William Pearce Howland

Sir William Pearce Howland KCMG CB PC (29 May 1811 – 1 January 1907) served as the second Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, from 1868 to 1873. He was one of the Fathers of Confederation.

The Hon.

Sir William Pearce Howland
Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for West York
In office
1857–1867
Member of the Canadian Parliament
for York West
In office
20 September 1867 – 15 July 1868
Succeeded byAmos Wright
2nd Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
In office
15 July 1868 – 11 November 1873
MonarchVictoria
Governor GeneralThe Viscount Monck
The Lord Lisgar
The Earl of Dufferin
PremierJohn Sandfield Macdonald
Edward Blake
Oliver Mowat
Preceded byHenry William Stisted
Succeeded byJohn Willoughby Crawford
Personal details
Born(1811-05-29)29 May 1811
Pawling, New York, US
Died1 January 1907(1907-01-01) (aged 95)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Resting placeSt. James Cemetery, Toronto
NationalityCanadian
Political partyLiberal-Conservative
ChildrenWilliam Holmes Howland
Oliver Aiken Howland
CabinetMinister of Inland Revenue (1867–1868)
Signature

Biography

Born in 1811 in Pawling, New York, William Howland was educated at Kinderhook Academy. In 1830 he settled in Cooksville, Upper Canada, and became a naturalised British subject in 1841. He operated Lambton Mills and later a grocery business in Toronto. In 1852 he acquired a grist mill, sawmill, and general store in Kleinburg, whose operations he left to his brother Henry Stark Howland.[1] In 1857, Howland became a Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, and later served in the cabinet as Minister of Finance, Receiver General, and Postmaster General. He became a Member of Parliament in 1867 and was Minister of Inland Revenue from 1867 to 1868. He was created a C.B., 1867. Howland was appointed Ontario's second Lieutenant Governor in 1868 and served until 1873. He was created a K.C.M.G., 1879.

Howland's grave site at St. James Cemetery is marked with a Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada plaque

He was knighted in 1879 and died in Toronto in 1907. He is buried in Toronto's St. James Cemetery. Toronto in 1907. In 1906, at the request of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada, Howland prepared an autobiography that included extensive appendices about politics in the 1860s.[2]

Personal life

On 12 July 1843, Sir William Pearce Howland, married Mary Ann (or Marianne) Blyth, the widow of David Webb, a ship's captain. Mary Anne and William had three children: William, Oliver and Florence. Their sons, William Holmes Howland and Oliver Aiken Howland, served as mayors of Toronto. Mary died in 1860.[3]

Sir William Pearce Howland, then a Minister of the Crown in Canada married Susannah Julia, daughter of Shrewsbury, Esquire, on 21 November 1865. She was born in London, England, 4, 1 May 1830, and educated there. She was a widow, who had accompanied her first husband (1850) Philip Hunt, of the Military Store Department, to the Mauritius, and thence to Canada.

Lady Howland was presented to Queen Victoria in 1866, on the occasion of the London Conference on Confederation. In 1875, she presented her step-daughter, Miss Howland (later Mrs. R. M. Merritt) to Her Majesty. On leaving Government House, Howland was presented with an address from citizens of Toronto, and Lady Howland was given a gold bracelet, with her initials set in diamonds, and containing a locket with miniature portraits of herself and husband. Lady Howland died in Toronto, 21 February 1886, and was buried in St. James's Cemetery.[4]

In 1895, Sir William married Mary Elizabeth Rattaway, widow of James Bethune, Q.C. By 1904, they had separated.[5]

His sons, William Holmes Howland and Oliver Aiken Howland, served as mayors of Toronto.

References
  1. Comeau-Vasilopoulos, Gayle M. (1994). "Howland, Henry Stark". In Cook, Ramsay; Hamelin, Jean (eds.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. XIII (1901–1910) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  2. Archives of Ontario/F101/Sir William Pearce Howland Autobiography, MU 4757, no. 9
  3. Archives of Ontario/F101/Sir William Pearce Howland Autobiography, MU 4757, no. 9)
  4. Morgan, Henry James, ed. (1903). Types of Canadian Women and of Women who are or have been Connected with Canada. Toronto: Williams Briggs. p. 164.
  5. Backhouse, Constance; Backhouse, Nancy (2014). The Heiress Vs the Establishment: Mrs. Campbell's Campaign for Legal Justice. UBC Press. pp. 237, notes 11, 12. ISBN 978-0-7748-5106-0.
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