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Biography of Samuel Leonard Tilley, SirName: Samuel Leonard Tilley, SirBirth Date: May 8, 1818 Death Date: May 25, 1896 Place of Birth: Gagetown, New Brunswick, Canada Nationality: Canadian Gender: Male Occupations: politician Samuel Leonard Tilley, Sir Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley (1818-1896) was one of the Canadian fathers of confederation and twice lieutenant governor of New Brunswick. He was a Cabinet minister and premier of New Brunswick before confederation and afterward held two major federal portfolios.Samuel Leonard Tilley was born on May 8, 1818, at Gagetown, New Brunswick, into a family which had once farmed part of what is now Brooklyn, New York City, and as loyalists had migrated northward after the American Revolution. He was educated at local schools in Gagetown and moved at the age of 13 to Saint John, where he became an apothecary's clerk in a doctor's dispensary. In 1838 he became a partner in a mercantile firm, disposing of his share in 1855, by which time he had earned a modest fortune.Tilley's public career began in 1837, when he undertook what was to be a lifelong espousal of temperance; thereafter he could rely on prohibitionist support on …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…St. George in 1879, both honors earned through an industrious and impressively puritanical career. In a period of rather flamboyant politics, Tilley, an Anglican, was not only a prohibitionist but a devoted attender of churches and supporter of Bible societies. He was one of the pioneers in New Brunswick in favor of vote by secret ballot and decimal currency. He was married twice and was the father of four sons and five daughters. Further Reading No modern critical biography of Tilley has been written, but a contemporary, James Hannay, wrote voluminously about him and his period: The Life and Times of Sir Leonard Tilley (1896) and Wilmot and Tilley (1909). Material on Tilley's career is also in Donald Creighton, John A. Macdonald (2 vols., 1952-1956). For general background see William George Hardy, From Sea unto Sea: Canada, 1850 to 1910--The Road to Nationhood (1960), and William L. Morton, The Critical Years: The Union of British North America, 1857-1873 (1964). |