Canadian statesman and prime minster (19216, 192630, 193548), born in Kitchener (formerly Berlin), Ontario, SE Canada. He studied law at Toronto University, and economics at Chicago and Harvard. He became an MP (1908), minister of labour (190911), and Liberal leader (1919). As premier, he introduced legislation for the resolution of industrial disputes through third-party arbitration, and helped to craft new Imperial relationships between Britain and the Commonwealth (192630). His view that the dominions should be autonomous communities within the British empire resulted in the Statute of Westminster (1931). He resigned from office in 1948.
William Lyon Mackenzie King|
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| 10th Prime Minister of Canada | |
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In office December 29, 1921 – June 28, 1926 September 25, 1926 – August 6, 1930 October 23, 1935 –November 15, 1948 |
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| Preceded by |
Arthur Meighen Richard Bedford Bennett |
| Succeeded by |
Arthur Meighen Richard Bedford Bennett Louis St. Laurent |
| Born |
December 17, 1874 Berlin, Ontario |
| Died |
July 22, 1950 Wright County, Quebec |
| Political party | Liberal Party of Canada |
William Lyon Mackenzie King, OM, PC, LL.B, Ph.D, MA, BA (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921, to June 28, 1926; He is commonly known either by his full name or as Mackenzie King. Mackenzie was one of his given names, not part of his surname, but he was never publicly referred to as simply "William King."
Biography
Early life
King was born in Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener) to John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie. He had a younger sister named Jennie, who later was considering marrying King's friend Bert Harper at the time Harper drowned in the Ottawa River. A grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837, King attended Berlin Central School (now Suddaby Public School) and Berlin High School (now Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School) and held five university degrees. After studying at the University of Chicago, Mackenzie King proceeded to Harvard University, receiving an M.A.
King worked as a newspaper reporter for the Toronto Globe while studying at the University of Toronto.
He returned to Canada to run in the 1917 election, which focused almost entirely on the conscription issue, and lost again, due to his opposition to conscription, which was supported by the majority of English Canadians. King remained leader until 1948.
~In his first term as as Prime Minister, he was opposed by the Progressive Party, which did not support trade tariffs.~ King called an election in 1925, in which the Conservatives won the most seats, but not a majority in the House of Commons. King held onto power with the support of the Progressives. Soon into his term, however, a bribery scandal in the Department of Customs was revealed, which led to more support for the Conservatives and Progressives, and the possibility that King would be forced to resign. King asked Governor General Lord Byng to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Byng refused, the only time in Canadian history that the Governor General has exercised such a power. King resigned, and Byng asked Meighen to form a new government.
Second term
In his second term, King introduced old-age pensions.
His government was in power during the beginning of the Great Depression, but lost the election of 1930 to the Conservative Party, now led by Richard Bedford Bennett.
King's Liberals were returned to power once more in the 1935 election. The worst of the Depression had passed, and King implemented relief programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission.
Racism
While Minister of Labour, King was appointed to investigate the causes and claims for compensation resulting from the 1907 Asiatic Exclusion League riots in Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown. One of the claims for damages came from Chinese opium manufacturers, which led King to investigate the drug scene in Vancouver. King became alarmed upon hearing that white women were also opium users, not just Chinese men, and he then initiated the process that led to the first legislation outlawing narcotics in Canada, effectively an attempt to save white women from the Yellow Peril.
King hoped an outbreak of war in the 1930s could be avoided, and he supported the appeasement policies of the British.
Despite pledges of support from Canada's Jewish community, in June 1939 King also refused to allow a boatload of 900 desperate Jewish refugees (aboard the passenger ship St. Louis), refuge in Canada. After the war, King offered Japanese-Canadians the option of “repatriation" to a war-ravaged Japan, and Canadians of Japanese origin were not allowed to move back to coastal areas until his government fell several years later.
Second World War
King realized the necessity of World War II before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, and actually began mobilizing on 25 Aug 1939, with full mobilization on 1 September. Unlike World War I, however, when Canada was automatically at war as soon as Britain joined, King asserted Canadian autonomy by waiting until September 10, when a vote in the House of Commons took place, to support the government's decision to declare war.
King's promise not to impose conscription contributed to the defeat of Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale Quebec provincial government in 1939 and Liberals' re-election in the 1940 election. King wanted to avoid a repeat of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. By 1942, the military was pressing King hard to send conscripts to Europe. In 1942, King held a national plebiscite on the issue asking the nation to relieve him of the commitment he had made during the election campaign. Otherwise, King continued with a campaign to recruit volunteers, hoping to address the problem with the shortage of troops caused by heavy losses in the Dieppe Raid in 1942, in Italy in 1943, and after the Battle of Normandy in 1944.
King was extremely unpopular among Canadian servicemen and women during the war, who were pro conscription.
Canadian autonomy
Throughout his tenure, King led Canada from a colony with responsible government to an autonomous nation within the British Commonwealth. During the Chanak Crisis of 1922, King refused to support the British without first consulting Parliament, while the Conservative leader, Arthur Meighen, supported Britain. The British were disappointed with King's response. After the King-Byng Affair, King went to the Imperial Conference of 1926 and argued for greater autonomy of the Dominions.
In the lead up to World War II, King played two roles. With the dual messages, King slowly led Canada toward war without causing strife between Canada's two main linguistic communities. As his final step in asserting Canada's autonomy, King ensured that the Canadian Parliament made its own declaration of war one week after Britain.
Post-war Canada
Mackenzie King was not charismatic and did not have a large personal following. King had been considered a minor player in the war by both United States President Franklin D. King did act as a link between the two countries between September 1939 and December 1941, but after the U.S. entered the war his position was largely redundant. King's most important contribution to wartime diplomacy was his crafting of a plan in June 1940 to host a British government in exile and to aid in the transfer of the British fleet to Canadian ports.
After the war, King quickly dismantled wartime controls. King also had to deal with the deepening Cold War and the fallout from espionage revelations of Russian cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, who defected in Ottawa in 1946.
In 1948, he retired after 22 years as prime minister, and was succeeded as Liberal Party leader, and Prime Minister of Canada, by his Justice Minister, Louis St. Laurent.~
Personal life
Mackenzie King was a cautious politician who tailored his policies to prevailing opinions. King asked whether his party would win the 1935 election, one of the few times politics came up during his seances.
King never married, but had several close female friends, including Joan Patteson, a married woman with whom he spent some of his leisure time. Some historians have also interpreted passages in his diaries as suggesting that King regularly had sexual relations with prostitutes, although this has never been confirmed.
Part of his country retreat, now called Mackenzie King Estate, at Kingsmere in the Gatineau Park, near Ottawa, is open to the public. The house King died in, called "The Farm", is the official residence of the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons and is not part of the park.
Mackenzie King died on July 22, 1950, at Kingsmere from pneumonia. Unmarried, King is survived by relative Margery King.
Following the publication of King's diaries in the 1970s, several fictional works about him were published by Canadian writers.
In 1998, there was controversy over King's exclusion from a memorial to the Quebec Conference of 1943, which was attended by King, Roosevelt, and Churchill. The monument was built by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois government of Quebec, which justified the decision on the basis that King was not important enough.
Supreme Court appointments
King recommended to the Governor General that the following be appointed as Justice to the Supreme Court of Canada:
Arthur Cyrille Albert Malouin - (January 30, 1924 - October 1, 1924) Francis Alexander Anglin (Chief Justice) - (September 16, 1924 – February 28, 1933) (appointed a Puisne Justice by Governor General the Earl Grey on the advice of Wilfrid Laurier in 1909) Edmund Leslie Newcombe - (September 16, 1924 - December 9, 1931) Thibaudeau Rinfret - (October 1, 1924 - June 22, 1954 (appointed Chief Justice by Governor General the Earl of Athlone on the advice of King in 1944) John Henderson Lamont - (April 2, 1927 - March 10, 1936) Robert Smith - (May 18, 1927 - December 7, 1933) Lawrence Arthur Dumoulin Cannon - (January 14, 1930 - December 25, 1939) Albert Blellock Hudson - (March 24, 1936 - January 6, 1947) Robert Taschereau - (February 9, 1940 - September 1, 1967) Ivan Rand - (April 22, 1943 - April 27, 1959) Roy Lindsay Kellock - (October 3, 1944 - January 15, 1958) James Wilfred Estey - (October 6, 1944 - January 22, 1956) Charles Holland Locke - (June 3, 1947 - September 16, 1962)Woodside National Historic Site
The Woodside National Historic Site at 528 Wellington Street North, in Kitchener, Ontario, is the cherished boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King. The house has been restored to reflect life during King's era. There is another statue of King outside Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King |
"Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription." When King was defeated in his Prince Albert riding, this sign is alleged to have been erected there, in reference to the military vote. William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography 1874-1923 (1958) Granatstein, J. Canada's War: The politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939-1945 (1975) McGregor, F. Rise of Mackenzie King, 1911-1919 (1962) Neatby, H. William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1924-1932: The Lonely Heights (1963) Neatby, H. Blair William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1932-1939: the Prism of Unity (1976) Neatby, H. "King, William Lyon Mackenzie" Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (2006) Stacey, C. 123-184 Hutchison, Bruce The Incredible Canadian: A Candid Portrait of Mackenzie King: His Works, His Times, and His Nation (1953), popular bio
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