John Sparrow David Thompson

Sir John Sparrow David Thompson, KCMG, PC, QC, ( born November 10, 1845 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, † December 12, 1894 in Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England) was a Canadian lawyer, judge and politician. He was a member of the Conservative Party and was the fourth of Prime Minister of Canada. Thompson ruled on 5 December 1892 until his death and was the first Catholic in this office. In 1882 he was Prime Minister of the province of Nova Scotia.

Biography

The youngest of seven children of John Sparrow Thompson and Charlotte Pottinger graduated from the Royal Acadian School and the Free Church Academy in Halifax. After training, he worked from 1865 as a lawyer. From 1868 to 1873 he also worked as a judicial and parliamentary reporter. In 1870 he married Annie Affleck; the couple had nine children, four of whom died in infancy. Thompson, originally a Methodist, came in 1871 to the Roman Catholic faith of his wife.

1871 Thompson was elected to the City Council of Halifax, where he remained until 1877. In the same year he was a candidate in a by-election in the constituency of Antigonish for a seat in the House of Nova Scotia and won, even though he was almost unknown there. Prime Minister Simon Hugh Holmes appointed him in September 1878 Attorney General, the chief legal adviser to the provincial government. After the unpopular and authoritarian occurring Holmes had been forced to resign in May 1882, Thompson took over the office of the provincial prime minister. This he held only until July 1882, as the Conservative party suffered a defeat at the polls.

Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald called him then to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. 1883 Thompson was involved in the founding of the Faculty of Law, Dalhousie University; by the way, he worked as a lecturer in 1884 and worked on behalf of the Liberal provincial government, a new process order which remained virtually unchanged until the 1950s. Macdonald appointed him in September 1885 to the Canadian Minister of Justice and a month later, Thompson won in a by-election to the House seat in Antigonish. As Minister of Justice he was responsible for drafting the first Canadian Criminal Code.

After Macdonald's death in June 1891 Governor General Lord Stanley instructed him to form a new government. But Thompson refused because he feared anti-Catholic sentiments. Instead, John Abbott 's new prime minister. However, Abbott resigned after only one year due to health reasons and Thompson became the new head of government on December 5, 1892.

Two years after taking office, Thompson was in December 1894 state visit to the UK. Shortly after Queen Victoria had appointed him a member of the Privy Council, he suffered at Windsor Castle suddenly a heart attack and died at the age of 49 years. On January 3, 1895, he was buried in Halifax. Thompson leaving behind only a small fortune and Parliament addressed a fund to support the widow and the children financially.

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