Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 



SECTION II 

 Series III MAY, 1922 Vol. XVI 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 



Upper Canada a Century Ago 



By The Honourable William Renwick Riddell, LL.D., F.R.S.C, 



Etc. 



(Read May Meeting, 1922) 



It will not seem inappropriate that I should address a Section of 

 a Canadian Society devoted, inter alia, to History, upon the state a 

 hundred years ago of one Province — ^now a Province of the Dominion 

 of Canada — and it is natural that I should select my own Province, 

 then called Upper Canada. 



Upper Canada came into existence, technically, by the Order-in- 

 Council at the Court of St. James's, August 24, 1791, whereby the 

 Province of Quebec was "divided into two distinct Provinces to be 

 called the Province of Upper Canada and the Province of Lower 

 Canada." ^ But the government of the new Provinces was provided 

 for by the Canada or Constitutional Act (1791), 31 George III, c. 31 

 (Imp.), which was brought into force, Monday, December 26, 1791, 

 by the Proclamation of General Alured Clarke of November 18, 

 1791.2 



The Province of Upper Canada had as its eastern limit a line 

 beginning at a stone boundary on the north bank of the Lake St. 



'•"Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818." 

 Doughty and McArthur, Ottawa, 1914, pp. 1-3; 4 Ont. Arch. Rep. (1906), pp. 158- 

 160. 



2The Canada Act (1791), 31 George III, c. 31 (Imp.), s. 48, provided that the 

 King might fix or authorize the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the Province 

 of Quebec or the Administrator of the Government there to fix the day for the 

 commencement of the Act. The Order-in-Council of i^ugust 24, 1791, ordered 

 Henry Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville), Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 

 ment (which was charged with the care of the colonies, 1782 to 1801), to prepare a 

 warrant for the Royal Sign Manual authorizing the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor 

 or Administrator of the Province of Quebec to fix the day not later than December 

 31, 1791. The warrant issued: Lord Dorchester, the Governor of the Province of 

 Quebec, was still in England, and Alured Clarke, the Lieutenant-Governor, fixed 

 the day by his Proclamation. For this Proclamation see D. & McA., pp. 55-57; 

 4 Ont. Arch. Rep. (1906), pp. 169-171. 



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