Events from the year 1857 in Canada.

Incumbents

  • Monarch — Victoria

Federal government

  • Parliament — 5th

Governors

  • Governor General of the Province of Canada — Edmund Walker Head
  • Colonial Governor of Newfoundland — Charles Henry Darling
  • Governor of New Brunswick — John Manners-Sutton
  • Governor of Nova Scotia — John Gaspard Le Marchant
  • Governor of Prince Edward Island — Dominick Daly

Premiers

  • Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada —
  • [[]], Canada West Premier
  • [[]], Canada East Premier
  • [[]],
  • Premier of Newfoundland — Philip Francis Little
  • Premier of New Brunswick — Charles Fisher
  • Premier of Nova Scotia — William Young
  • Premier of Prince Edward Island — John Holl

Events

  • March 12 — Desjardins Canal disaster - The bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Canada West, collapses under a Great Western Railway passenger train. About 60 people die.
  • Grand Trunk Railway (Windsor-Montreal) completed, but $7 million in debt.
  • December 31 - Queen Victoria names Ottawa as capital of the Province of Canada.
  • The Palliser Expedition begins its exploration of Western Canada.

Births

January to June

  • February 2 — Alexander Cameron Rutherford, lawyer and politician, first premier of Alberta (died 1941)
  • February 25 — Robert Bond, politician and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (died 1927)
  • February 27 — Adelaide Hoodless, educational reformer who founded the Women's Institute (died 1910)
  • March 17 — Willis Keith Baldwin, politician (died 1935)
  • June 20 — Adam Beck, politician and hydro-electricity advocate (died 1925)

July to December

  • July 27 — Ann Stowe-Gullen, doctor
  • August 15 — Theodore Arthur Burrows, politician and Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba (died 1929)
  • August 15 — John Strathearn Hendrie, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (died 1923)
  • September 12 — George Halsey Perley, politician and diplomat (died 1938)
  • October 10 — Cassie Chadwick, fraudster (died 1907)
  • October 10 — George Johnson Clarke, lawyer, journalist, politician and 14th Premier of New Brunswick (died 1917)
  • November 25 — Frederick W. A. G. Haultain, politician and 1st Premier of the Northwest Territories (died 1942)

Deaths

  • February 10 — David Thompson, fur trader, surveyor and map-maker (born 1770)
  • March 13 — William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, diplomat and governor general (born 1773)
  • September 3 — John McLoughlin, physician, fur trader, and merchant (born 1784)
  • November 3 — William Fitzwilliam Owen, naval officer, hydrographic surveyor (born 1774)

Full date unknown

  • Isabella Clark, first wife of John A. Macdonald, premier of the Province of Canada (born 1811)

References