411 REFERENCE · Wikipedia
1872 in Canada
Reference material by Wikipedia contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
none
April 2026
September 2023
1872
Events from the year 1872 in Canada.
Incumbents
Crown
Monarch – VictoriaQueen Victoria The Canadian Encyclopedia https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/victoria# www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca 5 December 2022
Federal government
Governor General – John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar (until June 25) then Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood
Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
Parliament – 1st (until 8 July)
Provincial governments
Lieutenant governors
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Joseph Trutch
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Adams George Archibald (until December 2) then Alexander Morris
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Lemuel Allan Wilmot
Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Charles Hastings Doyle
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – William Pearce Howland
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau
Premiers
Premier of British Columbia – John Foster McCreight (until December 23) then Amor De Cosmos
Premier of Manitoba – Marc-Amable Girard (until March 14) then Henry Joseph Clarke
Premier of New Brunswick – George Luther Hathaway (until July 5) then George Edwin King
Premier of Nova Scotia – William Annand
Premier of Ontario – Edward Blake (until October 25) then Oliver Mowat
Premier of Quebec – Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau
Territorial governments
Lieutenant governors
Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories – Adams George Archibald (until December 2) then Francis Godschall Johnson (April 9 to December 5) then Alexander Morris
Events
March 14 – Henry Joseph Clarke becomes premierhttp://www.electionsmanitoba.ca/main/history/premiers.htm Elections Manitoba 2007-05-05 https://web.archive.org/web/20070928055547/http://www.electionsmanitoba.ca/main/history/premiers.htm 2007-09-28 dead of Manitoba, replacing Marc-Amable Girard.
March 25 – The beginning of the Toronto Printers' Strike for a nine-hour day.
March 31 – The first issue of the Toronto Mail, which would later be merged into The Globe and Mail, is published.
April 15 – Ten thousand demonstrate at Queen's Park in support of the striking Toronto printers. The police, prompted by the Masters Printers' Association and its leader, George Brown of the Globe, arrest the entire 24-man strike committee.
April 18 – John A. Macdonald introduces a bill to legalize trade unions.
April 25 – The first issue of the weekly Ontario Workman is published by the Toronto Trades Assembly. It is Canada's first labour newspaper.
May 15 – In the first nationwide labour protest, marchers across the land press for the nine-hour workday.
June 14 – The Trade Unions Act is passed in parliament, legalizing labour unions. The Criminal Law Amendment Act is also passed, making picketing illegal.
June 22 – A Grand Trunk Railway express passenger train from Toronto to Montreal derails near Shannonville, Ontario, killing 34.
June 25 – Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Earl of Dufferin becomes Governor General of Canada.
July 20 – October 12: In the 1872 federal election Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservatives are re-elected.
October 31 – Oliver Mowat becomes Premier of Ontario replaces the retiring Edward Blake.
November 21 – Victoria Memorial (Montreal) unveiled.
December 23 – Amor De Cosmos becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing John McCreight.
Full date unknown
The federal Dominion Lands Act is passed, to provide land to settlers for only a small fee.
The Manitoba Free Press is first published.
Simpson's chain of stores founded.
A British Columbia law bans all Asian and First Nations peoples from voting.
George King becomes premier of New Brunswick for the second time, replacing George Luther Hathaway.
Elijah McCoy, born in Colchester, Ontario, invents the first of his many devices to oil engines used on trains and in factories.
The new Patent Act encourages import or licensing of technology and foreign patents by allowing legal use of patents in Canada if not registered in Canada within two years.
An award of arbitration sets the final boundary between Canada and the United States in the Gulf of Georgia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, ending the San Juan boundary dispute.
Births
thumb|right|100px|John McCrae in uniform, circa 1914
June 24 – Pierre-Ernest Boivin, politician and businessman (d.1938)
August 23 – Egerton Reuben Stedman, politician (d. 1946)
August 25 – John Campbell Elliott, lawyer and politician (d.1941)
October 17 – Samuel Wickett, businessman
October 26 – Alfred Edmond Bourgeois, politician (d.1939)
November 10 – Frederick C. Alderdice, businessman, politician and last Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1936)
November 30 – John McCrae, poet, physician, author, artist and soldier (d.1918)
December 23 – Charles Bélec, politician (d.1958)
Deaths
thumb|right|100px|John Sandfield Macdonald
April 8 – Cornelius Krieghoff, artist (b.1815)
June 1 – John Sandfield Macdonald, Premier of Ontario (b. 1812)
June 20 – Phoebe Campbell (b. 1847)
July 5 – George Luther Hathaway, 3rd Premier of New Brunswick (b.1813)
July 14 – John Bolton, businessman and politician (b. 1824)
August 22 – John Bethune, Anglican clergyman (b. 1791)
September 1 – John Kent, Premier of Newfoundland (b.1805)
Historical documents
Federal agriculture minister points to "millions of unsettled acres of prairie" for wheat and "homes of many millions of men from the old world""Report of the Minister of Agriculture [for] 1872," pg. 8 (frame p. 26-8'), Sessional Papers; Volume 6; First Session of the Second Parliament; Session 1873. Accessed 19 February 2023
Privy Council committee recommends terms to encourage Mennonites to immigrate(Colonial Secretary) no. 51, 1872/03/07, German Menonites (sic) in Russia Wish to Emigrate to Canada Library and Archives Canada. Accessed 24 November 2019
Government fails to establish some agreed-to First Nations reserves, while settlers steal the timber Letter "Copy - No. 79" Return to an Address of the House of Commons, Dated 31st March, 1873, Asking for Copies of All Communications from Indians or Others in Manitoba, with the Government on the Subject of the Dissatisfaction Prevailing among the Chiefs, Headmen, and Indians Treated With in Manitoba, and Adjacent Territory in the Year 1871 (1873), pgs. 3-4. Accessed 15 September 2018
Sandford Fleming reports on difficulties surveying the route of the Canadian Pacific RailwaySandford Fleming, Progress Report on the Canadian Pacific Railway Exploratory Survey (1872), pgs. 15-16. Accessed 15 September 2018
Indigenous paddlers race each other on the CPR survey expeditionGeorge Monro Grant, Ocean to Ocean: Sandford Fleming's Expedition through Canada in 1872 (1873), pgs. 40-1. Accessed 15 September 2018
References
2
External links
Category:Canada:Acts of Parliament, 1872 Acts of Parliament, 1872
1872 in
Category:Years of the 19th century in Canada
Canada
Category:1872 in North America