George Anthony Walkem

George Anthony Walkem

George Anthony Walkem (born November 15, 1834 in Newry , Ireland , † January 13, 1908 in Victoria ) was a Canadian politician , lawyer and judge . He was Prime Minister of British Columbia twice, for a total of five years ; from February 11, 1874 to February 1, 1876 and from June 25, 1878 to June 13, 1882. He then belonged to the Supreme Court of this province.

Provincial politics

The family emigrated to what was then the province of Canada in 1847 , where the father found work with the Royal Engineers . Walkem studied law at McGill University in Montreal and was admitted to the bar for Lower Canada in 1858 and that for Upper Canada in 1861 . During the Cariboo Gold Rush in 1862, he moved to British Columbia and settled in the Cariboo mining region. Matthew Baillie Begbie, the Chief Justice, initially refused admission, favoring UK- trained lawyers, but was forced to give in to pressure from Governor James Douglas in 1863.

From 1864, Walkem was a member of the colony's legislative council, which consisted of appointed members. He advocated the merger of the British Columbia colony and the Vancouver Island colony . Together with Amor De Cosmos and John Robson , he founded the Confederation League in 1868 , which successfully campaigned for the United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia to join the Canadian Confederation . In the first elections to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in October 1871, he was elected as a member of the Cariboo constituency (there were no parties at the time).

prime minister

Prime Minister Amor De Cosmos made Walkem Attorney General in December 1872 . After his resignation, he took office as head of government on February 11, 1874. Walkem's government called on the federal government in Ottawa to finally begin building the transcontinental railroad. After the elections in October 1875 he was able to continue to govern with a reduced majority, but lost a vote of no confidence on February 1, 1876 . Walkem resigned and was opposition leader for two and a half years. Prime Minister Andrew Charles Elliott lost his seat in the May 1878 elections and Lieutenant Governor Albert Norton Richards reappointed Walkem as head of government on June 25, 1878.

The new government resisted the immigration of Chinese workers and stopped awarding construction contracts to companies that employed Chinese. It also introduced a special tax only for Chinese people, which the Canadian Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. During the election campaign, Walkem threatened that British Columbia would withdraw from the Confederation if construction of the promised transcontinental railroad did not begin before 1879. The provincial government intervened directly in London , whereupon the British government put pressure on the Canadian federal government.

In April 1882, Walkem barely survived a vote of no confidence, which had been requested by the opposition because of massive cost overruns for a port project on Vancouver Island . On June 13, 1882, a month before the elections, he resigned after being appointed to the British Columbia Supreme Court by Prime Minister John Macdonald of Canada . He was a member of this until October 1903. In 1886, Walkem joined the Freemasons .

Web links

• George Anthony Walkem . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• George Anthony Walkem ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• Short Biography - Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon