Samuel Leonard Tilley

Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley

Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley , PC , KCMG (May 8,1818 – June 25,1896) was a Canadian politician and one of the Fathers of Confederation. Tilley was descended from United Empire Loyalists on both sides of his family. A pharmacist, he went into business as a druggist.

Born in Gagetown, New Brunswick, Tilley was the son of Thomas Morgan Tilley, a storekeeper, and Susan Ann Peters. On May 6, 1843 he married Julia Ann Hanford in Saint John, New Brunswick. Together with her, they had eight children. Hanford died in 1862. On October 22, 1867, he married Alice Starr Chipman in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and they had two children, including future New Brunswick premier Leonard Percy de Wolfe Tilley.

Tilley was an activist in the temperance movement and this brought him to politics. He became an advocate for responsible government as a result of the 1848 recession, which was caused, in part, by Britain's economic policies, Tilley joined the New Brunswick Colonial Association which advocated that the colony have control over its public expenses, that a public school system be established, government control of public works, and "honest government". He was cool

Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley and his first wife Julia Ann Hanford, circa 1843

First elected to the New Brunswick Assembly as a Liberal in 1850 he sat in opposition until the 1854 election swept the reformers to power. Tilley became Provincial Secretary in the government of Richard Fisher

He attended both the Charlottetown and Quebec City Conferences as a supporter of Canadian Confederation. He served as premier of the colony of New Brunswick from 1861 until his government was defeated in the election of 1865. As premier he supported the New Brunswick's entry into Confederation and the construction of an intercolonial railway.

A common legend states that Tilley was the orginator of the word "Dominion" in Canada's name. The Fathers of Confederation had been discussing what to prefix Canada with, Kingdom of Canada being Macdonald's preference. During morning devotions, Tilley read Psalm 72:8, which states "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth", and presented his inspiration to the others, being as it was their ambition to stretch the new nation to the Pacific Ocean and from the St Lawrence River to the North Pole. It has been questioned as to how legitimate this story is, however, as "dominion" had already been used in a colonial context to describe other British territories, for example the Dominion of New England, and was thus hardly an innovative idea.

The term led to the naming of the July 1 national holiday; however, this reference to a unique Canadian historical development was discarded in 1980 when the term "Canada Day", which had already begun to be used by some Canadians, was made official by an act of Parliament. (In French, the date had long been known as la fête nationale (national feast or national birthday), a date which is often now applied to June 24 in Quebec, a date officially known as Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.)

Tilley entered federal politics with Confederation in 1867 and served in the federal Macdonald Cabinet as Minister of Customs. He became Minister of Finance in 1873 and served until the defeat of the government later that year. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick in 1873 and served until 1878. When Macdonald's Tories returned to power in 1878, Tilley again became minister of finance and served until his retirement from politics in 1885 when he was appointed Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick for a second term, which ran until 1893.

He is interred in the Fernhill Cemetery in Saint John, New Brunswick.

External links

• "Samuel Leonard Tilley". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.
• Samuel Leonard Tilley – Parliament of Canada biography