1899 in Canada

Events from the year 1899 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria

Federal government

• Governor General – The 4th Earl of Minto
• Prime Minister – Wilfrid Laurier
• Chief Justice – Samuel Henry Strong (Ontario)
• Parliament – 8th

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Thomas Robert McInnes
• Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Jabez Bunting Snowball
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Malachy Bowes Daly
• Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Oliver Mowat
• Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – George W. Howlan (until May 23) then Peter Adolphus McIntyre
• Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Louis-Amable Jetté

Premiers

• Premier of British Columbia – Charles Augustus Semlin
• Premier of Manitoba – Thomas Greenway
• Premier of New Brunswick – Henry Emmerson
• Premier of Nova Scotia – George Henry Murray
• Premier of Ontario – Arthur Sturgis Hardy (until October 21) then George William Ross
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Donald Farquharson
• Premier of Quebec – Félix-Gabriel Marchand

Territorial governments

Commissioners

• Commissioner of Yukon – William Ogilvie

Lieutenant governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Keewatin – James Colebrooke Patterson
• Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Amédée E. Forget

Premiers

• Premier of North-West Territories – Frederick Haultain

Events

• January 20 – About 2000 Doukhobors arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 7400 by year end.
• May 5 – The village of Stirling, Alberta, NWT, is founded as a Mormon colony of 30 American settlers from Richfield, Utah, led by Theodore Brandley.
• May 25 – A fire in Saint John, New Brunswick, destroys 150 buildings and renders over 1,000 people homeless.
• June 21 – Treaty No. 8 cedes 840,000 km to the Crown, located in British Columbia and the North-West Territories' districts of Alberta, Athabasca and Mackenzie.
• July 5 – In Brandon, Manitoba, housemaid Hilda Blake shoots her mistress twice; the first shot misses, but the second bullet pierces the mistress's right lung. Blake was later hanged for murder.
• September 18 – The new City Hall building opens in Toronto.
• September 19 – A rock slide in Quebec City kills 45.
• October 4 – First Canadian troops sent to an overseas war (Boer War).
• October 18 – Henri Bourassa resigns from cabinet to protest Canada's intervention in the Boer War.
• October 21 – George William Ross becomes premier of Ontario, replacing Arthur S. Hardy.
• October 30 – Second Boer War: The first Canadian troops arrive in the Cape Colony.

Births

January to June

• January 5 – Hugh John Flemming, politician and 24th Premier of New Brunswick (d.1982)
• January 6 – Sonia Eckhardt-Gramatté, composer
• February 27 – Charles Best, medical scientist, co-discoverer of insulin (d.1978)
• March 14 – K. C. Irving, entrepreneur and industrialist (d.1992)
• May 26 – Antonio Barrette, politician and 18th Premier of Quebec (d.1968)
• May 27 – Dov Yosef, Canadian-born Israeli politician and statesman (d.1980)

July to December

• July 24 – Dan George, actor and author (d.1981)
• August 1 – F. R. Scott, poet, intellectual and constitutional expert (d.1985)
• October 2 – Juda Hirsch Quastel, biochemist (d.1987)
• October 3 – Adrien Arcand, journalist and fascist (d.1967)
• November 5 – Gilbert Layton, businessman and politician (d.1961)
• November 10 – Billy Boucher, ice hockey player (d.1958)
• November 17 – Douglas Shearer, sound designer and recording director (d.1971)
• November 30 – Edna Diefenbaker, first wife of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (d.1951)
• December 24 – William Van Steenburgh, scientist

Deaths

• February 10 – Archibald Lampman, poet (b.1861)
• April 29 – George Frederick Baird, politician and lawyer (b.1851)
• July 31 – James David Edgar, politician (b.1841)
• August 29 – Catharine Parr Traill, writer (b.1802)
• October 25
• Grant Allen, science writer, author and novelist (b.1848)
• Peter Mitchell, politician, Minister and a Father of Confederation (b.1824)
• November 19 – John William Dawson, geologist and university administrator (b.1820)
• December 13
• George Airey Kirkpatrick, politician (b.1841)
• Lucius Richard O'Brien, painter (b.1832)

References