Newton Rowell

Newton Wesley Rowell (1867-1941) was a Canadian lawyer and politician and leading lay figure in the Methodist church. Rowell led the Ontario Liberal Party from 1911 to 1917 and put forward a platform advocating temperance. In 1917 Rowell, a supporter of conscription during World War I left the Ontario legislature to join the national Unionist government of Sir Robert Borden serving as President of the Privy Council of Canada and, later, as Canada's first Minister of Health. After the war Rowell served as a Canadian delegate to the League of Nations and became involved in international affairs. He also helped lead the Methodists into a merger with Presbyterians to form the United Church of Canada. In 1936 he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario.