John Abbott

The title of this article is ambiguous. For other individuals, see John Abbott (disambiguation) .

John Abbott

Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott PC , KCMG , QC (born March 12, 1821 in St. Andrews , Québec , † October 30, 1893 in Montreal ) was a Canadian lawyer, entrepreneur, professor and politician. In the years 1887/88 he was mayor of Montreal. From June 16, 1891 to November 24, 1892, he was the third Prime Minister of Canada. Abbott is the great grandfather of actor Christopher Plummer .

family

Abbott was born the eldest son of Joseph Abbott and his wife Harriet Bradford. His father served as pastor of the Church of England in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts . In 1818 he and his brother emigrated from Westmorland to Canada. There, in addition to his office as pastor, he worked a farm of around 120 hectares . Abbott's parents were married on August 10, 1820 at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal . His mother was the eldest daughter of Richard Bradford, an Anglican missionary in the Ottawa River valley . Abbott's maternal grandfather had come to Chatham , New Brunswick in 1805, also as part of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts . Through him Abbott was able to trace his family roots back to William Bradford , one of the first settlers in the United States . His maternal grandmother, Sarah Jefferys was maid of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz .

Abbott had eight younger siblings, three sisters, and five brothers. However, three of his brothers died in infancy and one of his sisters also died at the age of only twelve. His great cousin was Maude Abbott , one of Canada's first women doctors. He married on 26 July 1849 in the same church like his parents, Mary Bethume, the daughter of the Chief Administrative Officer of the McGill University John Bethune and niece Skinner and chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company Angus Bethune . The couple had twelve children, only ten of whom survived infancy.

Youth and education

Abbott spent his childhood and youth in various rural areas of Lower Canada . The family moved from St. Andrews to Yamaska in April 1825 . There the father worked a farm. In June 1831 he took over a pastorate in Grenville and the family moved again. There the father oversaw the construction of the new church. Abbott received his education first at St. Andrews Academy , the elementary school of St. Andrews, and later at a private school where he received instruction in both mathematics , astronomy and the ancient languages . As the eldest son, he also took on responsible tasks on the family farm at an early age and was tutored by his father. In his spare time Abbott learned to wrestle and later took part in tournaments.

In 1838 Abbott traveled to Montreal with a friend to find a job as a retail salesman. A year later, however, after a serious illness, he returned to his parents' house and was finally employed by a company in Gananoque . In 1843 Abbott moved again to Montreal to study at the newly opened artist faculty at McGill University . He also worked in the university administration. There he was promoted to deputy treasurer . In 1845 he worked as a paralegal in the Strachan Bethune law firm in Montreal. Two years later he received his license to practice law in Lower Canada. Abbott completed his doctorate in 1867.

Professional activities

In 1849 Abbott opened their own law firm together with law professor William Badgley and became involved in the bar association. In the same year he joined the Freemasons . He was also one of the signatories of the Montreal Annexation Manifesto published in October and December 1849 , which he later viewed as a sin of youth. As early as 1847 he had volunteered for the militia and attained the rank of ensign . He had been dismissed for his involvement in the annexation movement, but was reinstated in the course of the reorganization of the militia and promoted to captain .

From 1853 Abbott worked as a lecturer at McGill University, where he lived together with his wife and parents. In 1855 he was appointed professor for commercial and criminal law and at the same time took over the post of dean of the law faculty. In addition to his work as a lawyer and political commitment, he held the latter until 1876, when he retired as professor in 1879 . Wilfrid Laurier was one of his students . After his partner Badgley was appointed a judge in 1855, Abbott took over the firm and very quickly developed into one of the most famous lawyers in business law in Montreal. His clients included Hugh Allan and Baron Strathcona . To cope with the work, he soon hired lawyers.

At the same time Abbott and his brothers successfully participated in numerous railway companies. But the brothers were also extremely successful in speculating with land. So they bought around 28,000 hectares of land in the Estrie region , where they began mining slate from 1853 to sell it to the Grand Trunk Railway, among others . Abbott has also served as CEO of numerous companies, including various banks and insurance companies. He also kept a large herd of Ayrshire cattle. As part of the Trent affair in 1861, he commanded a regiment and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1862 Queen Victoria appointed him Crown Attorney .

Despite specializing in commercial law cases, Abbott never completely abandoned his criminal practice. He also gained international recognition as one of the defense counsel for 14 of the defendants involved in the St. Albans Incident . He argued that the defendants had acted as war participants on the side of the Confederate States of America and thus prevented their extradition to the United States. Abbott was solely responsible for drafting the company's articles of association while serving as in-house counsel for Canada Pacific Railway . After his election as mayor of Montreal , he retired from the day-to-day business of his law firm as in-house counsel for the Canda Pacific Railway and as a lawyer in order to concentrate fully on his political tasks.

Political activities

Abbott as Mayor of Montreal

Initially attracted by the Liberal Party's program , Abbott later joined the Conservative Party . From 1860 he was a member of the legislative assembly of the province of Canada as a liberal for the constituency of Argenteuil . In the 1858 election, his opponent Sydney Robert Bellingham was initially declared the winner. However, after an appeal by Abbott, the election was declared invalid because supporters of Bellingham had falsified the result. After an investigation, Abbott was declared the winner of the election in March 1860. Until the dissolution of the legislative assembly in 1866, he represented the interests of his electoral district. During this time he successfully campaigned for jury reform and supported legislation to simplify the payment of court fees .

Abbott served as Lower Canada Attorney General in the government of John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis-Victor Sicotte from 1862 to 1863 . After the failure of this government, he resigned from his post as Attorney General and subsequently worked on the draft of a new bankruptcy law. As a member of Parliament, he was a member of Parliament's Committee on Railways, Shipping Canals and Telegraph Lines. He continued the committee work as a member of the lower house as chairman of the banking committee. There he represented after the Confederation from 1867 to 1874 and between 1880 and 1886 also the constituency of Argenteuil.

In addition to his work as a lawyer for Hugh Allan and his firm, Abbott was also politically closely linked to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway . After a syndicate around Allan received the contract to build the railway, Abbott was one of a group of four politicians who traveled to London in 1873 to solicit funding for the project. The news of these negotiations led to the Pacific scandal , as a result of which John Macdonald had to resign from the office of Prime Minister because of Allan's illegal campaign donations to the Conservative Party. Abbott played a not inconsiderable role in this scandal, as there had been a secret agreement between him and Allan about the donations. Despite his involvement in the scandal, Abbott managed to defend his seat in parliament in the 1874 general election, but was eventually forced to resign in 1875. In the general election in 1878 Abbott initially lost to the candidate of the Liberal party, but was declared the winner after a sensational legal battle and thus moved back into parliament. He gave up his seat in 1886 for reasons of age.

A year later Macdonald offered him a seat in the Senate , which Abbott accepted. When he took office as senator, he was also chairman of the Conservative Party in the Senate. In addition, he took over the post of Minister without Portfolio in the Macdonald government . In March of the same year he was appointed a member of the Canadian Privy Council. Also in 1887, he successfully ran for the office of mayor of Montreal. He held this office for two terms, i.e. until 1889. He finally turned down a third term. After the death of John Macdonald in 1891, Lord Stanley , the governor-general of Canada , turned to John Thompson and commissioned him to form a government. Thompson refused, however, and proposed Abbott as the new prime minister. Since his health was not stable, he hesitated for a long time before he accepted the post and was finally sworn in in June 1891.

In addition to Mackenzie Bowell , Abbott is the only Canadian Prime Minister who was not in the House of Commons during his tenure. The cabinet initially remained unchanged. Shortly after taking office, Abbott was confronted with the first scandal in his cabinet. Hector-Louis Langevin , Minister for Construction, had to resign on August 11, 1891 after allegations of bribery. The following year, Canada's first criminal code was passed. Abbott fell seriously ill in the summer of 1892, shortly after Parliament's second session ended. He traveled to England, where doctors with him cancer diagnosed. After a brief stay in Italy , which brought no improvement in his health, he returned to Canada and resigned from the office of Prime Minister on December 5, 1892. The governor general appointed John Thompson as his successor.

Last months, death and aftermath

John Abbott College

Abbott spent the last months of his life at his home in Boisbriand . He died on the morning of October 30, 1893 of complications from his cancer. The funeral service was held at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal and Abbott was buried in the Mont-Royal Cemetery. An obelisk has been erected there in his honor . As an expression of his solidarity with McGill University, John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue was named after him. Abbott is now regarded as one of the most important people in the unification of Canada because of his work in building the Canadian Pacific Railway.

literature

• 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 .

Web links

Commons : Sir John Abbott  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Carman Miller: Abbott, John Joseph Caldwell . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . tape 12: 1891-1900 . University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1990, ISBN 0-8020-3460-8 ( English , French ).
• Sir John Abbott ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved March 22, 2015.
• John Abbott - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ John JC Abbott , Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
2. ↑ William Tatley: Cornelius Krieghoff, the Shakespeare Club and the Annexation Manifesto . Editor: McGill University. Montreal September 14, 2006 ( online [PDF; 87 kB ; accessed on August 29, 2013]). online ( Memento from October 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )