Essex (Province of Canada electoral district)

This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Essex (federal electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Essex (provincial electoral district).

Essex
Canada West

Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
Legislature	Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created	1841
District abolished	1867
First contested	1841
Last contested	1863

Essex was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada West, at the south-western tip of the Ontario Peninsula. It was created in 1841, upon the establishment of the Province of Canada by the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Essex was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. It was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Ontario.

Boundaries

Essex electoral district was located at the southwestern tip of the Ontario Peninsula. It was based on the boundaries of Essex County, in Canada West (now the province of Ontario).

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]

Essex County had been an electoral district in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, ^[3] and its boundaries were not altered by the Act. Those boundaries had originally been set by a proclamation of the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, in 1792:

That the eighteenth of the said counties be hereafter called by the name of the county of Essex; which county is to be bounded on the east by the county of Suffolk, on the south by lake Erie, on the west by the river Detroit to Maisonville's mill, from thence by a line running parallel to the river Detroit and lake St. Clair, at the distance of four miles, until it meets the river La Tranche or Thames, thence up the said river to the northwest boundary of the county of Suffolk. ^[4]

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

That the townships of Rochester, Mersea, Gosfield, Maidstone, Sandwich, Colchester, Malden, and the tracts of land occupied by the Huron and other Indians upon the Strait, together with such of the Islands as are in Lakes Erie, Sinclair or the Straits, do constitute and form the County of Essex. ^[5]

Since Essex electoral district was not changed by the Union Act, those boundaries continued to be used for the new electoral district. Essex was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly. ^[2]

Members of the Legislative Assembly

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

Parliament	Years	Member [6]	Party [7]
1st Parliament	1841–1844	John Prince, QC	Unionist; Independent Reformer
2nd Parliament	1844–1847
3rd Parliament	1848–1851
4th Parliament	1851–1854
5th Parliament	1854–1857	Arthur Rankin	Conservative
6th Parliament	1858–1861	John McLeod	Conservative
7th Parliament	1861–1863	Arthur Rankin	Conservative
8th Parliament	1863–1867

Abolition

The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, creating Canada and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario. ^[8] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada ^[9] and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. ^[10]

References

1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
2. Union Act, 1840, s. 16.
3. Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada, from the eighth day of November, 1836, to the fourth day of March, 1837, p. 15 (November 8, 1836).
4. 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.
5. An act for the better division of this province, SUC 1798, c. 5, s. 39. 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).
6. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860, (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43-58.
7. 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.
8. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
9. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
10. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 70.

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

42°10′N82°47′W / 42.167°N 82.783°W / 42.167; -82.783