Alexander Tilloch Galt

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Alexander Tilloch Galt

Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt , GCMG , PC (born September 6, 1817 in Chelsea , Great Britain , † September 19, 1893 in Montreal ) was a Canadian politician and businessman . In the 1850s he was instrumental in promoting railroad construction in eastern Canada. As one of the fathers of the Confederation , Galt is one of the pioneers of the Canadian state founded in 1867. From 1853 to 1872 he was a Liberal Conservative MP in the Lower House of the Province of Canada and in the Canadian Lower House . For twelve years he was finance minister and thus one of the most influential politicians of all. From 1880 to 1883 he served as Canadian High Commissioner in Great Britain.

biography

Entrepreneur and railway pioneer

The son of the writer John Galt spent his childhood in London and Scotland . In 1828 he moved to Upper Canada , where his father had founded the Canada Company . This society prepared the settlement of the Guelph area. After founding the British American Land Company , the family moved to Sherbrooke . Galt began his professional career in this colonization society, worked at the London headquarters for a year in 1842 and was appointed operational director in Canada in 1843. He used the generated profits to develop Sherbrooke from a small village into an industrial center.

In 1845 Galt founded the Sherbrooke Cotton Factory , the first cotton mill and the first public company in the province of Canada . Through his extensive network of relationships, he was able to raise the capital he needed to build the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad , a railway line between Portland and Montreal that was completed in 1853. Galt also planned a railway line between Montreal and Kingston , but this ran counter to the plans of Francis Hincks . To avoid unnecessary competition, they united their companies in 1852 in the Grand Trunk Railway . Together with Casimir Gzowski , Galt also founded the company CS Gzowski & Co. , which built the Toronto - Sarnia line . He made further investments in lead mines and banks.

Colonial and Federal Policy

Galt's political career began in April 1849 when he was acclaimed to be elected MP for Sherbrooke in the Canada's Lower House . He was one of the signatories of the Montreal Annexation Manifesto published in October and December 1849 . As early as January 1850, he resigned as a member of parliament because the rapidly growing railway business was taking up too much time. In May 1853 he was re-elected to the House of Commons. At the beginning he was on the side of the reformers, but over time he identified more and more with the conservatives. Governor General Edmund Walker Head wanted him in August 1858 with the formation of a new government. However, Galt was convinced that he could not get a stable majority on his side. Instead, he proposed George-Etienne Cartier and John Macdonald as co-prime ministers. They reciprocated by appointing him general inspector (equivalent to a finance minister).

In order for him to accept the ministerial post, Galt set one condition: the government should strive to unite the colonies in British North America into a federal state. Parliament gave its approval and Galt traveled to London in October 1858 to present the idea to the Colonial Office . However, this showed little interest, so that he put the project on hold for the time being. From May 1862 Galt was in the opposition until he took over his traditional ministerial post in March 1864. Liberals and Conservatives formed a grand coalition to get the state project going again. In September and October 1864 Galt took part as a delegate at the Charlottetown Conference and the Québec Conference , where relevant negotiations took place. He successfully campaigned to ensure that the rights of religious minorities in the education sector would be preserved.

In December 1866, Galt took part in the London Conference to help draft the constitution of the new state. On July 1, 1867, Prime Minister John Macdonald appointed him Treasury Secretary of the State of Canada, which was founded on that day. In the first Canadian general election , he won as a liberal-conservative candidate in the Sherbrooke constituency. As early as November 1867 he resigned from the cabinet because he had not received any support from the Prime Minister in attempting to rescue an insolvent bank. In 1872 he no longer ran for the general election. In May 1880, Galt was appointed the first Canadian High Commissioner in Great Britain . He held this diplomatic position in the British capital London until June 1883.

Other entrepreneurial activities

In the 1880s, Galt became an entrepreneur again. In 1881 he learned from his son Elliott, who was working as an Indian agent in Regina , of extensive coal deposits in the south of the later province of Alberta . In 1882 he founded the North Western Coal and Navigation Company , the aim of which was to supply coal to the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was still under construction . The opening of several mines and the construction of a mine train led to the flourishing of the Lethbridge settlement , which quickly developed into a town. Due to a chronic illness, Galt withdrew from the public in 1890. Galt died in 1893 and is buried in the Mont-Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

Web links

Commons : Alexander Tilloch Galt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elisabeth Abbott: The Reluctant PM: Notes on the Life of Sir John Abbott Canada's Third Prime Minister . Self-published, Sainte Anne de Bellevue 1997, ISBN 0-921370-09-1 , p. 62 .
personal data
SURNAME Galt, Alexander Tilloch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Chelsea , UK
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1893
Place of death Montreal