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William
Lyon Mackenzie
(1795-1865)
William
Lyon Mackenzie was born in Dundee, Scotland. After education
at the parish school and working in trade, he migrated to Upper
Canada in 1820. After working as a shopkeeper in a number of
communities he started up the Colonial Advocate, a political
journal in York (Toronto). This was a vehicle for attacks on
the Family Compact, the Tory elite in the colony. In reaction
to Mackenzie's broadsides his printing presses were trashed
in the so-called "types riots" of June 8,1826, carried
out by young supporters of the Compact including students at
law in the offices of the Attorney General. The editor of the
Advocate was awarded substantial damages. He became a popular
hero and the leader of the radical wing of the reform movement
in Upper Canada. His rhetoric was powerful reflecting the influence
of American institutions, and of a social compact theory close
to that of John Locke.
In
1826 Mackenzie was elected to the Legislative Assembly for York
and took an active role in its work. He was expelled in 1831
for libel in breach of the privileges of the house, only to
be reelected five times by constituents, and five times expelled.
In 1834 he caused a stir by publishing a letter of English radical,
Joseph Hume advocating independence for the colony. In 1835
the reformer was elected Mayor of Toronto and returned to the
legislature, sitting for York County. As a result of that election
reformers had a majority and Mackenzie dominated the house,
producing among other things the Seventh Report of the Committee
on Grievances (1835) which set out the constitutional demands
of the more radical reformers. After the dissolution of the
house by Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis Bond Head, the 1836
electoral loss by the reformers and British rejection of his
demands he became embittered. He engaged in armed rebellion
in 1837, leading an ill-fated march on Toronto which ended in
fiasco. Thereupon he escaped to the United States, setting up
a provisional government on Navy Island. After being imprisoned
by the Americans for breach of their neutrality laws, he became
a journalist.
Permitted
to return to Canada in 1849 under amnesty legislation, he was
again elected to the Assembly, but after an undistinguished
second political career he retired to private life in 1858.
Mackenzie was not an advocate of responsible government. Rather
he had wanted the Legislative Council elected. (See further
Frederick Armstrong and Ronald J. Stagg, Dictionary of Canadian
Biography, Vol. 9, 1861-70 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1976), pp. 496-510).
Source:
The Illustrated History of Canada, ed. Craig Brown, (Toronto:
Lester & Orpen, Dennys, 1987) p. 211.
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