Shefford (Province of Canada electoral district)

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This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Shefford (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Shefford (provincial electoral district).
Shefford
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

Shefford was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, in the Eastern Townships. It was created in 1841, based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

Shefford 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[edit]

Shefford was located to the south-east of Montreal, in the Eastern Townships (including areas now in the regional county municipalities of Brome-Missisquoi and La Haute-Yamaska).

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]

Shefford electoral district of Lower Canada was not altered by the Act, and therefore continued with the same boundaries which had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Shefford shall contain the Townships of Ely, Stukely, Brome, Shefford, Roxton, Milton, Granby, and Farnham with the gores and augmentations of the said Townships.[3]

Members of the Legislative Assembly (1841–1867)[edit]

Shefford was a single-member constituency.[2]

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Shefford. 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 Member Years in Office Party
1st Parliament
1841–1844 		Sewell Foster 1841–1847 Unionist; Tory
2nd Parliament
1844–1847 		"British" Tory
3rd Parliament
1848–1851 		Lewis Thomas Drummond[a][b] 1848–1858 French-Canadian Group
4th Parliament
1851–1854 		"English" Moderate
5th Parliament
1854–1857 		English Ministerialist
6th Parliament
1858–1861 		Liberal
6th Parliament
1858–1861 		Asa Belknap Foster[c][d] 1858–1860 Liberal-Conservative
7th Parliament
1861–1863 		Lucius Seth Huntington 1861–1867 Liberal
8th Parliament
1863–1867 		Anti-Confederation; Liberal

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Seat vacated on June 7, 1848, on appointment as Solicitor General for Lower Canada, an office of profit under the Crown; re-elected in by-election, July 11, 1848: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, p. 61, note (116).
  2. ^ Seat vacated on August 2, 1858, on appointment as Attorney General for Lower Canada, an office of profit under the Crown; defeated in by-election, September 14, 1858: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, p. 64, notes (223), (224).
  3. ^ Elected in by-election, September 14, 1858: Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, p. 64, note (224).
  4. ^ Resigned seat, 1860: J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada from 1841 to 1865, 2nd ed. (Ottawa: G.E. Desbarats, 1865), p. 114.

Abolition[edit]

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[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
  2. ^ a b Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
  3. ^ An Act to make a new and more convenient subdivision of the Province into Counties, for the purpose of effecting a more equal Representation thereof in the Assembly than heretofore, SLC 1829, c. 73, s. 1, para. 17.
  4. ^ J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
  5. ^ Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
  6. ^ Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.
  7. ^ British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  8. ^ Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  9. ^ Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

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

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