at Queenston, Upper Canada. He was educated at the Toronto Academy and at a very young age he was appointed as Postmaster and Collector of Customs at Clifton [Niagara Falls], a position that he held until 1860. The appointment was probably due to the influence of his father who was a major figure in the town.
In 1864 his father was given command of Canada’s first secret service. The service was set up at this time because Canada was being inundated with Confederate spies and Fenians from the U.S. Alex McMicken was given responsibility of the western division of the secret service. He moved to Manitoba in 1871 and in 1872 he opened his own bank which sold out to the Ontario Bank in 1875.
He sat on Winnipeg City Council in 1875 and 1881 and served as mayor of the city in 1883. He later built two racetracks in the city and became an insurance broker. In 1900 he was appointed as provincial police magistrate. He once left the bench in the middle of hearing a case and got into a fist fight with one of the lawyers appearing before him.
He helped to set up Winnipeg’s first cricket club and was one of the founding members of the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba. He retired as a magistrate in 1913 and died on July 29, 1916 at Winnipeg.
William Mulock was born at Bondhead, Ontario on January 19, 1844. He was educated at the University of Toronto and received his M.A. there in 1871 and LL.D. in 1894. He was called to the bar of Ontario in 1868 and was created a Queen’s Counsel in 1890.
He was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the riding of North York in 1882 and was to represent this riding until 1905. He was appointed as Postmaster General of Canada in 1896 and in 1898 he introduced "imperial penny postage" within the British Empire. In 1900 he became Canada’s first Minister of Labour and of interest is that his deputy was Mackenzie King, future Prime Minister of Canada. In 1905 he retired from politics to become the Chief Justice of the Exchequer division of the Supreme Court of Canada.
In 1923 he became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario. He was elected chancellor of the University of Toronto and continued in that position until his death in 1944. He had been created a K.C.M.G. in 1902 and was appointed as an Imperial Privy Councillor in 1925.
Alexander Whyte Wright
Alexander Wright was born on December 17, 1845 in Waterloo County, Upper Canada. In 1863 he began working in woollen mills in Waterloo County and after a few years he became a printer and worked on several southern Ontario newspapers. He was a strong advocate of both labour and the Conservative Party and was to be instrumental for many years in renewing the Conservative Party’s strong relationship with the working class.
He was a brilliant speaker and it was said that "He was at his best when heckled. He courted interruption for no one could get the better of him in a clash of wits." He moved to Toronto as editor of the "National" and in 1880 became editor of the "Toronto World" a strong Tory newspaper.
He joined the Knights of Labour in Toronto in 1883 and by the end of the decade had become the leading Canadian spokesman for the organization. Through Wright the labour oriented Knights were always steered toward the Conservative cause at election time. In 1886 he began a labour oriented newspaper, the "Canadian Labour Reformer".
The Knights of Labour were an American dominated organization and Wright led the fight to have a Canadian general assembly autonomous from American rule. With this leverage he sat on the governing executive board of the organization by 1888. In October, 1895, Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell appointed him a one man Royal Commission to investigate sweat shop conditions in Canadian industry.
In 1899 he was one of three Conservative Party organizers in Ontario, Wright being responsible for the southwest part of the province. In 1907 he was appointed by Robert Borden as Federal Party organizer in the province of Ontario. In the Ontario election of 1908 he ran as an independent in the riding of Toronto West and finished third with twenty-one per cent of the vote. In 1914 in recognition of his service to labour he was appointed as vice-chairman of the newly formed Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Board. Alex Wright died in Toronto on June 12, 1919.
H. H. Stevens was born in Bristol, England on December 8, 1878 and came to Canada in 1887. He attended school at Peterborough, Ontario before moving with his family to British Columbia in 1894. He joined the American Army and served with them in China during the Boxer Rebellion.
He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1911 as a Conservative in Vancouver and represented the riding until 1930. He served as Minister of Trade and Commerce in 1921 and as Minister of Customs and Excise in 1926. In 1930 he ran in the riding of East Kootenay and represented the riding until 1940.
After R. B. Bennett took over as leader of the Conservative Party there were problems for Stevens. He was never an admirer of Bennett and the feeling was mutual. In the election of 1935, frustrated at the lack of social legislation on the part of the Conservatives, he resigned from the party and formed the Reconstruction Party.
His party polled 400,000 voted and Stevens was elected in his own riding. As a result of this vote loss the Conservatives were crushed at the polls, winning just thirty-nine seats. In 1938, after Bennett’s resignation as Conservative leader, he returned to the party. He was a director in several large corporations and in 1952 - 1953 was President of the Vancouver Board of Trade. He died in Vancouver on January 14, 1973.
|
RETURN TO HOME PAGE: |
