D'Alton McCarthy was the first person elected
5/11/2010 at 8:04 AM
for the new Federal riding of Brandon (June 1896).
He was born at Ockley Park, Blackrock, Ireland on October 10th 1836, son of D’Alton McCarthy and Charleszina Hope Manners. He was educated at Reverend Mr. Harnman’s School (Blackrock), Reverend Mr. Flynn’s School (Dublin) and Barrie (Ontario) Grammar School.
He immigrated to Canada in 1847, and was called to the Bar of Upper Canada in 1859, and practiced law at Barrie.
The Irish-born Protestant McCarthy was stridently anti-Catholic and anti-French Canadian.
He was first elected to the House of Commons for Cardwell (Ontario) at a by-election in December 1876: re-elected in 1878 for Simcoe North, re-elected in 1882, 1887 and 1891: re-elected in 1896 for Brandon, Manitoba, and Simcoe North. He chose to sit as member for the latter forcing a by-election in Brandon.
McCarthy was a key figure in the Manitoba Schools Question, and a major proponent in pushing English only in the legislatures, courts, and schools of Western Canada. He also defended Emily Stowe in the 1879 abortion trial of Emily Stowe.
McCarthy was a founder of the "Imperial Federation League", which proposed uniting the United Kingdom and the emerging Dominions under a central Cabinet government responsible to an Imperial Parliament elected from throughout the Empire. McCarthy ran his own slate of McCarthyite candidates in the 1896 election, but was the only one elected.
His first marriage was to Emma Catherine Lally on October 21st 1867 and his second to Agnes Elizabeth Bernard on July 15th 1873.
He died while in office following a carriage accident on May 11th 1898, at Toronto, Ontario.
His firm, Boulton & McCarthy in Barrie, was the first incarnation of what is now Canada's largest law firm, McCarthy Tétrault.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_McCarthy