William Raney
| William Edgar Raney | |
|---|---|
 |
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| The Hon. William Edgar Raney, KC | |
| 10th Attorney General of Ontario | |
| Preceded by | Isaac Benson Lucas |
| Succeeded by | William Folger Nickle |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 8, 1859 Aultsville, Ontario |
| Died | September 24, 1933 (aged 73) Toronto, Ontario |
| Political party | United Farmers of Ontario |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
William Edgar Raney, K.C. (1859–1933) was a lawyer, politician and judge in Ontario, Canada, in the early twentieth century.
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[edit] Background and early career
Born on a farm near Aultsville, Ontario, (interestingly, another notable Ontario politician, Sir James Whitney, was born on the farm adjacent to it) to Herman and Mary Raney, William E. Raney descended from Huguenot and United Empire Loyalist stock. Raney received his education first at a traditional log schoolhouse, then at St. Catherines Collegiate Institute, Trinity College in Kingston and finally Osgoode Hall, Toronto.
Raney was a well known lawyer in the first decades of the last century and came to the public eye through his opposition to gambling on horse racing, against which he had authored a series of reports.
[edit] Ontario Attorney General
Raney was initially a Liberal running unsuccessfully for the Ontario legislature in the 1914 provincial election. After the United Farmers of Ontario unexpectedly won the 1919 provincial election the agrarian party — pursuing an unusual matter of principle — had no lawyers in its caucus and so the new government of E.C. Drury approached Raney to accept the position of Attorney-General. He accepted and contested a by-election entering the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Wellington East. He was sworn in as the Attorney General of Ontario on November 14, 1919.
He became a leading force in the UFO-Labour government. In his ministerial capacity, he set out to abolish party patronage methods in the Ontario Ministry of Justice, and had the administration of the Ontario Temperance Act transferred to his office. Indeed, he became best known for what has been described as his 'zealous' application of Ontario's prohibition laws. However, when one of his alcohol inspectors, the Reverend J O L Spracklin, was tried for manslaughter (Spracklin shot and killed a man who was engaged in the illicit liquor trade and was later acquitted of manslaughter),[1] the Government's and Raney's administration of the Province's liquor laws came under significant scrutiny. The Government's strict enforcement of the Ontario Temperance Act served to alienate voters from the cities, who largely felt that the party was too inclined towards rural causes and hostile towards urban issues.
[edit] Leader of Progressive Party of Canada
The return of only 17 UFO and 4 Labour MLAs in the provincial election of 1923 saw Premier Drury lose his own seat along with his government. Raney took over the leadership of the Progressives (as the UFO bloc of MLAs had become known) in January 1925 following the retirement of acting leader Manning Doherty. Raney led the opposition against the Ferguson government's plan to replace the Ontario Temperance Act with a Liquor Control Act which allowed alcohol sales through a government run Liquor Control Board. It was on this issue that he clashed with Ferguson and campaigned unsuccessfully against the loosening of Ontario's liquor laws as Progressive leader in the 1926 election, which returned only 17 Progressive, UFO or Labour MLAs.
[edit] Appointed to Supreme Court of Ontario
A year later, Raney resigned his seat to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court of Ontario.
[edit] Family
His son, Paul Hartley Raney, a fighter pilot in the First World War, was killed in action, shot down over Roulers, Belgium (then German territory) on August 21, 1917. After the War, Raney made many appeals to the War Graves Commission to locate his son's final resting place. Unfortunately, no grave could be located.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Robert Bothwell, 'A Short History of Ontario', Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, Ltd., 1986, p. 126
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Manning Doherty |
Leader of the Progressives 1925–1927 |
Succeeded by John Giles Lethbridge |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ian Bushnell (1992). The Captive Court. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. ISBN 0773508511. http://books.google.com/books?id=Q5telT6zFRUC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=william+edgar+raney&source=web&ots=a4AAoCu1Fh&sig=hrm_X6kVzMnEvp18sgywrTgg4og#PPA170,M1. (Raney is mentioned on Page 169 onwards)
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