Charlottetown Conference - The conference

A meeting of colonial representatives from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island (1864) to discuss Maritime Union. A delegation from the province of Canada (present-day Ontario and Quebec) successfully promoted the idea of a larger federation with the rest of mainland British North America. It was followed by the Quebec Conference, and led to Confederation in 1867.

The Charlottetown Conference was a conference held in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for representatives from the colonies of British North America to discuss Canadian Confederation.

The conference was originally planned as a meeting between representatives from the Maritime colonies only: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island although Newfoundland was also invited. However another colony, the Province of Canada (modern Ontario and Quebec), heard news of the planned conference and asked that the agenda be expanded to discuss a union that would also include them. There was no one working at the public wharf at the foot of Great George Street when the Canadian delegates arrived on the steamship SS Victoria, so Prince Edward Island representative William Henry Pope had to handle receptions by himself, including rowing out to greet the new arrivals. The Canadian delegates stayed each night onboard the SS Victoria as the circus and the Maritime delegates had taken up most of the accommodations in town.

The conference

The majority of the conference took place at the colony's legislative building, Province House, although some social functions were held at Government House, the home of the Lieutenant Governor.

The conference began on Thursday, September 1 with a banquet for all of the delegates. The representatives from the Province of Canada dominated the conference, overshadowing the concerns of the Maritimes, and laying out the foundations for the union that benefitted them the most.

The Maritimes were convinced that a wider union including the Province of Canada would also be beneficial to them, and that this union could be achieved within a few years, rather than in an undefined period in the future as they had originally planned. The conference concluded on Wednesday, September 7th, but the representatives agreed to meet again the next month in Quebec City (see Quebec Conference). Dickey William Alexander Henry Jonathan McCully Charles Tupper

Prince Edward Island

George Coles John Hamilton Gray Edward Palmer Andrew Archibald Macdonald William Henry Pope Edward Whelan

Province of Canada

George Brown Alexander Campbell George-Étienne Cartier Alexander Tilloch Galt John A.