The House of Assembly of Upper Canada was the elected lower house of the Parliament of Upper Canada, the legislature of the province of Upper Canada in British North America between 1792 and 1841.
Upper Canada and its government institutions were created when the old Province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canadas by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The act laid out the basic structure of the colonial government, including the Parliament of Upper Canada and its two chambers. Despite being the chamber made up of elected representatives, the assembly had limited authorities. Its legislative power was subject to veto by the appointed Lieutenant Governor, Executive Council, and Legislative Council. As observed by Earl of Durham in his consequential report, "(t)his veto they used without much scruple."(Durham Report)
The initial sixteen members were elected in Upper Canada's first general election held in August 1792. Voting franchise was only extended to land-owning males, and remained so throughout the province's existence. The first session of the assembly convened on 17 September 1792 in newly renamed Newark, Upper Canada (previously known as Butlersburg, located at modern day Niagara-on-the-Lake), the inaugural provincial capital. The assembly was dissolved in 1796 and reconvened for twelve more sessions between 1797 and 1840 in modest buildings in York, the new capital of Upper Canada. Following the Battle of York in 1813, American troops carried out various acts of arson and plundering including setting fire to the buildings of the Legislative Assembly.
Context of political divisions Following the war, the executive and legislative councils became increasingly dominated by the Family Compact, an oligarchic clique of wealthy individuals emerged in the 1810s revolving primarily around John Strachan, the Anglican archdeacon and a member of the powerful Executive Council of Upper Canada. The compact was deeply opposed to American republicanism and favoured full establishment for the Anglican church in Upper Canada. Their increasingly authoritarian style of governance and disregard for the will of the Legislative Assembly led to demands for government that was more responsible to the electorate and eventually the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Opposing the Family Compact were initially an assortment of anti-establishment members occasionally backed by leaders of other Protestant denominations, but it did not gain strength until a more formal group of reformers emerged, initially led by William Warren Baldwin starting 1820s and then by William Lyon Mackenzie in the 1830s.
The 1840 Act of Union united Upper and Lower Canada into the single Province of Canada and, from this point until Confederation in 1867, a joint parliament was held for the united province.
List of parliaments Over the fifty-year lifespan of Upper Canada, its parliament convened over thirteen parliamentary terms. Election Convened Dissolved SpeakerLt. Governor 1st August 1792 Sept. 17, 1792 July 1, 1796 5 16 Captain John McDonell Simcoe 2nd August 1796 June 1, 1797 July 7, 1800 4 16 David William Smith (1797–1800)Samuel Street (from June 5, 1800 3rd July 1800 May 28, 1801 May 14, 1804 4 19 David William Smith (1st & 2nd sess.)Richard Beasley (3rd & 4th sess.) 4th May 1804 Feb. 2, 1805 May 21, 1808 4 19 Alexander Macdonell 5th May 1808 Feb. 2, 1809 May 1, 1812 4 25 Samuel Street 6th June 1812 July 27, 1812 April 18, 1816 5 25 Allan McLean 7th July 1816 Feb. 4, 1817 May 20, 1820 5 25 Allan McLean 8th July 1820 Jan. 31, 1821 June 22, 1824 4 40 Levius Peters Sherwood 9th July 1824 Jan. 13, 1825 June 24, 1828 4 44 John Wilson 10th July 1828 Jan. 8, 1829 Sept. 8, 1830 2 48 Marshall Spring Bidwell Colborne 11th October 1830 Jan. 7, 1831 Sept. 1, 1834 4 52 Archibald McLean 12th October 1834 Jan. 15, 1835 May 28, 1836 2 61 Marshall Spring Bidwell 13th June 1836 Nov. 8, 1836 Feb 10, 1840 5 62 Archibald McLean (1st sess.)Allan MacNab (from 2nd sess.)
The 7th and the 10th parliaments were dissolved upon the demise of the Crown, respectively the death of King George III in 1820 and of his son King George IV in 1830. Both occurred decades before the operation of transatlantic telegraph, therefore the demise were not formally proclaimed in the province until weeks after the actual death of the monarchs. By the time the news of the passing of George III arrived, the 7th Parliament had already prorogued its fifth session, so the proclamation caused no real change to the parliamentary cycle. It did however prompted a formal communications from the Government House in Quebec to the Montreal Herald confirming the validity of all legislative actions taken before the formal notice of the demise. The demise of George IV in the summer of 1830 triggered the general election in October that year.
The 12th Parliament was dissolved early by Sir Francis Bond Head when upon its refusal to provide supply in protest of Head's disregard of the advice of the Reform Party executive councillors. With Head's overt support, conservatives secured a working majority in the 13th Parliament, and proceed to pre-empt the operation of the demise of the Crown with legislation preventing dissolution, enacted by Head in March 1937, just in time to forestall dissolution upon the death of William IV three months later. The tactical victory was short-lived and contributed further to discontent among reformers. Events eventually led to the armed rebellion starting in December 1837. Head was recalled by the Whig government in London soon after.
Composition While the Constitution Act of 1791 provided the organizational structure of Upper Canada's legislature, it did not prescribed either administrative or electoral divisions for the new province, but left them in the hands of the Lieutenant Governor. The original county designations for Upper Canada and the definition of the sixteen electoral divisions for the 1st Parliament of Upper Canada were both prescribed in a royal proclamation issued by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe on July 16, 1792.
The proclamation also introduced the term "riding", the Canadian colloquial term for electoral district. The "ridings" were however not initially intended for electoral purposes, but instead as judicial districts within three crucial counties — Glengarry (the easternmost county, bordering Quebec), Lincoln (where the provincial capital was located) and York (where the capital would move to in a few years) — "for the speedy execution of justice". Of the eight ridings prescribed in the proclamation, only four were electoral districts in the 1st Parliament. It was not until the 12th Parliament of Upper Canada, convened in 1834, that every defined riding had its own representative. Even then, riding seats only accounted for eight of the House of Assembly's sixty-one seats, with counties accounting for forty-seven of the remaining fifty-five seats. As the population of the counties grew, more and more counties were further divided for administrative reasons. The creation of more ridings naturally led to the increasing use of the term in an electoral context.
Evolution of composition The House of Assembly was expanded to nineteen seats in the 3rd and 4th Parliament, and to twenty-five in the 5th to 7th parliament. There was no discernable approach being consistent applied in the apportionment of seats in these early parliaments. The seats allocation of seats in the Home District were particularly erratic. For example, the of the 3rd and 4th parliaments consists of an eclectic mix of seat arrangements.
Single county seats (6) Dundas Grenville Leeds Frontenac Prince Edward Kent
Duo-member seats (8) Glengarry & Prescott West York, 1st Lincoln & Haldimand 2nd, 3rd, 4th Lincoln Essex
Seats shared by multiple counties (5) Stormont & Russell Lennox & Addington Hastings & Northumberland Durham, Simcoe & 1st York Norfolk, Oxford & Middlesex
That changed in the lead up to the election in July 1820. A legislation was passed to provide for representation for every county with population of over a thousand, and two members for those with over four thousand. It also created representation for two towns, York and Kingston. The assembly therefore expanded after every election from the 8th to the 13th Parliament. The change of composition of the assembly shed some interesting insights of the population development of the province in its five decades of existence. Parl. Seats Seat TypeWestern Home MidlandEastern Town 1st, 2nd163.522%3.522%3.522%5.534%424 - 6 3rd, 4th19421%526%421%632%64 - -9 5th–7th25520%728%624%728%926 -8 8th40820%1025%1128%1128%722425 9th44920%1227%1125%1227%630233 10th48919%1327%1327%1327%436233 11th52917%1427%1325%1631%340243 12th611118%1830%1321%1931%34486 -13th621219%2032%1118%1931%34487 -
Incomplete Records
During the War of 1812, American troops captured the provincial capital following the Battle of York and carried out various acts of arson and plundering of both state and civilian property from April 28 to April 30, 1813. The Palace of Parliament, then home to the legislature, and the Government House, home to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, were two of the prominent targets that were set on fire.
Some of the official records of the Parliament of Upper Canada were either destroyed or removed in the process. While some of the records have been returned by order of American military command, recovered through various means, or recreated from copies of fragments sent to other offices and depositories, certain portions remain missing. No copy of the journals of the House of Assembly for the years 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1809, the 2nd Session of 1812, 1813, and 1815 are known to have survived.
Location and host structure
Changing loyalties A number of members have fled to, or opted to move to, the United States, following the War of 1812 or fled to other countries following the Rebellion of 1837. This list only included those who left Canada under adverse circumstances, where their departures would reasonably be seen as for political dissention or as explicit repudiation of their allegiances to the British Crown.