Family Compact

This article is about a group in 19th-century Canadian history. For the pact between the royal families of 18th-century France and Spain, see Pacte de Famille.

Family Compact.

Map of Upper Canada showing zone of influence (orange)
Formation	January 1, 1815 (1815-01-01)
Type	Shadow government
Legal status	Colonial government
Purpose	To entrench Tory values
Location	York, Upper Canada
Coordinates	43°42′59.72″N 79°20′26.47″W
Region served	Upper Canada
Membership	Political, religious and bureaucratic persons. General membership.
Official language	English
Leader	Sir John Beverley Robinson, 1st Baronet CB, (26 July 1791 – 31 January 1863)
Affiliations	Canada Company, Anglican Church of Canada, Patriot and Farmers Monitor(later Toronto Daily Express)

The term Family Compact is authored in a letter written by Marshall Spring Bidwell to William Warren Baldwin in 1828. As the term took on popular usage in Upper Canada, Lord Durham noted in 1839 with reference to the Family Compact in the Report on the Affairs of British North America: "There is, in truth, very little of family connection among the persons thus united".

Select members of Upper Canada bureaucracy, the Executive Council of Upper Canada and Legislative Council of Upper Canada, made up the elite of the Compact. The uniting factors were drawn from the United Empire Loyalists. The loyalist tradition included its class structure society and amongst the elite, such as John Beverley Robinson and John Strachan, it was considered the ideal. Other United Empire Loyalist conventions were a balanced constitution and an established church. Not all views of the elite were universally accepted, but total loyalty was expected.

The Family Compact takes its public personality from the War of 1812 and its collapse in the aftermath of the Rebellions of 1837. It is the resistance to separate Executive and Legislative Councils in Parliament and responsible government and personal agendas that led directly to the excesses of the Compact and its short life. At the end of its lifespan, the Compact would be condemned by Lord Durham as "a petty corrupt insolent Tory clique".

Origins

On recommendation from Lord Grenville, British Home Secretary, appointments were made to the Executive and Legislative Council of Upper Canada. The Councils were intended to operate independently. Section 38 of the Constitutional Act of 1791 referred to the independence of the offices indirectly. This indirect reference is the birth of the Compact. While Sir Guy Carleton lieutenant governor of Lower Canada pointed out that the offices were intended to be separate, Lord Grenville set the wheels in motion with John Graves Simcoe lieutenant governor of Upper Canada by pointing out that there was no legal impediment to prevent cross-appointments. Simcoe used the vague statement in Section 38 to make the following appointments

Fully developed after the War of 1812, the Compact lasted until Upper and Lower Canada were united in 1841. In Lower Canada, its equivalent was the Château Clique. The influence of the Family Compact on the government administration at different levels lasted to the 1880s. The Family Compact controlled the government through the Executive Council and Legislative Council, the advisers to the Lieutenant Governor, leaving the popularly elected Legislative Assembly with little real power. Members ensured their conservative friends held the important positions in the colony through political patronage.

The centre of the Compact was Toronto, then called York. Its most important member was Bishop John Strachan; many of the other members were his former students, or people who were related to him. The most prominent of Strachan's pupils was Sir John Beverley Robinson who was from 1829 the Chief Justice of Upper Canada for 34 years. The rest of the members were mostly descendants of United Empire Loyalists or recent upper-class British settlers.

The role of speculation in the vacant lands of Upper Canada ensured the development of group solidarity and cohesion of interest among the members of the Family Compact. Of the 26 largest landowners in Peel County between 1820 and 1840, 23 were absentee proprietors, of whom 17 were involved in the administration of the province; of these 17, 12 were part of the Family Compact. Society and politics in Upper Canada were dominated by interest and connection based on landed property, and only secondarily affected by ideologies and personalities.

Membership

In the early days of Upper Canada, providing for relatives and dependants was common. Those who could ease the transition from Britain to Canada did so with the approval of the social structure. The Family Compact was an informal organization that institutionalized this activity.

Elite Members

• 
  Sir John Beverley Robinson
• Johnstrachan1865.jpg
  Johnstrachan1865.jpg
• Bishop Strachan. Acknowledge Anglican leader in the Family Compact.
  Bishop Strachan. Acknowledge Anglican leader in the Family Compact.
• 
  William Osgoode
• Marshall Spring Bidwell - Brady-Handy.jpg
  Marshall Spring Bidwell - Brady-Handy.jpg
• Marshall Spring Bidwell. MP 9th Parliament of Upper Canada, Lennox and Addington.
  Marshall Spring Bidwell. MP 9th Parliament of Upper Canada, Lennox and Addington.
• 
  Æneas Shaw
• William Badgley.jpg
  William Badgley.jpg
• William Badgley Judge and Attorney General for Canada East.
  William Badgley Judge and Attorney General for Canada East.
• 
  William Henry Boulton
• ANMacNab.jpg
  ANMacNab.jpg
• Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.
  Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.
• 
  Henry Sherwood
• File:Henry Sherwood 13th Parliament of Upper Canada representing Brockville.

Opposition

William Lyon Mackenzie

Main article: William Lyon Mackenzie

William Lyon Mackenzie

The influence of the Family Compact was of chief concern to liberal-minded citizens of Upper Canada. The radical reformer William Lyon Mackenzie was the most vocal opponent of the Family Compact. At one point Mackenzie's opposition resulted in a group of fourteen led by Samuel Jarvis, disguised as Indians, breaking into the offices of Mackenzie's newspaper Colonial Advocate on June 8, 1826, where they smashed his printing press and threw it into Toronto Harbour. Mackenzie sued, won £625 which was paid by donations from the Family Compact, and was able to set up a larger operation.

Mackenzie's frustration with Compact control of the government was a catalyst for the failed Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Their hold on the government was reduced with the creation of the united Province of Canada and later the installation of the system of Responsible Government in Canada.

Colborne Clique

The Colborne Clique, named for John Colborne, 1st Baron Seaton, was a federation united by geography in Goderich, Ontario, Scottish heritage, time of immigration to Upper Canada, and an association with the Dunlop brothers William Tiger Dunlop and Robert Graham Dunlop. Although their prime animosity was towards the Canada Company, the Canada Company and the Family Compact were seen as one and the same thing causing the Colbornites to align themselves firmly against the Family Compact.

Many of the Colborne Clique had been employed by the Canada Company—John Galt and William Tiger Dunlop in particular—cutting their ties with the Canada Company just prior to the Rebellions of 1837-38. Anthony Van Egmond and Thomas Mercer Jones were late but important additions to the Clique from the Compact. Defections from the Company to the Clique, in part explains the failure of the Family Compact to continue into the era of responsible government. The defections left the Compact without local leadership in the Huron Tract, a large and important area of immigration.

Amongst their grievances was the insistence of Bishop Strachan that only Anglican priests perform a marriage. Most of these immigrants spoke Scottish Gaelic. Church of England priests typically spoke no Gaelic and Strachan prevented the Gaelic speaking Church of Scotland from performing these rites. There were the grievances of distribution of land and the building of infrastructure for towns and settlements. Public protests were carried out in letter writing campaigns to Upper Canada officials, letters to the editor of various newspapers and public demonstrations during official visits.

Only those with Family Compact connections could access appropriate consideration from the Canada Company.

Reform Party

Main article: Reform movement (pre-Confederation Canada)

The founder of the Reform movement in Upper Canada is Robert Baldwin, a Toronto lawyer. Within a few years the Reform Party had a powerful leader in William Lyon Mackenzie. His ability to agitate through his newspaper The Colonial Advocate and petitioning was effective. Speeches and petitions lead directly to the redress of grievances in Upper Canada that otherwise had no means of redress.

One of the most notorious results of the Reform movement agitation is the Hamilton Outrage. The Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada investigated the involvement of Sir Allan Napier MacNab in the hanging in effigy of Lieutenant Governor Lord Seaton. Refusing to testify, MacNab was jailed for 10 day, cementing his position as a martyr for the Tory party. The Reform Party and Mackenzie in particular were responsible for the investigation and consequences for Napier.

Post-Rebellions of 1837-38

Main article: Reform movement (pre-Confederation Canada)

The Rebellions of 1837 lead by William Lyon Mackenzie were unsuccessful. The Family Compact and the government of the day put down the rebellions, although that would be a hollow victory. The Family Compact as a social and political federation would fail to modify its extreme stance on the issues of the day:

Decline

The Family Compact can take direct responsibility for the failure to carry out the social goals of representative government, constitutional reform and the clergy and crown reserves issue. The Compact is, however, only indirectly responsible for land reform, public education and roads; those issue being largely within the authority of the Canada Company. While the Canada Company and the Compact were seen as one and the same, the Compact shouldered any blame.

The Canada Company Commissioners in Canada were Thomas Mercer Jones for Goderich 1829–1853 and Frederick Widder for Toronto 1839–1864. Jones joined the Colborne Clique in 1853 leaving the 2 million square acre Huron Tract with no representation on the board of the Company who were under specific obligations to provide schools, roads and fair access to purchase of that land.

Representative and responsible government

The quest for responsible and representative government arguably begins in 1822, the year of a joint protest by Upper and Lower Canada against a proposed union of the two colonies. Representative government meant having a popularly elected legislative assembly with the authority to act, particularly in money bills, without reference to either of the executive councils. Responsible government is primarily the access to casual and territorial revenues had always been within the control of councils.

Constitutional reform

To achieve representative and responsible government, constitutional reform was required. Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America states that is impossible

to understand how any English statesman could have ever imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined.

While irresponsible government was not enshrined by the Constitutional Act of 1791, vague wording had allowed it to become common practice. The Act of Union 1840 provided for responsible government and by 1848 ministerial responsibility was also enacted.

Clergy and Crown Reserves

The Clergy reserves were created by the Constitutional Act of 1791 as 1/7 of all land granted was to go to the Church. John Strachan, a Family Compact leader, lobbied successfully for years to keep the right to these lands for the Anglican Church only. Poor management and inequitable division between Christian sects resulted in the secularization of the lands in 1854.

With this Loyalist background and under the leadership of Strachan, they were strong royalists, and supported the Church of England over the Catholic Church and other Protestant sects. They especially interpreted the Constitutional Act of 1791, which gave land grants to build Protestant churches, to refer to Anglican churches alone. They were able to act on this interpretation through the creation of the Clergy Corporation which oversaw the management of the reserves. These actions were opposed by the large numbers of Presbyterian Scottish settlers, as well as smaller groups of Methodists.

Crown reserves were parcels of uninhabited land designed as future revenue sources for the government. Without roads or infrastructure, these land parcels inhibited the growth of the provinces and decreased land values. Crown reserves were largely under the control of the Compact.

Land distribution

The War of 1812 had two results for land distribution. First, with the borders restored to pre-War of 1812 placement, American citizens were prevented from buying land unless they had lived in Upper Canada for seven years before the war. Second, war veterans stationed in Canada were given free land grants. As the Canada Company controlled 2 million acres (8,100 km²) of the Huron Tract, it came to the Company to enforce the policy. Establishing residence in Upper Canada or veteran status became a matter of knowing a well placed Canada Company and thereby Family Compact person.

Public education

William Tiger Dunlop, while in the employ of the Canada Company, wrote pamphlets and books to encourage settlement of Upper Canada. His descriptions of schools, roads, and other social infrastructure were not met with reality upon landing in Canada. Publicly-funded education was not readily available until after Confederation when the province took control of this responsibility.

Roads

Road between Kingston and York circa 1830

The most common complaint against the Company and the Compact was for bridges, roads and mills. The government spent monies available on canals more financially favourable to themselves, leaving the pioneers without basic services.

Current Status

The Family Compact began to reconfigure itself after 1841 as it was squeezed out of public life in the new Province of Canada. The conservative values of the Family Compact was succeeded by the Upper Canada Tories after 1841. The current Canadian establishment grew out of the Family Compact. Although the families and names changed, the basic template for power and control remained the same through to the end of World War 2. With greater immigration from a variety of nations and cultures came the meritocracy so desired during the early years of Upper Canada.

However, as John Porter noted, a form of Family Compact in Canadian business and politics is to be expected.

Canada is probably not unlike other western industrial nations in relying heavily on its elite groups to make major decisions and to determine the shape and direction of its development. The nineteenth-century notion of a liberal citizen-participating democracy is obviously not a satisfactory model by which to examine the processes of decision-making in either the economic of the political contexts. ... If power and decision-making must always rest with elite groups, there can at least be open recruitment from all classes into the elite.

External links

• Library and Archives Canada: Search Terms: Family Compact
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Family Compact.
• Archives of Ontario, Canada Company Fonds.
• Historical Narratives of Early Canada by W.R. Wilson
• L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec: Family Compact
• Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

Further reading

• Bourinot, John G (1900). Canada Under British Rule 1760-1905. The Project Gutenberg eBook.
• Armstrong, Frederick H (1985). Handbook of Upper Canadian Chronology. Dundurn Press. ISBN 0-919670-92-X.
• Taylor, Martin Brook ed. (1994), Canadian History: Beginnings to Confederation vol. 1., University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0802050166 {{citation}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Canadian History A Readers Guide. University of Toronto Press. 1994. {{cite book}}: Text "M.Brook Taylor" ignored (help)
• George M. Wrong, Canada and the American Revolution: The Disruption of the First British Empire (1935)
• Wrong, George M (1914), The Chronicles of Canada, Fireship Press (2009), ISBN 1934757470 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Bibliography

• Sir John G. Bourinot. Canada under British Rule 1790—1900. Toronto, Copp, Clark Company, 1901.
• Patrick Brode. Sir John Beverley Robinson : Bone and Sinew of the Compact / 1984.
• G. M. Craig, Upper Canada: The Formative Years, 1784–1841 (1963).
• Donald Creighton. John A. Macdonald The Young Politician. Toronto: Macmillan & Co. 1952.
• David W. L. Earl ed. The Family Compact : Aristocracy or Oligarchy? / Edited by David W. L. Earl Earl, David W. L. 1967.
• David Gagan "Property and 'Interest'; Some Preliminary Evidence of Land Speculation by the 'Family Compact' in Upper Canada 1820-1840," Ontario History, March 1978, Vol. 70 Issue 1, pp 63-70
• A. Ewart and J. Jarvis, Canadian Historical Review, The Personnel of the Family Compact 1926.
• Robert C. Lee The Canada Company and the Huron Tract, 1826—1853 Personalities, Profits and Politics Toronto : Natural Heritage Books, 2004.
• Kathleen Macfarlane Lizars. In the Days of the Canada Company : The Story of the Settlement of the Huron Tract and a view of the Social Life of the Period, 1825—1850. Nabu Public Domain Reprints.
• David Mills. Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada, 1784-1850. 1988. ISBN 0773506608.
• Graeme Patterson. An Enduring Canadian Myth :Responsible Government and the Family Compact / 1989
• Gilbert Parker and Claude G Bryan. Old Quebec. London: Macmillan & Co. 1903.
• W. Stewart Wallace, The Family Compact (Toronto, 1915).
• W. Stewart Wallace, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 318.