Alexander Mackenzie
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Categories: Prime Ministers of Canada | Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada | Provincial Secretaries of Ontario | Canadian businesspeople | Scottish businesspeople | Canadian journalists | Scottish writers | Pre-Confederation Ontario people | Canadian Baptists | People from Sarnia | People from Perth and Kinross | Scottish immigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario | Scottish Gaelic-speaking people | 1822 births | 1892 deaths | Leaders of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons
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For other persons named Alexander Mackenzie, see Alexander Mackenzie (disambiguation).
Alexander Mackenzie, PC (January 28, 1822 – April 17, 1892), a building contractor and writer, was the second Prime Minister of Canada from November 7, 1873 to October 9, 1878. He was also the first Prime Minister for Liberal. He was born in Logierait, Perth and Kinross, Scotland to Alexander Mackenzie, Sr. and Mary Stewart Fleming. He was the third of four children. Mackenzie immigrated to Canada in 1842 after completing an education in public schools at Perth, Moulin, and Dunkeld, Scotland. Shortly thereafter, he converted from Presbyterianism to Baptist beliefs. Mackenzie's faith was to link him to the increasingly influential Temperance cause, particularly strong in Ontario, where he lived, a constituency of which he was to represent in the Parliament of Canada. Mackenzie married Helen Neil (1826-1852) in 1845 and with her had three children, with only one girl surviving infancy. In 1853, he married Jane Sym (1825-1893). When the Macdonald government fell due to the Pacific scandal in 1873, the Governor General, Lord Dufferin, had to call on someone to form a government. There was no clear leader of the Liberal Party. Mackenzie was the fourth person called upon, and the first to accept the post of Prime Minister. Mackenzie formed a government and then asked the Governor General to call an election for January 1874. The Liberals won, and Mackenzie remained prime minister until the 1878 election when Macdonald's Conservatives returned to power with a majority government. As Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie strove to reform and simplify the machinery of government. He introduced the secret ballot; created the Supreme Court of Canada; established the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston in 1874; created the Office of the Auditor General in 1878; and struggled to launch the national railway. After his government's defeat, Mackenzie remained Leader of the Opposition until 1880, when he relinquished the party leadership to Edward Blake. However, he remained as a Member of Parliament until his death in 1892 from a stroke that resulted from hitting his head during a fall. He died in Toronto and is buried in the Lakeview Cemetery, Sarnia.
LegacyThe Mackenzie building at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario was named in his honour. Image:RMC 1880.jpg
Mackenzie Building at RMC
At the time, it was customary for the monarch to knight all Canadian Prime Ministers but Mackenzie declined all offers of a knighthood. He was the only Canadian Prime Minister not to be knighted until Arthur Meighen took office in 1920. There is an Alexander Mackenzie High School in both Richmond Hill and Sarnia in Ontario named after him. Supreme Court appointmentsMackenzie chose the following jurists to sit as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada:
Helen Neil MackenzieHelen Neil Mackenzie (October 21, 1826-January 4, 1852) was the first wife of Alexander Mackenzie. She had three children, and died after being married to Mackenzie for seven years. Only one of their children survived infancy, a girl, named Mary Mackenzie. Her other two children were named Mary Mackenzie (same as her sister's) and a son whose name is unknown. It was because of Helen, who previously emigrated to Canada with her family, that Alexander also came to Canada. External linksWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
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