| Name | Sir Mackenzie Bowell |
| Born: | December 27, 1823 in Rickinghall, England |
| Died: | December 10, 1917 |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Held Office: | December 21, 1894 – April 27, 1896 |
| Best known for: | -was a prominent Orangeman-played an important role in expelling Louis Riel from the House-became P.M. when Thompson died-was one of only 2 people to be P.M. while not in the House (he was leader of the Senate at the time)
-his government imploded over the Manitoba Schools Question (the Manitoba provincial government had stopped funding its Catholic schools in 1890, even though it was required to under the Manitoba Act of 1870. This pissed people off and it seems there was lots of fighting in the federal government over what to do about it.) |
| Some Things I Didn’t Know About This P.M. | -died 17 days short of his 94th birthday-the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online makes many references to him being very vain, including being really proud of not looking his age when he was in his 90s and not being able to believe that the cabinet ministers who resigned might not have liked him |
If you are just dying to read more about Sir M.B., with long-winded notes about his time at Minister of Customs (I’m looking at you, National Archives!)? Check out:
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Image credits: From from the Library and Archives Canada, copyright is expired.
I think it was pronounced “bowl”…
This stretch really is dullsville — only one more (Tupper, father of Confederation and Kim Campbell-esque sacrifical lamb for the Tories) until we get to more interesting PMs. Or at least other ones on our $ and who have schools and/or bases named after them.
This is the one stretch of PMs that I have always had trouble remembering. Four of them, all serving for under 2 years, none of them doing too much. Boo, 1890s!
Tupper has a school names after him out here… when I saw he was next on the list I was like “hey, that’s who that school is named after!”
This is totally a boring stretch… the 1890s were for suckers.
[…] prime ministerial series brings us the last of the boring PMs of the 1890s, at least according to Sarah, our resident Canadian historian here at […]
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