He died suddenly on June 24th 1911 at his home in Winnipeg. Mr. Daly was born in Stratford Ontario on August 16th 1852. He was the second Son of Thomas Mayne Daly, and Helen McLaren. His childhood was blessed with politics because it was the main topic of conversation at the Dinner Table.
He finished his education at Upper Canada College in Toronto, and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1876. He began his law career in Stratford where he gained his first political experience as a Town Councilor, and Chairman of the Public School Board.
On June 4th 1879 he married Margaret Annabella Jarvis, daughter of P. R. Jarvis, of Stratford: she bore him two sons: Harold Mayne Daly born, 23rd April 1880, who he died in 1969, and Kenneth Robinson Daly born on 26th February 1883 the date of his death is unknown.
In 1881 Mr. Daly was filled with the Pioneer spirit, and answered the call of the West. He packed his bags, and moved to St. Paul Minnesota where he met the Railroad, and transportation Magnet Mr. James J. Hill.
On the advice of Mr. Hill, Mr. Daly travelled to Winnipeg, but he did not stop there, and by way of a Flat Boat on the Assiniboine River, and a ticket on the Canadian Pacific Railway he arrived on July 8th 1881 in Brandon. Brandon had a population of only 100, and was then only a Tent Town where the only lodgings were on the Banks of the River.
He had planned to hang his Shingle as a Lawyer, but could not be called to the Manitoba Bar unless he had served a period of ‘Articles’.
He Articled to Arthur Wellington Ross, a senior member of the firm of Ross, Killam and Haggart of Winnipeg. He was admitted as a solicitor on 8th June 1882, and on 14th February 1884, sponsored by A. C. Killam, later a Queen's Bench Judge, he was called to the Bar.
He was then able to form a partnership in Brandon with George R. Caldwell, who later held a Cabinet rank in the government of Sir Rodmond P. Roblin. In those days Brandon did not have much need for much legal work and so Mr Daly kept himself employed as a promoter and real estate broker.
On July 3rd 1882, Mr. Daly was elected the first Mayor of Brandon, by then a town of 3,000 people. No salary was attached to this office but, at the end of his term, he was voted an honorarium of $400.00. In 1883, he was defeated in his bid for re-election, but in the next year he again won an election for Mayor.
At the end of his second term in office, he was voted another honorarium, which he refused, because the Western Boom had receded, and poverty and unemployment were increasing in Europe.
As Mayor, T. M. Daly, and his council, guided the early development of the city, they organized a police force, and a fire department, built gravel roads, and wooden sidewalks in the business, and principal residential areas of the town, and levied the first tax assessment to get the funds to pay for these services.
He resigned his position of Mayor in December of 1882. In 1887 he was elected to the Dominion House of Commons in the Riding of Selkirk as a Liberal-Conservative, and re-elected in 1891. He was created a Queens Council (Q.C.) by the Governor General Lord Stanley in 1890.
From 1892 to 1896 he was ‘Minister of the Interior’ and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, in the cabinet of Sir John Abbott, becoming the first federal Cabinet Minister from Manitoba.
He strongly supported western settlement, and introduced in 1893 the North West Immigration Act.
He was not included in the Cabinet formed in 1896 by Sir Charles Tupper, and declined to stand for re-election at the polls in 1900. He briefly moved to Rossland, BC., but soon returned to Winnipeg in 1902, and in 1903 formed a law partnership with J. M. Crichton, later the firm of Daly, Crichton, McClure, and Cohen was formed.
In 1904 he was appointed Police Magistrate of Winnipeg a position he held until 1908.
He was a founding member of the St. Charles Country Club, in 1905.
He contested the Brandon seat in 1908 but was defeated by Clifford Sifton, and the Liberals by 69 votes.
When the Juvenile Court was organized in 1909 he became its first Judge, this was the first such position in all of Canada.
On June 23, 1911, Judge Daly was sitting with his family on the veranda of his home at 901 Dorchester Avenue in Winnipeg, when suddenly he was seized with a violent pain. The pain did not abate, and soon he was dead from a kidney haemorrhage at the young age of 59.
At the time of his death it was said—“a fitting memorial is the new Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg on Beaconfield Street for whose existence the late Judge Daly was largely responsible.”
He was given a Civic Funeral in Winnipeg, but Flags were also flown at half-mast in Brandon.
Mr. Daly was buried at the Avondale Cemetery in Stratford, Ontario with the rest of his pre-deceased family.
Judge Daly’s community services included yeoman work on behalf of the Children's Aid, the Y.M.C.A., and the Salvation Army. In religion, he was an Anglican, a staunch member of St. Luke’s Church, serving as a churchwarden, and a delegate to the synods.
For many years, he served the Law Society of Manitoba as a bencher, both in Brandon and in Winnipeg. He was a member of the executive of St. John's College. In his youthful days, he served in the volunteer Militia.
In sport, he gave his time, and affection to the game of Cricket. When his playing days were over, he served as president of the Western Canada Cricket Association.
Thomas Mayne Daly was gentlemanly after the old school, a fluent, even an eloquent speaker flavoured with the gift of wit, a jovial companion who was liked by everybody.
In the political game, the batting average of the seven Brandon Lawyers who first moved to Brandon - W. A. MacDonald, T. M. Daly, George Caldwell, H. E. Henderson, P. C. Henderson, Arthur Sifton and Clifford Sifton - was high. Three of them, Daly and the two Sifton brothers became Dominion Cabinet Ministers, and Caldwell served in a provincial Cabinet.
In 1913 Daly Street in Winnipeg was changed from John to Daly, and also Daly Crescent in Brandon, the Daly Over Pass on Eighteenth Street in Brandon, and the Rural Municipality of Daly in Manitoba commemorate him.
His Brandon home at 122-Eighteenth Street is operated as Daly House Museum.
Source:
http://www.mts.net/~dalymus/tmdaly.html
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/daly_tm.shtml