103 Facts About Charles Tupper

Charles Tupper briefly served as the Canadian prime minister, from seven days after parliament had been dissolved, until he resigned on July 8,1896, following his party's loss in the 1896 Canadian federal election.

Charles Tupper is the only medical doctor to have ever held the office of prime minister of Canada, and his 69-day tenure as prime minister is the shortest in Canadian history.

Charles Tupper was educated at Horton Academy, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, graduating MD in 1843.

Charles Tupper practiced medicine periodically throughout his political career.

Charles Tupper entered Nova Scotian politics in 1855 as a protege of James William Johnston.

Charles Tupper represented Nova Scotia at the other two conferences, the Quebec Conference and the London Conference of 1866.

In Nova Scotia, Charles Tupper organized a Confederation Party to combat the activities of the Anti-Confederation Party organized by Joseph Howe and successfully led Nova Scotia into Confederation.

Charles Tupper held multiple cabinet positions under Prime Minister John A Macdonald, including President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Minister of Inland Revenue, Minister of Customs, Minister of Public Works, and Minister of Railways and Canals.

In 1895, the government of Mackenzie Bowell floundered over the Manitoba Schools Question; as a result, several leading members of the Conservative Party of Canada demanded the return of Charles Tupper to serve as prime minister.

Charles Tupper accepted this invitation and returned to Canada, becoming prime minister in May 1896.

Charles Tupper served as leader of the Opposition from July 1896 until he resigned in February 1901, just months after his second defeat at the polls in 1900.

Charles Tupper returned to London, England, where he lived until his death in 1915 and was buried back in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Charles Tupper was the last surviving Canadian father of Confederation.

Charles Tupper was an accomplished Biblical scholar, and published Scriptural Baptism and Expository Notes on the Syriac Version of the Scriptures.

Charles Tupper set himself up as a physician in Amherst, Nova Scotia and opened a drugstore.

The leader of the Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, James William Johnston, a fellow Baptist and family friend of the Tuppers, encouraged Charles Tupper to enter politics.

In 1855 Charles Tupper ran against the prominent Liberal politician Joseph Howe for the Cumberland County seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.

At a caucus meeting in January 1856, Charles Tupper recommended a new direction for the Conservative party: they should begin actively courting Nova Scotia's Roman Catholic minority and should eagerly embrace railroad construction.

In early 1857 Charles Tupper convinced a number of Roman Catholic Liberal members to cross the floor to join the Conservatives, reducing Young's government to the status of a minority government.

Charles Tupper had thus embarked on the major theme of his political life: that Nova Scotians should downplay their ethnic and religious differences, focusing instead on developing the land's natural resources.

Charles Tupper argued that with Nova Scotia's "inexhaustible mines", it could become "a vast manufacturing mart" for the east coast of North America.

Charles Tupper quickly persuaded Johnston to end the General Mining Association's monopoly over Nova Scotia minerals.

In June 1857, Charles Tupper initiated discussions with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada concerning an intercolonial railway.

Charles Tupper traveled to London in 1858 to attempt to secure imperial backing for this project.

Charles Tupper was outraged and petitioned the British government, asking them to recall Mulgrave.

Charles Tupper established a successful medical practice in Halifax, rising to become the city medical officer.

Johnston resumed his duties as premier and Charles Tupper again became provincial secretary.

Johnston retired from politics in May 1864 when he was appointed as a judge, and Charles Tupper was chosen as his successor as premier of Nova Scotia.

Charles Tupper introduced ambitious education legislation in 1864 creating a system of state-subsidized common schools.

However, many Protestants, particularly fellow Baptists, felt that Charles Tupper had sold them out.

Charles Tupper reached a compromise with Archbishop Connolly whereby Catholic-run schools could receive public funding, so long as they provided their religious instruction after hours.

Charles Tupper outlined his changed position in a lecture delivered at Saint John, New Brunswick, entitled "The Political Condition of British North America".

Charles Tupper therefore proposed to create a "British America", which "stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would in a few years exhibit to the world a great and powerful organization, with British Institutions, British sympathies, and British feelings, bound indissolubly to the throne of England".

Since he thought that full union among the British North American colonies would be unachievable for many years, on March 28,1864, Charles Tupper instead proposed a Maritime Union which would unite the Maritime provinces in advance of a projected future union with the Province of Canada.

Charles Tupper headed the Nova Scotia delegation to the Quebec Conference.

Charles Tupper supported a legislative union of the colonies.

Charles Tupper threw his weight behind Macdonald's proposal for a federal union, which would see each colony retain its own legislature, with a central legislature in charge of common interests.

Charles Tupper argued in favour of a strong central government as a second best to a pure legislative union.

Charles Tupper felt that the local legislatures should retain the ability to levy duties on their natural resources.

Concerned that a united legislature would be dominated by the Province of Canada, Charles Tupper pushed for regional representation in the upper house of the confederated colonies.

Charles Tupper was therefore surprised when the deal he had negotiated at Quebec was roundly criticized by Nova Scotians: the Opposition Leader Adams George Archibald was the only member of the Liberal caucus to support Confederation.

Former premier Joseph Howe now organized an Anti-Confederation Party and anti-Confederation sentiments were so strong that Charles Tupper decided to postpone a vote of the legislature on the question of Confederation for a full year.

Charles Tupper now organized supporters of Confederation into a Confederation Party to push for the union.

Therefore, when Charles Tupper arrived in the UK, he immediately initiated a campaign of pamphlets and letters to the editor designed to refute Howe's assertions.

In honour of the role he had played in securing Confederation, Charles Tupper was made a Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1867.

Charles Tupper was now entitled to use the postnomial letters "CB".

Charles Tupper ran as a member for the new federal riding of Cumberland and won his seat.

However, when Macdonald ran into difficulties in organizing this cabinet, Charles Tupper stepped aside in favour of Edward Kenny.

Charles Tupper followed Howe to London where he successfully lobbied British politicians against allowing Nova Scotia to secede.

Charles Tupper rushed to the northwest to rescue his son-in-law.

When Howe's health declined the next year, Charles Tupper finally entered the 1st Canadian Ministry by becoming Privy Council president in June 1870.

Charles Tupper thought that the British should restrict American access to these fisheries so that they could negotiate from a position of strength.

When Prime Minister Macdonald travelled to represent Canada's interests at the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Washington, Charles Tupper served as Macdonald's liaison with the federal cabinet.

Charles Tupper led the Nova Scotia campaign for the Liberal-Conservative party during the Canadian federal election of 1872.

Charles Tupper's efforts paid off when Nova Scotia returned not a single Anti-Confederate Member of Parliament to the 2nd Canadian Parliament, and 20 of Nova Scotia's 21 MPs were Liberal-Conservatives.

In February 1873, Charles Tupper was shifted from Inland Revenue to become Minister of Customs, and in this position he was successful in having British weights and measures adopted as the uniform standard for the united colonies.

Charles Tupper had not been involved in the Pacific Scandal, but he nevertheless continued to support Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues both before and after the 1874 election.

The 1874 election was disastrous for the Conservatives, and in Nova Scotia, Charles Tupper was one of only two Conservative MPs returned to the 3rd Canadian Parliament.

Charles Tupper led Conservative attacks on the Mackenzie government throughout the 3rd Parliament.

When Mackenzie proved unable to achieve reciprocity, Charles Tupper began shifting toward protectionism and became a proponent of the National Policy which became a part of the Conservative platform in 1876.

Charles Tupper was deeply critical of Mackenzie's approach to railways, arguing that completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which would link British Columbia with the rest of Canada, should be a stronger government priority than it was for Mackenzie.

Charles Tupper was a councillor of the Oxford Military College in Cowley and Oxford, Oxfordshire from 1876 to 1896.

In May 1879, Macdonald decided that completion of the railway was such a priority that he created a new ministry to focus on railways and canals, and Charles Tupper became Canada's first Minister of Railways and Canals.

Charles Tupper traveled to London in summer 1879 to attempt to persuade the British government to guarantee a bond sale to be used to construct the railway.

Charles Tupper was not successful, though he did manage to purchase 50,000 tons of steel rails at a bargain price.

Charles Tupper then forced the Grand Trunk Railway to sell its Riviere-du-Loup line to the Intercolonial Railway to complete a link between Halifax and the St Lawrence Seaway.

Charles Tupper refused to give the CPR running rights over the Intercolonial Railway, though he did convince the CPR to build the Short Line from Halifax to Saint John.

Charles Tupper remained committed to leaving Ottawa and in May 1883, he moved to London to become unpaid High Commissioner, though he did not surrender his ministerial position at the time.

Charles Tupper was concerned with promoting immigration to Canada and made several tours of various countries in Europe to encourage their citizens to move to Canada.

In 1883, Charles Tupper convinced William Ewart Gladstone's government to exempt Canadian cattle from the general British ban on importing American cattle by demonstrating that Canadian cattle were free of disease.

Charles Tupper was present at the founding meeting of the Imperial Federation League in July 1884, where he argued against a resolution which said that the only options open to the British Empire were Imperial Federation or disintegration.

Charles Tupper believed that a form of limited federation was possible and desirable.

In January 1887 Charles Tupper returned to Canada to rejoin the 3rd Canadian Ministry as Minister of Finance of Canada, while retaining his post as High Commissioner.

The result was the appointment of a Joint Commission in 1887, with Charles Tupper serving as one of the three British commissioners to negotiate with the Americans.

Charles Tupper was not convinced and resigned as Minister of Finance on May 23,1888, and moved back to London.

Charles Tupper traveled to Washington, DC, to represent Canadian interests during the negotiations and was something of an embarrassment to the British diplomats.

When, in 1890, the provincial secretary of Newfoundland, Robert Bond, negotiated a fisheries treaty with the US that Charles Tupper felt was not in Canada's interest, Charles Tupper successfully persuaded the British government to reject the treaty.

Charles Tupper remained an active politician during his time as High Commissioner, which was controversial because diplomats are traditionally expected to be nonpartisan.

Charles Tupper continued to be active in the Imperial Federation League, though after 1887, the League was split over the issue of regular colonial contribution to imperial defense.

John A Macdonald's death in 1891 opened the possibility of Tupper's replacing him as Prime Minister of Canada, but Tupper enjoyed life in London and decided against returning to Canada.

Charles Tupper recommended that his son support John Thompson's prime ministerial bid.

At this point, Charles Tupper succeeded George Foster as Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, though Bowell was still prime minister.

Charles Tupper maintained this position even after the Manitoba Schools Act was upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Therefore, in February 1896 Charles Tupper introduced this remedial legislation in the House of Commons.

Charles Tupper remains the oldest person ever to become Canadian prime minister, at age 74.

The Conservatives captured only about half of the seats in English Canada, while Laurier's Liberals won a landslide victory in Quebec, where Charles Tupper's reputation as an ardent imperialist was a major handicap.

Charles Tupper had tried and failed to persuade Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau to return to active politics as his Quebec lieutenant.

However, when Charles Tupper attempted to make appointments as prime minister, Lord Aberdeen refused to act on Charles Tupper's advice.

Charles Tupper then resigned and Aberdeen invited Laurier to form a government.

Charles Tupper strongly supported Canadian participation in the Second Boer War, which broke out in 1899, and criticized Laurier for not doing enough to support Britain in the war.

Worse for Charles Tupper was the fact he had failed to carry his own seat, losing the Cape Breton seat to Liberal Alexander Johnston.

Charles Tupper continued to make frequent trips to Canada to visit his sons Charles Hibbert Tupper and William Johnston Tupper, both of whom were Canadian politicians.

On November 9,1907, Charles Tupper became a member of the British Privy Council.

Charles Tupper was promoted to the rank of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, which entitled him to use the postnominal letters "GCMG".

Charles Tupper remained interested in imperial politics, and particularly with promoting Canada's place within the British Empire.

Charles Tupper sat on the executive committee of the British Empire League and advocated closer economic ties between Canada and Britain, while continuing to oppose Imperial Federation and requests for Canada to make a direct contribution to imperial defense costs.

Charles Tupper gave a series of interviews to journalist W A Harkin which formed the basis of a second book published in 1914, entitled Political Reminiscences of the Right Honourable Sir Charles Tupper.

Charles Tupper was the last of the original Fathers of Confederation to die, and had lived the longest life of any Canadian prime minister, at 94 years, four months.

Charles Tupper's body was returned to Canada on HMS Blenheim and was buried in St John's Cemetery in Halifax following a state funeral with a mile-long procession.

Charles Tupper will be most remembered as a Father of Confederation, and his long career as a federal cabinet minister, rather than his brief time as prime minister.

Charles Tupper ranked No 16 out of the 20 up to that time, due to his extremely short tenure in which he was unable to accomplish anything of significance.

Mount Tupper in the Canadian Rockies and the Sir Charles Tupper Building in Ottawa are named for him.

The Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building is the central building of the Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, Nova Scotia.