John Sandfield Macdonald

QC
Macdonald, c. 1870
1st Premier of Ontario
In office July 16, 1867 – December 20, 1871
Monarch	Victoria
Lieutenant Governor	Henry William Stisted William Pearce Howland
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Edward Blake
Joint Premier of the Province of Canada
In office May 24, 1862 – March 29, 1864
Governor General	Viscount Monck
Preceded by	John A. Macdonald
Succeeded by	John A. Macdonald
Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for Glengarry
In office 1841–1844
Preceded by	Position established
Personal details
Born	(1812-12-12)December 12, 1812 St. Raphael West, Canadian militia
Years of service	1830s–1852
Rank	Lieutenant Lieutenant-Colonel
Unit	Queen's Light Infantry Militia (Toronto) Glengarry Militia Regiment of the Eastern District
Commands	4th Battalion, Glengarry Militia

John Sandfield Macdonald,

from July 16, 1867, to December 20, 1871.

He was referred to by his middle name, Sandfield, and often signed his correspondence and documents as J. Sandfield Macdonald.

Early life and legal career

Born in 1812 in Glengarry County, Upper Canada, John Sandfield was the first of five children for Alexander and Nancy Macdonald, who were Roman Catholic Highland Scots. His mother died when he was eight. Independent in mind, Macdonald twice tried to set out from home when he was eleven.^[1]

Leaving school at 16, he became a clerk at several general stores, before deciding to enter the legal profession, eventually articling under Archibald McLean. When McLean was later elevated to the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada, Macdonald became his assistant, which allowed him to meet Allan MacNab, Thomas Talbot and William Henry Draper (with whom he would resume his articling).^[1] Draper and McLean were leaders in the Tory political group.^{[citation needed]}

Macdonald was later appointed as Queen's messenger, charged with carrying dispatches between the

]

In 1840, while he was on one of his missions from the Lieutenant-Governor (the

]

Province of Canada politics

In 1841, Macdonald was approached by two local conservative political figures,

Macdonald served as a Lieutenant in the Queen's Light Infantry Militia in Toronto in the 1830s and early 1840s. On October 17, 1842, Macdonald was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed to command the 4th Battalion of the Glengarry Militia.[3] He commanded the 4th Glengarry until 1852 when he was replaced by his brother Donald Alexander Macdonald.^[4]

A

Macdonald was initially an opponent of

(no relation). John A. Macdonald helped manoeuvre Sandfield Macdonald into the position of first Premier of Ontario.

Premier and Attorney-General of Ontario

Macdonald was elected for the provincial riding of Cornwall in the first general election of 1867 for the new province of Ontario. He was re-elected in the election of 1871. In addition to serving as Premier, he also occupied the post of Attorney General of Ontario.^[5]

Macdonald instituted several notable achievements, in addition to setting up the initial machinery of government for the new Province:

• An Act modelled on the US Homestead Acts provided for virtually free land for homesteaders on surveyed crown lands of Muskoka, Haliburton and north Hastings,^[6] and further Acts encouraged the northern extension of railways into those areas.^[7]
• The
  District of Muskoka was created to aid in the colonization effort, from townships withdrawn from Simcoe County, Victoria County and the District of Nipissing.^[8]
• Education aid was concentrated into the University of Toronto, at the expense of the denominational colleges.
• The election laws were reformed in 1868 to establish a single date for elections to be held (as opposed to a range of dates), and to broaden the franchise.^[9]

His government was moderate and initially a coalition of liberals and

. In December 1871, Macdonald's government was defeated by Edward Blake's Liberals. Macdonald resigned, and died several months later.

In the early years of confederation, politicians were allowed to serve simultaneously in the House of Commons and in a provincial legislature. From 1867 to 1872, Macdonald was also a Liberal MP in the House of Commons of Canada.

Family

Macdonald's brothers, Donald Alexander Macdonald and Alexander Francis Macdonald, were also politicians, and served as federal Members of Parliament. Donald, who served as an MP the longest of the three brothers, was in the House of Commons concurrently with both Sandfield and Alexander, although Sandfield and Alexander did not serve concurrently with each other.

Legacy

Sandfield Macdonald would be the last

and sectarian Protestantism. Even though most of the party's leaders were not sectarian themselves (with a few notable exceptions), Orange Ontarians became a core constituency of the party that leaders were loath to neglect. Catholics, meanwhile, increasingly voted for the Liberal Party. While the Liberals could never be called a Catholic party, the Catholic vote became as important a constituency to the Liberals as the Orange vote became to the Conservatives.

Nineteenth century religious tensions aside, Macdonald's election as Ontario's first Premier makes his Catholicity an important historic symbol. Similarly the selection of John Thompson, Canada's first Roman Catholic Prime Minister only twenty five years after Confederation, was indicative of the ambitions of Roman Catholics to be full and equal participants in the newly created country.

Macdonald is buried in historic St. Andrews Cemetery in St. Andrews West, South Stormont, Ontario. The gravesite is marked by a bronze plaque, the first under an Ontario Heritage Trust program to honour Ontario premiers at their burial sites, similar to a national program to mark the graves of prime ministers.^[10][11]

The Macdonald Block Complex, a major set of four office towers which house ministries of the Ontario government, is named after Macdonald.

A statue of Macdonald stands in front of the east side of the

He was portrayed by Aidan Devine in the 2011 CBC Television film John A.: Birth of a Country.

Archives

There is a John Sandfield Macdonald fonds at Library and Archives Canada.^[13] The archival reference number is R3034. There is also a John Sandfield Macdonald collection at the Archives of Ontario.^[14]

Electoral history

Provincial

t e 1867 Ontario general election: Cornwall
Party	Candidate	Votes	%
	Conservative	John Sandfield Macdonald	479	64.73
	Liberal	William Allen	261	35.27
Total valid votes			740	72.27
Eligible voters			1,024
	Conservative pickup new district.
Source: Elections Ontario[15]

t e 1871 Ontario general election: Cornwall
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Conservative	John Sandfield Macdonald	Acclaimed
Source: Elections Ontario[16]

Federal

v t e 1867 Canadian federal election: Cornwall
Party	Candidate	Votes
	Liberal	John Sandfield Macdonald	451
	Unknown	? Mattice	295
Source: Canadian Elections Database[17]

References

External links

• John Sandfield Macdonald – Parliament of Canada biography
• Ontario Plaques – John Sandfield Macdonald

Political offices
Preceded by John A. Macdonald	Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada – Canada West 1862–1864	Succeeded by John A. Macdonald
Parliament of Canada
Preceded by None	Member of Parliament for Cornwall 1867–1872	Succeeded by Darby Bergin
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Preceded by None	Member of the Legislative Assembly for Cornwall 1867–1875	Succeeded by Alexander Fraser McIntyre
Preceded by John Alexander Macdonald	Attorney General of Canada West 1862–1864	Succeeded by John Alexander Macdonald

Preceded by Augustin-Norbert Morin

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces of Canada 1852–1853

Succeeded by Louis Victor Sicotte