Grenville (Province of Canada electoral district)

Grenville was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada West. Based on Grenville County, it was located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, east of Lake Ontario. It was created in 1841, upon the establishment of the Province of Canada by the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Grenville was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was later split into two ridings, in a redistribution.

Grenville
Canada West
Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
LegislatureLegislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created1841
District abolished1867
First contested1841
Last contested1863

Boundaries

Grenville electoral district was located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River in the eastern area of Canada West, east of Kingston. It was based on Grenville County (now the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville).

The Union Act, 1840 had merged the two provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished.[1] The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.[2]

The Upper Canada electoral district of Grenville was not altered by the Act. It was therefore continued with the same boundaries in the new Parliament. Those boundaries had originally been set by a proclamation of the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, in 1792:

That the fourth of the said counties be hereafter called by the name of the county of Grenvill; which county is to be bounded on the east by the westernmost line of the county of Dundas, on the south by the river St. Lawrence, and on the west by the easternmost boundary line of the late township of Elizabethtown, running north twenty-four degrees west until it intersects the Ottawa or Grand river, thence descending the said river until it meets the northwesternmost boundary of the county of Dundas. The said county of Grenvill is to comprehend all the islands in the said river St. Lawrence nearest to the said county, in the whole or greater part fronting the same.[3]

The boundaries had been further defined by a statute of Upper Canada in 1798:

That the townships of Edwardsburg, Augusta, Wolford, Oxford on the Rideau, Marlborough, Montague and Gower, (called North and South Gower) together with such of the Islands in the river Saint Lawrence as are wholly or in greater part opposite thereto, shall constitute and form the County of Grenville.[4]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Grenville was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.[2] The following were the members for Grenville.

Parliament Years Member[5] Party[6]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1844 Samuel Crane Unionist; Reformer

Abolition

The district was later split into two different ridings, in a redistribution.

References
  1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
  2. Union Act, 1840, s. 16.
  3. Proclamation, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, July 16, 1792; reprinted in Statutes of the Province of Upper Canada; Together with Such British Statutes, Ordinances of Quebec, and Proclamations, as Relate to the Said Province (Kingston: F. M. Hill., 1831) p. 24.
  4. An act for the better division of this province, SUC 1798, c. 5, s. 7. Reprinted in The Statutes of Upper Canada to the Time of Union, Revised and Published by Authority, Vol. I - Public Acts (Toronto: Robert Stanton, Queen's Printer, 1843).
  5. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43-58.
  6. For party affiliations, see Paul G. Cornell, Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Proclamation, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, July 16, 1792
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: An act for the better division of this province, SUC 1798, c. 5.

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