Wolfred Nelson

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Wolfred Nelson

Wolfred Nelson (born July 10, 1791 in Montreal , † June 17, 1863 ibid) was a Canadian politician and doctor . He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1827 to 1830 and was one of the leaders of the liberal-radical opposition. During the Lower Canada Rebellion he was one of the most prominent insurgents and led fighting against the British colonial troops. After four years of exile, he was granted amnesty in 1842 and returned to politics. Until 1851 he was a member of the legislative assembly of the province of Canada , from 1854 to 1856 mayor of the city of Montreal.

biography

Father William Nelson was a teacher from the 1781 English county Yorkshire had immigrated. Mother Jane Dies came from a family of former large landowners in the US state of New York who had to flee to British North America because of the support of the loyalists in the Revolutionary War . When Wolfred Nelson was three years old, the family moved to the garrison town of Sorel . He and his brother Robert Nelson attended their father's school there. With the local army doctor he learned the practical skills of a medical doctor, in 1811 he was licensed as a surgeon. In the British-American War he served as a field doctor . After the war, he settled in Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu , where he opened a practice.

In 1827 Nelson was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada and supported the Parti patriote , which campaigned for social and economic reform. He denounced the abuse of power, corruption and the economic dominance of the ruling elite. In 1830 he decided not to be re-elected. During a trip to Europe he deepened his medical knowledge, after his return he opened a schnapps distillery in Saint-Denis . Nelson's liberal views became radicalized, especially after a close friend's killer was acquitted by a bought jury . From May 1837, he organized meetings of like-minded people to protest against the increasingly repressive colonial government. On 23/24 October he presided in Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu the assembly of the six counties , a popular assembly of over 5,000 patriotes , which he explicitly violated a ban on assembly issued by the authorities.

On November 16, 1837, ten days after the Lower Canada Rebellion broke out, Nelson was charged with high treason . On December 4, he met the rebel leaders Louis-Joseph Papineau and Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan in Saint-Denis . They decided to oppose the threat of arrest, find weapons and proclaim the Republic of Lower Canada . A British military unit attacked the village on November 23, 1837, but was repulsed at the Battle of Saint-Denis by the insurgents under Nelson's command. Despite this victory, Nelson had to go into hiding. He was arrested in mid-December and taken to Montreal , where he spent the next seven months in prison. After admitting his guilt in a letter to Lord Durham , he was exiled to Bermuda . He was released in December 1838, after which he settled in Plattsburgh not far from the border and practiced as a doctor.

Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine granted amnesty to the exiled leaders of the uprising in 1842 , after which Nelson moved his medical practice to Montreal. In 1844 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada . In the following seven years he repeatedly spoke out in favor of strengthening civil rights and the introduction of self-government. Several times he had to defend himself against accusations by the conservatives that he was a rebel and a traitor. In addition to his political activities, he continued to work as a doctor; together with his son Horace Nelson, he performed the first operation in Canada using anesthesia .

In 1851 the La Fontaine and Robert Baldwin provincial government appointed Nelson prison inspector. In this function, he wrote reports on the grievances that he had partly suffered himself. In 1854 he was elected mayor of Montreal. During his tenure, Nelson improved the quality of the city's services through the appointment of inspectors. At his own expense, he wrote a brochure with advice on how to contain cholera . He also supported plans to build a park on Mont Royal . In 1856 he resigned from his office.

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personal data
SURNAME Nelson, Wolfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician and doctor
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1791
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1863
Place of death Montreal