John Simcoe Macaulay

For other people named John Macaulay, see John Macaulay (disambiguation).

Colonel The Hon. John Simcoe Macaulay (October 13, 1791 – December 20, 1855) was a businessman and political figure in Upper Canada. In 1845, he donated the land on which the Church of the Holy Trinity (Toronto) was built.

Early Life

He was born in England in 1791, the son of James Macaulay and Elizabeth Tuck Hayter, who came to Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) in 1792. He was named for his godfather Sir John Graves Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada. The family later settled in York (Toronto) when the capital was moved there and John attended John Strachan's school in Cornwall. In 1805, he went to England to study at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. He became a captain in the Royal Engineers, serving with them during the Peninsular War. He was present at the Battle of Barrosa. In 1827, he became a professor of fortification at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Life in Upper Canada

When he resigned in 1835, he returned to Upper Canada to manage his inheritance, living at Elmsley House, which had belonged (though he never lived there) to John's father-in-law, and was afterwards lived in by James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin. He became a director of the Bank of Upper Canada. In 1836, he was appointed surveyor general for the province by the new Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis Bond Head. The appointment was disputed because the candidate favoured by the Family Compact had been ignored and others did not consider Macaulay a genuine resident of the province. Head advised Macaulay to submit his resignation to the Colonial Secretary, expecting it to be refused, but it was accepted and John Macaulay, no relation, was appointed to the post instead. In 1839, he was appointed to the Legislative Council for the province. In 1841, he was elected to Toronto city council but he resigned after Henry Sherwood was elected instead of him as mayor.

Family

In 1825, at Croydon in Surrey, he married Anne Gee Elmsley, the eldest daughter of The Hon. John Elmsley (1762-1805), Chief Justice of Upper Canada, by his wife Mary, daughter of Captain Benjamin Hallowell of Roxbury, Boston, Commissioner of Customs for the Port of Boston. Mrs Macaulay's mother was from a distinguished Boston family. On that side, Mrs Macaulay was a niece of Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell-Carew, of Beddington Park, Surrey, and his brother Ward Nicholas Boylston, a great benefactor of Harvard University; two of the nephews of Governor Moses Gill. Mrs Macaulay's maternal grandmother, Mary (Boylston) Hallowell, was a first cousin of Susanna Boylston, the mother of the 2nd President of the United States, John Adams, and grandmother of the 6th President, John Quincy Adams.

Retirement

In 1845, having sold his considerable property in Toronto (derived from his and his father's patronage to Lieutenant Governors Sir Francis Bond Head and Sir John Graves Simcoe) at a profit of £21,000, Macaulay and his family retired to England. They took up residence at Rede Court, Rochester, Kent, near to his first cousin, General George William Powlett Bingham C.B., J.P., of The Vines, Rochester. He died there in 1855. He was survived by four sons and four of his five daughters. He was the elder brother of Colonel The Hon. Sir James Buchanan Macaulay.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online