A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
=Cameron, Sir Matthew=, Chief Justice of Ontario, who died at Toronto,
Ontario, on the 25th June, 1887, was a son of John McAlpine Cameron, a
descendant of the Camerons of Fassifern, Scotland, who emigrated from
Inverness-shire to Upper Canada in 1819, settling at Dundas, where he
engaged in business, and subsequently discharged the duties of deputy
postmaster under Thomas Allan Stayner, then the Imperial
Postmaster-General for Canada, at Hamilton. He also acted as deputy
clerk of the Crown for Gore district. Later, however, he was a student
at law with Sir Allan McNab, with whom he remained until he was
appointed to the first permanent clerkship of committees in the
parliament of Upper Canada, from which office he went to the Canada
Company’s office in Toronto, where he held an important position for
many years. Coming to this part of the country, as he did, when it was
yet undeveloped and sparsely settled, and engaging in active life, Mr.
Cameron became well and widely known. He died in Toronto in November,
1866, aged seventy-nine years. His mother was Nancy Foy, a native of
Northumberland, England. The deceased chief justice received his primary
education at a school in Hamilton, under a Mr. Randall, and afterwards
at the District School in Toronto, which he attended for a short time.
In 1838 he entered Upper Canada College, where he studied until 1840,
when, in consequence of an accident while out shooting, he had to
retire. Two years later he entered the office of Campbell & Boulton, of
Toronto, as a student-at-law, where he remained until Hilary term, 1849,
when he was called to the bar of the province of Ontario. He engaged in
Toronto in the practice of his profession, first with Mr. Boulton, his
former master. This firm continued until the law partnership of Cayley &
Cameron was formed, the senior member being the Hon. William Cayley, an
English barrister, and at one time inspector-general of the province,
afterwards registrar of the Surrogate Court. In 1859 Dr. McMichael
entered the firm, which then became Cayley, Cameron & McMichael. Later
Mr. Cayley retired, and E. Fitzgerald became a partner in the business,
and his name was added to the name and style of the firm, remaining so
for several years. Alfred Hoskin subsequently became a partner, and on
the retirement of Mr. Fitzgerald, the firm became Cameron, McMichael &
Hoskin, and remained so until the senior member’s elevation to the bench
in November, 1878. He was elected a Queen’s counsel in 1863, and elected
a bencher in November, 1878. He first came into public notice as a
counsel in the famous case of Anderson, the fugitive slave, the refusal
to surrender whom, on the part of the British government, nearly caused
war between that country and the United States. Mr. Cameron represented
Anderson in this case, and made a defence which for burning eloquence
and closely reasoned logic has scarcely ever been equalled at the bar in
this country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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