After Andrew Wetmore served as the first premier of New Brunswick, a new man came in to lead the province. He not only served as the second premier of New Brunswick, but also the fourth premier of the province.
His name was George Edwin King.
King was born on Oct. 8, 1839 in Saint John to a rich family led by his father, also named George, who was a shipbuilder.
As a young man, King attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut where received a Bachelor of Arts in 1859, followed by a Masters in 1862.
Working towards becoming a lawyer, King served under articles to Robert Leonard Hazen who also served in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick.
In 1863, King was made an attorney, and he passed the New Brunswick Bar two years later.
In 1866, King married Lydia Eaton, with whom he had a son and daughter.
When New Brunswick became a province in Canada in 1867, King was elected to the legislature with the Confederation Party. He served as Minister without Portfolio for the first few years in the Legislature.
Despite identifying as a Liberal, King also supported the Conservatives federally. It left many wondering where exactly his allegiances were. In private, King always identified as a Liberal though.
As a member of the Legislature, King was very progressive for the time. He promoted universal women’s suffrage at a time when it was barely talked about, and he advocated for the removal of property qualifications in order to be elected to the legislature. He also wanted women to be able to stand to be elected, all revolutionary ideas for the time.
One of the first bills he put forward extended the rights of a woman to control any property and income she legally owned. He also put forward a debtors bill that was heavily opposed by other members of the government. King believed that the fact people were imprisoned for debts was something that hurt the poor most of all and was barbaric. To accommodate those who wanted prison sentences for debt, he modified the bill so that debtors could only spend one year in prison and once free, could never be imprisoned for that same debt again.
Rising through the party due to his intelligence and commanding presence, when Andrew Wetmore resigned in 1870, King took over as premier.
At the time, he was only 30 and he remains the youngest person to ever serve as premier in New Brunswick’s Premier and the youngest premier in Canadian history.
As premier, the first time around, his biggest piece of legislation was the Common Schools Act. King believed in having a universal, publicly supported elementary school system.
The framework of this legislation was worked out during his time prior to becoming premier. When he presented it in 1870, it pledged to provide free schools for all children, to crate a central control of the school system, provide supervision for teachers and financial aid to schools to help them teach children in the province.
Soon after the government pledged to make a new schools act the main focus of the government in the throne speech on Feb. 16, 1871, King resigned as premier. The reasons for this are up for debate.
Members of his caucus felt that King was too close to the federal Conservatives under Sir John A. Macdonald. As a result, George Hathaway maneuvered King out of the leadership role in exchange for assuming a role in cabinet.
King remained as the attorney general and the new government began work to pass the schools act it was trying to push through.
It was again introduced on April 12 by King. It was a difficult debate and there was a great deal of opposition from the Catholics within the province. King then placed the control of the schools system with the executive council.
The law finally passed on May 17, and went into effect on Jan. 1, 1872.
This legislation implemented a single, tax supported public school system in the province.
Catholics in New Brunswick asked Ottawa to intervene but as would happen with the Manitoba Schools Question almost two decades later, Ottawa did not, at least under Sir John A. Macdonald.
Two Catholic Members of Parliament from New Brunswick did bring it up in the House of Commons and put forward a motion to disallow the act, while asking Queen Victoria to protect sectarian schools in the province. The House of Commons quickly defeated the motion and moved on from the issue.
King remained in cabinet until 1872 when Hathaway died. At this point, King became premier once again on July 5, 1872.
King continued to deal with opposition from the Catholics in the province to the school act. He eventual did up a memorandum that was meant to counter the arguments of the Catholics.
Nonetheless, the issue of the schools would continue to dog him for years to come.
With much more power behind him this time as premier, he was able to officially abolish imprisonment for debt, something he had been trying to do for five years by this point.
In 1871, the Treaty of Washington resulted in the surrounding of export duties on American goods that used the Saint John River. This agreement gave New Brunswick an annual grant of $150,000, which increased provincial revenue by one-third in the process.
Wanting to increase immigration to the province, King also offered 200 acres of Crown Land to any family, with conditions, to start homesteads in the province.
A few years into his second time as premier, King once again had to deal with the resistance to the schools act by Catholics.
While he attempted to reach a compromise, the Catholics and the Executive Council were not able to reach an agreement.
Through it all, King defended the new school system. He said at one point,
“If we once abandon the strong line of defence that is along the heights of equity, the end will be the overthrow of our rights and independence of action.”
Attempts to repeal the act failed in the Legislature, and eventually led to the dissolving the assembly and a new election.
The schools issue was the main focus of the election, but King’s government dominated the election by winning 36 out of 41 seats. It was the biggest election victory for any New Brunswick premier during that century.
The Catholics then took the issue to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with King serving as the government’s lawyer. The Catholics lost the case.
The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“The work of defending the New Brunswick Schools Act in the Legislature in the country before the courts and against aggressive action taken in the Parliament of Canada fell largely on him.”
But the issue was not about to go away.
On Jan. 27, 1875, tensions over the issue reached a boiling point with the riots in Caraquet. Catholics refused to pay taxes to fund the school system, in addition to paying for their own parish schools. When the riots began, police and militia responded, leaving two dead.
Following the riots, five Catholic members of the assembly asked that Catholic children be allowed to attend schools outside their districts. On Aug. 6, 1875, the Executive Council of New Brunswick made amendments to the schools act that did improve things for the Catholics somewhat.
Under the amendments, school premises could be used for Catholic religious study outside of school hours. Members of religious orders who taught in public schools could wear religious garb and they did not have to obtain teaching certificates. Teachers also had the right to teach French, or speak in their own language, in the primary schools.
King served until May 3, 1878 when he resigned as premier a month prior to the next provincial election. While the schools question dominated his time as premier, it had a positive effect. At the time of his resignation, the number of children in public schools had doubled.
In 1880, King became a justice with the New Brunswick Supreme Court and the Court of the Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick. Jereimah Travis said of him,
“King promises to make a good judge. I never heard a question raised as to his entire honesty. He is a very clear thinker; readily apprehends the strengths of points presented to him, and is a very clear, logical and close reasoner . . . his judgments will almost necessarily be sound legal decisions.”
In 1893, he was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Several honours started to come his way at this point, including an honorary degree from the University of New Brunswick, and another from Mount Allison University.
In 1896, he was chosen as a commissioner for the Bering Sea arbitration. The Victoria Daily Times wrote,
“His calm, dignified and trained judicial mind gained for him the admiration and respect of all who came in contact with him.”
By the turn of the century, King was dealing with ill health and was unable to return for the last session of the Supreme Court in early 1901. Many felt he had pushed himself too hard by that point. The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“His keen sense of duty kept him at his work when he was physically unfit for the heavy strain.”
King died on May 7, 1901 following a heart attack with his wife and children by his side.
The Journal wrote,
“The late Judge King was one of the ablest jurists Canada has ever produced and he also made his mark in political life in his native province, New Brunswick. Although quiet and reserved, he was well known in Ottawa and much liked.”
In honour of King, the Supreme Court adjourned for an entire day to remember him.
