sphere of intermediate education out of proper relation to the higher
and lower departments of instruction. A system of self-terminated common
schools of an elementary type, and a system of colleges mainly without a
trustworthy source of supply, he refused to believe adapted to the wants
of his Province and the genius of the age. His efforts to secure a
better distribution of educational appliances, and better inter-working
of educational forces, have already, we believe, been crowned with some
success. Though not without aptitudes for other departments of public
service, he has hitherto refused to listen to all propositions involving
departure from the strict path of educational effort and usefulness.
Dr. Allison is a man of broad political sympathies. Residing in the
United States during those years of intense feeling which immediately
preceded the great Civil War, and having abundant opportunity of hearing
those passion-stirring appeals by which fiery orators accelerated the
awful crisis, his early prepossessions towards political and historical
studies were greatly strengthened. The reading and thought spent in this
direction have no doubt resulted in the formation of strong,
well-developed opinions. If, as some suspect, these opinions are
somewhat radical, they are held in judicious equilibrium by the
practical conservatism of his conduct. The liberality of his religious
sentiments admirably qualify him for a position in relation to which the
distinction of creeds is ignored. He is a member of the Methodist Church
of Canada, and as a lay representative has taken a prominent part in the
two General Conferences of that influential denomination, and has been
appointed a delegate to the General Congress of Methodism to be held in
London in 1881. This is the sphere of private opinion and action, but
even in that he has always thrown his influence in favour of fraternity
and peace. As regards public relations, the universal confidence in his
impartiality is a prime element of his strength.
He received the degree of B.A. in 1859, and of M.A. in 1862, in due
course from the Wesleyan University, and in 1873 the honorary degree of
LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Victoria College,
Cobourg, Ont. In 1876 he was appointed by the Executive Government of
Nova Scotia a Fellow of the Senate of the University of Halifax. In the
hope of unifying and improving the higher education of the Maritime
Provinces Dr. Allison had given the scheme for establishing such a
University, modelled on that of London, an earnest, and at a critical
juncture, most valuable support, and still vigorously sustains the
experiment of an Examining University as under the circumstances of the
case contributing to the satisfactory solution of a difficult problem.
That the proposed scheme was open to some of the objections vigorously
urged against it by the Rev. Mr. (now Principal) Grant and others he did
not attempt to deny. But who could propose any measure directed towards
the improvement of advanced education in Nova Scotia which was not open
to objection? The existing Colleges, five or six in number, were feeble
and ill-equipped, but they had become strongly entrenched in the
affections of religious denominations, whose unwillingness to surrender
real or seeming advantages in connection with these institutions was
proportioned to the sacrifices by which these advantages had been
secured. Assuming this unwillingness of the Colleges to surrender their
chartered privileges, as the first and indeed fundamental condition of
the establishment of a genuine Provincial University to be inexpugnable,
the projectors of the University of Halifax sought to give a steady and
appreciable value to Collegiate degrees conferred in the Province, to
reduce to something like order the chaos of divergent systems, and to
send down into the strata of primary and intermediate education an
uplifting influence from above. Should even these more limited objects
be unattained through the failure of the Colleges to practically aid a
measure designed at least in part for their benefit, it may in the end
appear that the indifference of these institutions was not dictated by
the highest wisdom even as regards their own interests.
THE HON. THOMAS GALT.
Judge Galt is the second son of the late John Galt, who was for some
time the Canadian Commissioner of the Canada Company, and who was the
author of numerous dramas and works of fiction which once enjoyed great
popularity. Some account of the life of the late Mr. Galt has been given
in the sketch of the life of his youngest son, the Hon. Sir Alexander
Tilloch Galt, which appeared in the second volume of this series.
The subject of this sketch was born in Portland Street, Oxford Street,
London, England, where his father at that time resided, on the 12th of
August, 1815. His early life was passed alternately in England and in
Scotland. He received his education at various public and private
schools. He was for about two years a pupil at a private establishment
at Musselburgh, a small seaport town in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
The late Hon. George Brown was also a pupil at this establishment. Mr.
Galt was removed from Musselburgh in 1826, and placed under the tuition
of Dr. Valpy, a classical scholar of high reputation. In 1828 he came
out to Canada, and was for two years a pupil in the establishment of Mr.
Braithwaite, at Chambly, where he had for fellow-pupils, the present
Bishop of Niagara and the late Thomas C. Street. In 1830 he returned to
Great Britain, where he spent three years, when, having nearly completed
his eighteenth year he emigrated to Upper Canada, and settled in what
was then Little York. This was in the autumn of 1833, and in the month
of March following, Little York became the city of Toronto, with William
Lyon Mackenzie as its first mayor. Mr. Galt has ever since resided in
Toronto, and has thus had his home in our Provincial capital for more
than forty-seven years.
Upon his arrival at Little York he entered the service of the Canada
Company, of which his father had been one of the original promoters, and
most active spirits. He remained in that service about six years, when,
having resolved upon studying law, he entered the office of
Mr.--afterwards the Hon. Chief Justice--Draper, where he remained until
his studies had been completed. During a part of this period he occupied
the position of chief clerk in the office of his principal, who was then
Attorney-General for Upper Canada. In this capacity it fell to his duty
to prepare the indictments, which required not merely an accurate
knowledge of the criminal law, but a close familiarity with the highly
technical system of criminal pleading which prevailed in those days. In
Easter Term, 1845, he was called to the Bar of Upper Canada, and
immediately afterwards settled down to the practice of his profession.
He was possessed of excellent abilities, a fine presence, and a
remarkably prepossessing manner, which qualifications combined to place
him in a foremost position before he had been long engaged in practice.
He became solicitor for numerous corporations and public companies, and
had always a very large business.
In October, 1847, when he had been at the Bar somewhat more than two
years, he married Miss Frances Louisa Perkins, youngest daughter of the
late Mr. James W. Perkins, who had formerly held a position in the Royal
Navy. By this lady he has a family of nine children. In 1855 he became a
Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and in 1858 he was appointed
a Queen's Counsel, simultaneously with the Hon. Stephen Richards. He
from time to time formed various partnerships, one of which was with the
late Hon. John Ross. Another was subsequently formed with the late Hon.
John Crawford, who some years later became Lieutenant-Governor of
Ontario.
While at the Bar, in addition to a very extensive and profitable civil
practice, he took a front rank as a criminal lawyer, for which
distinction his past experience in the office of Attorney-General Draper
had eminently fitted him. He was engaged in the celebrated case of
_Regina_ vs. _Brogden_, which many readers of these pages will not fail
to remember. The prisoner was a well-known lawyer of Port Hope, who was
tried at Cobourg for shooting one Anderson, the seducer of his wife. A
year or two later he represented the Crown in another historical
criminal case which was tried at Cobourg, wherein the prisoner, Dr.
King, was convicted of poisoning his wife. In 1863 he appeared for the
Crown at Toronto against that well-remembered malefactor William
Greenwood. There were three indictments against the prisoner, two for
murder and one for arson. On the first indictment for murder the
prisoner was acquitted. On that for arson, which was prosecuted by Mr.
Galt, he was convicted. With the other indictment for murder Mr. Galt
was not concerned. The prisoner, however, was convicted, and sentenced
to be hanged, but committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.
Mr. Galt was appointed to his present position, that of a Puisné Judge
of the Court of Common Pleas for Ontario, on the death of the late Judge
John Wilson, in 1869. His sixty-five years seem to sit very lightly upon
him, and he is still distinguished by a fine, dignified, and most kindly
presence. In addition to the attainments properly belonging to him as an
eminent lawyer, he is known as a master of style, and his judgments are
marked not less by their depth of learning than by the stateliness of
the diction in which they are written.
The most important criminal case over which he has been called upon to
preside since his accession to the Bench was that against Mrs. George
Campbell, who was tried at the assizes held at London, in the autumn of
1872, for murdering her husband under most revolting circumstances. She
was convicted, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
THE RIGHT REV. WILLIAM BENNETT BOND,
_M.A., LL.D., BISHOP OF MONTREAL._
Bishop Bond, Dr. Oxenden's successor in the See of Montreal, was born at
Truro, a seaport of the county of Cornwall, England, in the year 1815.
He received his education partly in Cornwall, and partly in London, at
various public and private schools. He was a diligent student, and
displayed much fondness for, and proficiency in, the classics, as well
as considerable aptitude for elocution. In his early youth he emigrated
from England to the Island of Newfoundland, where, after a brief period
spent in secular pursuits, he studied for holy orders under the
direction of Archdeacon Bridge. In 1840, under the advice and influence
of the late Rev. Mark Willoughby, he proceeded to Quebec, where, upon
the completion of his studies, he was ordained Deacon; and in 1841 he
was ordained Priest at Montreal, by the late Right Rev. George
Jehoshaphat Mountain, Bishop of Quebec. Immediately after his ordination
he again proceeded to Newfoundland, where, on the 2nd of June, in the
last-mentioned year, he married Miss Eliza Langley, with whom he
returned to Montreal. For some years subsequent to his ordination he was
a travelling missionary, with residence at Lachine, near Montreal. Under
instructions from Bishop Mountain he organized several missions in the
Eastern Townships, and in addition to his clerical duties interested
himself in organizing schools in connection with the Newfoundland School
Society, establishing eleven in the township of Hemmingford alone. In
1848 he was appointed to the large and important parish of St. George's,
Montreal, as assistant to Dr. Leach. His connection with that parish
subsisted without interruption for a period of thirty years. He
successively became Archdeacon of Hochelaga, and (later) Dean of
Montreal. While holding the office of Dean he took an active interest in
the Volunteer force, being chaplain of the 1st or Prince of Wales's
Regiment. He was out at Huntingdon during the raid of 1866, and in 1870
marched with the regiment from St. Armand's to Pigeon Hill.
On the 1st of July, 1878, the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, who had held
the bishopric of Montreal since 1869, resigned his position; and on the
16th of January following (1879) Dean Bond was elected as his successor
by the Synod of the Diocese. His consecration took place in St. George's
Church, Montreal, on the 25th of January, 1879, in the presence of the
Bishops of Fredericton, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Algoma, Ontario and
Niagara; the consecration sermon being preached by the Right Rev. John
Travers Lewis, Bishop of Ontario. He was installed in the Episcopal
Throne, in the Cathedral Church at Montreal, on the day following his
consecration, upon which date he likewise performed his first Episcopal
act by administering the rite of confirmation in the church of his old
parish of St. George's.
[Illustration: WILLIAM BENNETT BOND, signed as W. B. MONTREAL]
Bishop Bond has a fine and commanding presence, is an eloquent preacher,
and an excellent platform speaker. He is very popular among the
clergymen of his diocese, and takes a warm interest in promoting their
welfare. His only published work, so far as known to the present writer,
is a sermon on the death of his old friend the Rev. Mark Willoughby,
already mentioned, which was published at Montreal in 1847.
Bishop Bond is President of the Theological College of the Diocese of
Montreal. He received his degree of M.A. from Bishop's College,
Lennoxville, and that of LL.D. from the University of McGill College,
Montreal.
The Diocese over which Bishop Bond's jurisdiction extends was originally
constituted in 1850. Montreal was the Metropolitan See of Canada from
the year 1860, (when letters patent were issued to the late Dr.
Fulford), until Bishop Oxenden's resignation as above mentioned, in the
month of July, 1878.
THE HON. LEMUEL ALLAN WILMOT, D.C.L.
It is permitted to few persons to achieve, and permanently retain, so
high and well deserved a reputation as for nearly half a century has
attached to the name of the late Judge Wilmot. In the course of his long
and active public career he was called upon to play many important and
difficult parts. In none of them did he encounter failure, and in most
of them he achieved an unusual degree of credit and success. Alike as a
lawyer and a legislator, as Premier and Attorney-General, as a member of
Parliament, and as the leader of a not always manageable political
party, as a Judge and as a Lieutenant-Governor, he stamped his name upon
the history of New Brunswick. Robert Baldwin and Joseph Howe are not
more intimately identified with the cause of popular rights in the
histories of Upper Canada and Nova Scotia than is Lemuel Allan Wilmot in
the history of his native Province. One of whom so much can truthfully
be alleged must be admitted to have been a remarkable man. His life was
passed in the conscientious discharge of multifarious duties; and in
whatsoever aspect it may be viewed, it was a life which it is thoroughly
wholesome to contemplate. He was a man, and as such he doubtless had the
imperfections incidental to humanity; but happy is that individual upon
whose memory rests no graver charge than imperfection. He was often
placed in positions which subjected his manhood to a crucial test, and
never failed to come out of the ordeal without blemish. In recounting
the various phases of his public life, it never becomes necessary for
the biographer to apologize for acts of corruption; and his personal
character has left behind it a memory without a stain.
The two families to which he owed his origin were both identified with
the struggle of the American colonies for independence. His paternal
grandfather was Major Lemuel Wilmot, of Long Island, a U. E. Loyalist,
who held a commission in the Loyal American Regiment, engaged in much
active service on behalf of his king and country, and, soon after the
close of hostilities, settled under British rule, on the banks of the
St. John River, near Fredericton, in the then recently-formed Province
of New Brunswick. After his migration, the Major married Miss Elizabeth
Street, a sister of the Hon. Samuel Street, of the Niagara District. One
of the fruits of this marriage was the late Mr. William Wilmot, of
Sunbury, N.B., who married Miss Hannah Bliss, a daughter of Mr. Daniel
Bliss, and a descendant of Colonel Murray, of St. John, whose name also
figures conspicuously in the history of the U. E. Loyalists. Several
children resulted from this latter marriage, one of whom, Lemuel Allan
Wilmot, who was born in the county of Sunbury, on the 31st day of
January, 1809, is the subject of the present memoir.
[Illustration: LEMUEL ALLAN WILMOT, signed as L. A. WILMOT]
The incidents of his early boyhood, so far as known to the writer of
these pages, were few, and of little material interest to the
public. He was educated at the Fredericton Grammar School, and
afterwards at the Provincial University of that town. His career at
college was more remarkable for diligence than for brilliancy, though he
became a good classical scholar, and kept up his acquaintance with the
principal Greek and Latin authors throughout his after life. He was fond
of athletic exercises and aquatics, devoting sufficient attention to
such matters to build up a sound and vigorous constitution. He also
belonged to one of the local volunteer companies, and acquired
considerable proficiency in military drill. Upon leaving the University
he chose the law for a profession, and after the usual course of study
was admitted as an Attorney in 1830, immediately upon coming of age. He
settled down to practice in the Provincial capital, and in 1832 was
called to the Bar. He was not a born orator, and during the early years
of his professional life had to contend with a diffidence of manner and
a slight impediment in his speech. It is said that when he first
announced his determination to qualify himself for the Bar, his father,
referring to the last-mentioned infirmity, endeavoured to dissuade him
from a pursuit in which his stammering tongue would inevitably place him
at a great disadvantage. The young man, however, was self-confident, and
his subsequent career proved most incontestably that his confidence was
not misplaced. All things are possible to a man endowed with a strong
will, and a fixed determination to succeed. Young Wilmot possessed both
these qualifications for forensic success, and had also other advantages
which contributed to place him in the high rank which he eventually
attained at the New Brunswick Bar. He had a fine and commanding
presence, keen susceptibilities, a clear, ringing voice, a capacious
memory, and an unusual amount of industry. There was a strong vein of
poetry in his character, and he was possessed of a considerable share of
histrionic power. Aided by such adjuncts, and backed by a constitution
of unusual vigour, he well knew that his success was only a question of
time and unremitting labour. He applied himself with indefatigable
diligence to every case entrusted to him, and did not disdain to make
himself master of the minutest details. He never went into court until
he had seen his way through his case. He soon overcame the defect in his
utterance, and there was a sincerity and self-assurance about his manner
of addressing a jury which told greatly in his favour. In less than two
years from the date of his call to the Bar he had an assured practice
and position. His mind grew with the demands from day to day made upon
it, and at an age when many lawyers of greater brilliancy are content to
wait for fame, Mr. Wilmot had succeeded in establishing a reputation
which was co-extensive with his native Province. His fame was not of
ephemeral duration, but grew with his increasing years, and long before
his retirement from practice he was recognized as the most eloquent and
effective forensic orator of his day in New Brunswick. In an obituary
notice of him, published shortly after his death in a Boston newspaper,
we find the following strong testimony to his professional attainments:
"As an advocate at the Bar, few in any country could surpass him. The
court was full when it was known that Wilmot had a case. He scented a
fraud or falsehood from afar. He heard its gentlest motions. He pursued
it like an Indian hunter. If it burrowed, he dragged it forth, and held
it up wriggling to the gaze and scorn of the court. When he drew his
tall form up before a jury, fixed his black, piercing eyes upon them,
moved those rapid hands, and pointed that pistol finger, and poured out
his argument, and made his appeal with glowing, burning eloquence, few
persons could resist him." This estimate is worth quoting, as, though
florid, and doubtless overdrawn, it conveys a not altogether inaccurate
idea of his power as an advocate. If he was not a counsel whom "few in
any country could surpass," he was at all events a counsel who could
hold his own against such forensic luminaries as Archibald, and Stewart,
and Johnson, all of whom were orators of the highest rank at the Bar of
the sister Province of Nova Scotia, and all of whom were in frequent
request in the courts of New Brunswick. Against one or more of these he
was constantly pitted, and it is high praise to say, as may be said with
perfect truthfulness, that he was able to maintain his argument with
credit against the best of them.