George Brown (Canadian politician)

George Brown (November 29, 1818 – May 9, 1880) was a Scottish Canadian journalist, politician, the founder of the town of Bothwell, and one of the Fathers of Confederation. He attended the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences. A noted Reform politician, he is best known as the founder and editor of the Toronto Globe, Canada's most influential newspaper at the time, and his leadership in the founding of the Liberal Party in 1867. He was an articulate champion of the grievances and anger of Upper Canada (Ontario). He played a major role in securing national unity. His career in active politics faltered after 1865, but he remained a powerful spokesman for the Liberal Party. He promoted westward expansion and opposed the policies of Conservative prime minister John A. Macdonald.

Early life

Scotland

George Brown was born in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland on November 29, 1818. His father, Peter Brown, ran a wholesale business in Edinburgh and managed a glassworks in Alloa. These members separated from the Church of Scotland in May 1843 and formed the Free Church of Scotland. While George was touring Canada, they asked him to present an offer to his father: to move publication of the British Chronicle to Upper Canada in exchange for a bond of $2500. George supported the proposal, as he felt there were more opportunities to succeed in Canada. was accompanied at times by stridently critical remarks against French Canadians and the power exerted by the Catholic population of Canada East over the affairs of a predominately anglophone and Protestant Canada West. However, he did not want the dissolution of the Canadas as much of Canada West's trade went through Canada East along the St. Lawrence River, and splitting the union would give the eastern province control over the waterway before they entered Canada West.

In 1852, Brown founded, organised, and provided the credit for the development of the town of Bothwell, in his constituency of Lambton, and set aside farmland for his own use. In 1856, John A. Macdonald accused Brown of falsifying evidence and coercing witnesses in the Royal Commission on the Kingston Provincial Penitentiary in 1848. A committee of inquiry produced a report that was non-committal of Brown's guilt. Macdonald's accusations and subsequent investigation caused a political rivalry to deepen between Brown and Macdonald.

1857 election and subsequent legislature

Brown helped organize a political convention on January 8, 1857, to unite his followers with Clear Grits and Liberals who left the Hincks administration.

On August 28, Brown won the by-election that was called because of his short appointment to the cabinet during the Brown-Dorion administration. Brown toured the province, giving speeches at various Reform gatherings that denounced the Cartier-Macdonald administration. In the 1859 Toronto mayoral election, the first where the electorate would directly vote for mayor, Brown organised the Municipal Reform Association to nominate Adam Wilson as the Reformer candidate; Wilson won the election over Conservative opponents.

In 1859 Brown and other Upper Canadian Reformers organised a convention in Toronto to discuss the governance of the province, in the hopes that agreeing to a unified policy would prevent divisions within the movement on the issue. Brown favoured creating a federalist system with the provinces (Canada West and Canada East) obtaining more control over its governance, as he felt this system would repel American encroachment into British North American territory west of Upper Canada and restrain what he saw as corruption exampled by the Conservative administration. Brown's speech at the convention supporting a federal government was positively received by the delegates, who passed resolutions supporting Brown's favoured policy positions. On April 30, 1860, Brown proposed a bill in the Province of Canada's legislature to form a convention that would discuss federalism. Brown convinced the majority of Reformers to support his resolution. The bill was defeated, but Reformers' support for federalism was documented in the vote. Five weeks after their first meeting, on November 27, they were wed at the Nelson's home. He was also concerned that two elected legislative bodies could create a political deadlock, especially if different parties held a majority of seats in each body. The result of the Quebec Conference was the Quebec Resolutions. Brown presented the Quebec Resolutions in a speech in Toronto on November 3. Later that month, he travelled to England to begin discussions with British officials about Canadian confederation, the integration of the North West Territories into Canada, and the defence of British North America from possible American invasion. and he insisted that "whether we ask for parliamentary reform for Canada alone or in union with the Maritime Provinces, the views of French Canadians must be consulted as well as ours. This scheme can be carried, and no scheme can be that has not the support of both sections of the province." Although he supported the idea of a legislative union at the Quebec Conference, Brown was eventually persuaded to favour the federal view of Confederation, which was closer to that supported by Cartier and the Bleus of Canada East, as it was the structure that would ensure that the provinces retained sufficient control over local matters to satisfy the need of the French-speaking population in Canada East for jurisdiction over matters that it considered to be essential to its survival. Brown remained a proponent of a stronger central government, with weaker constituent provincial governments.

In May and June, Brown was part of a delegation sent to London to continue discussions about confederation with British officials. The British government agreed to support Canadian confederation, defend Canada if attacked by the US, and help with establishing a new trade agreement with the US. In September, Galt and Brown represented the Province of Canada at the Confederate Trade Council, a meeting of Canadian colonies to negotiate common trade policies after the colonies' reciprocity trade agreement with the United States was terminated. During the meeting, Brown spoke with Maritime delegates to gather support for the Canadian confederation, as support for the project was decreasing in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He supported the council's resolution to pursue trade policies that reduced tariffs with the US. The administration for the Province of Canada disagreed and sought to increase tariffs on American goods. Brown, frustrated with his cabinet colleagues over this issue, resigned from the Great Coalition on December 19.

In 1874, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie asked Brown to negotiate a new reciprocity treaty with the US. He negotiated with the United States Secretary of State Hamilton Fish from February until June 18, when a draft of their treaty was proposed in the US Congress. The Congress did not pass the bill into law and it was set aside when Congress adjourned four days after the treaty was proposed. Bennett was subsequently charged and hanged.

His wife, Anne Nelson, returned to Scotland thereafter where she died in 1906. She is buried on the southern terrace of Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh. The grave also commemorates George Brown. In 1885 his daughters Margaret and Catherine were two of the first women to graduate from the University of Toronto.

Political philosophy and views

Brown was raised as a member of the Church of Scotland. Canadian historian J. M. S. Careless described the family's faith as further from the Calvinist interpretation of the bible and more closely followed the tenets of the evangelical movement of the 1800s. Brown advocated for a Puritan separation between politics and religion; he believed that political liberty could only be achieved if religious institutions were not involved in politics, and while he believed everyone should be Christian, he thought political institutions should not influence religion. In 1850, although he was against giving state money to religions in clergy reserves, he was willing to tolerate it in order to maintain an allegiance between the Upper Canadian Reformers and French Canadian Catholic Reformers.

Brown was against slavery and believed that the largest fault of the United States was the enslavement of people in American southern states. He was part of the Elgin Association, a group of mostly Free Kirk people that purchased land in Kent county for escaped slaves to live on. He also wrote editorials in The Globe defending a settlement of escaped slaves in Buxton from hostile white inhabitants in Kent. He was also an executive member of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada.

Throughout the Province of Canada's existence, Brown advocated against dissolving the union. In the 1850s he was worried that a dissolved union would cause the St Lawrence River, a major thorough way for trade, to be hampered by the two jurisdictions imposing different rules on their section of the river. When choosing how to transport their goods, farmers to the west of Upper Canada might use the Erie Canal in the United States instead (as this route would have one set of rules) and potentially setting up American annexation of those lands. Instead, Brown wanted a federal union that would have jurisdiction over joint concerns while each section would create laws for their own territory. Brown advocated for representation by population as a way to ensure the French population did not have out-sized power. He wanted to maintain the defensive and trade advantages that a unified province would have and looked to incorporate the Maritime provinces into the union.

Legacy

thumb|left|George Brown stamp, issued by Canada Post

Brown's residence, formerly called Lambton Lodge and now called George Brown House, at 186 Beverley Street, Toronto, was named a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974. It is now operated by the Ontario Heritage Trust as a conference centre and offices.

Brown also maintained an estate, Bow Park, near Brantford, Ontario. Bought in 1826, it was a cattle farm during Brown's time and is currently a seed farm.

Toronto's George Brown Polytechnic (founded 1967 as George Brown College) is named after him. A statue of Brown can be found on the front west lawn of Queen's Park and another on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (sculpted by George William Hill in 1913).

He was portrayed by Peter Outerbridge in the 2011 CBC Television film John A.: Birth of a Country.

George Brown appears on a Canadian postage stamp issued on August 21, 1968.

Electoral record

References

Citations

Works cited

External links

Meet the Browns: A Confederation Family Archives of Ontario online exhibit
George Brown family fonds Archives of Ontario
A website for an upcoming documentary film on George Brown

(Biography by John Lewis)

Photograph: Hon. George Brown in 1865. McCord Museum
Photograph: Hon. George Brown in 1865. McCord Museum