Stanstead
Canada East
Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
LegislatureLegislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created1841
District abolished1867
First contested1841
Last contested1863

Stanstead was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East. It was south-east of Montreal, in the Eastern Townships. Created in 1841, it was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

Stanstead was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries

Map of the Eastern Townships, with Stanstead at bottom centre, township 1800

Stanstead electoral district was located In the Eastern Townships, south of Montreal (including areas now in Memphrémagog Regional County Municipality and Coaticook Regional County Municipality). The district extended south to the border with the United States.

The Union Act, 1840 merged the two provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished.[1] The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.[2]

The Lower Canada electoral district of Stanstead was not altered by the Union Act and therefore continued with the same boundaries in the new Parliament. Those boundaries had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Stanstead shall contain the Townships of Hatley, Barston, Barford, Stanstead, Bolton and Potton, with all the gores and augmentations of the said Township[3]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)

Stanstead was a single-member constituency.[2]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Stanstead. The party affiliations are based on the biographies of individual members given by the National Assembly of Quebec, as well as votes in the Legislative Assembly. "Party" was a fluid concept, especially during the early years of the Province of Canada.[4][5][6]

Parliament Members Years in Office Party
1st Parliament
1841–1844
Marcus Child 1841–1844 Unionist; initially government supporter; later "British" Member
2nd Parliament
1844–1847
John McConnell 1844–1851 "British" Tory
3rd Parliament
1848–1851
Conservative Independent
4th Parliament
1851–1854
Hazard Bailey Terrill[lower-alpha 1] 1851–1852 "English" Moderate
Timothy Lee Terrill[lower-alpha 2] 1852–1854 Liberal
5th Parliament 1854–1857 Timothy Lee Terrill[lower-alpha 3] 1854–1861 Conservative
6th Parliament
1858–1861
7th Parliament
1861–1863
Albert Knight 1861–1867 Conservative
8th Parliament Confederation; Conservative

Notes

  1. Died in office, October 28, 1852: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 62, note (147).
  2. Elected in by-election, November 23, 1852: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 62, note (148).
  3. Appointed Provincial Secretary, an office of profit under the Crown and vacated seat, May 24, 1856; re-elected in ministerial by-election, June 10, 1856: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 63, note (196).

Abolition

The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, creating Canada and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario.[7] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[8] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[9]

See also

References

Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Statutes of Lower Canada, 13th Provincial Parliament, 2nd Session (1829), c. 74

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.