Richard John Cartwright

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other people named Richard Cartwright, see Richard Cartwright.

The Right Honorable Sir Richard John Cartwright

Sir Richard John Cartwright, P.C., G.C.M.G. (December 4, 1835 – September 24, 1912) was a Canadian businessman and politician. He was born and raised in Kingston, Ontario in a United Empire Loyalist family, the son of Harriet Dobbs Cartwright and the grandson of Richard Cartwright. He was a major landowner in the area, and became prominent in Kingston's financial community as president of the Commercial Bank of Canada. He suffered a major blow when his bank failed in 1867.

Cartwright entered politics when he was elected as a Conservative Party member and supporter of John A. Macdonald in the Province of Canada's legislative assembly in 1863. In 1867, the Province of Canada became part of the new Canadian confederation. Cartwright was elected to the newly-formed Canadian House of Commons, again as a Tory. In 1869, he broke with the Conservatives over Macdonald's appointment of Sir Francis Hincks as Minister of Finance, and crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party of Canada.

With the Liberal party's victory in the 1874 election, Cartwright was appointed Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie. He supported free trade, but sought limited tariffs as a means of government revenue. Cartwright returned to the opposition bench when the Liberals were defeated in the 1878 election. As a recognition of his service, he was awarded a knighthood in 1879. From the 1887 election, he represented the ridings of Oxford South.

In the 1890s, the Liberals moved away from support for unrestricted reciprocity with the United States, and Cartwright's influence in the party diminished.

With the victory of Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals in the 1896 election, Cartwright returned to Cabinet. Laurier denied Cartwright the finance ministry as a way of assuring Canada's business community that the government was not going to adopt free trade. Instead, he appointed Cartwright Minister of Trade and Commerce. He also served as a Canadian member of the Anglo-American Joint High Commission to resolve diplomatic problems between Canada and the US in 1898. Cartwright was appointed to the Imperial Privy Council in 1902, which allowed him to use the honorific "Right Honourable".

In 1904, he was elevated to the Canadian Senate, but remained Trade and Commerce minister until the fall of the Laurier government in the 1911 election. In this position he introduced, in 1908, a limited system of old age annuities. Additionally, he served as Leader of the Government in the Senate from 1909 until 1911, and as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from 1911 until his death in 1912.

[edit] External links

Parliament of Canada
Preceded by None	Member of Parliament for Lennox 1867–1878	Succeeded by Edmund John Glyn Hooper
Preceded by Horace Horton	Member of Parliament for Huron Centre 1878–1882	Succeeded by The electoral district was abolished in 1882.
Preceded by John McMillan	Member of Parliament for Huron South 1883–1887	Succeeded by John McMillan
Preceded by Archibald Harley	Member of Parliament for Oxford South 1887–1904	Succeeded by Malcolm Smith Schell
Political offices
Preceded by Samuel Tilley	Minister of Finance 7 November 1873 – 16 October 1878	Succeeded by Samuel Tilley
Preceded by William Bullock Ives	Minister of Trade and Commerce 1896-1911	Succeeded by George Eulas Foster
Government offices
Preceded by James Alexander Lougheed	Leader of the Opposition in the Senate of Canada 1911–1912	Succeeded by George William Ross