Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mackenzie, William Lyon
MACKENZIE, WILLIAM LYON (1796–1861), leader of Canadian insurgents, born at Dundee on 12 March 1795, entered while still a youth the service of a wool merchant in Dundee. In 1817 he became managing clerk to a canal company in Wiltshire; emigrated to Canada in 1820, and, after first working as an engineer, established a book-store at Queenstown in 1823. An agitation in favour of popular government in Canada was then in progress. Mackenzie soon interested himself in politics and joined the popular side. He removed to Toronto, and in May 1824 established an opposition paper, the 'Colonial Advocate.' On 8 June 1826 a tory mob broke into his office and destroyed the printing apparatus. For this outrage Mackenzie obtained 625l. damages. He rapidly made himself prominent as a liberal politician, and in 1828 was elected to the legislative assembly of Upper Canada for the county of York. He was re-elected at the general election of 1830. In the house he distinguished himself by the violence of his language; and on his describing the ministry as 'sycophants fit only to register the decrees of arbitrary power,' he was expelled the house. Being twice re-elected in 1831 he was twice re-expelled, when the government secured his final exclusion by disfranchising the county of York. In 1832 Mackenzie went to England to present to the home government a petition on behalf of his fellow-subjects, and secured the dismissal of several unpopular colonial officials. After his return to Canada, Mackenzie was chosen mayor of Toronto in May 1834. At the general election in the October following he was re-elected for the county of York, and the popular party having obtained a majority he was allowed to take his seat, and the minutes relative to his expulsion were expunged from the journals of the house. A committee of grievances, of which Mackenzie was chairman, was then established; and its investigations led to the recall of the governor, Sir John Colborne [q. v.] His successor, Sir Francis Head [q. v.], however, was strongly in favour of the old autocratic system, and hostility to the government revived. In November 1836 Mackenzie was sent by the liberals of Upper Canada to pay a formal visit to Louis J. Papineau [q. v.], the leader of the Lower Canada reformers. Papineau was already thinking of armed insurrection, and to his influence much of Mackenzie's subsequent conduct must be attributed. At the general election of 1836 strenuous efforts were, in defiance of the law, made by the government to hinder the return of liberal candidates, and Mackenzie, with his more intimate partisans, failed to secure a seat. Chagrined at his defeat, and believing that constitutional agitation was now useless, Mackenzie resolved on an appeal to arms. His paper, the 'Colonial Advocate,' had been discontinued in 1834; it was now revived under the name of 'The Constitution,' and employed to preach disaffection to the inhabitants of the upper province. In July 1837 a vigilance committee was appointed to establish insurrectionary centres in different parts of the country. On 2 Aug. appeared an extraordinary appeal of the Toronto reformers to their brothers in Lower Canada, demanding the assembly of a national congress of delegates from each province, and on 25 Nov. Mackenzie publicly proclaimed the establishment of a provisional government. By the aid of an ex-Bonapartist officer, named Van Egmond, Mackenzie had got together eight hundred men. He appeared at their head near Toronto on 4 Dec. and sent a message to the governor to demand the settlement of all grievances by a national convention. The proposal was rejected, and a delay on Mackenzie's part gave the government time to collect troops. The rebels were attacked on 7 Dec. at Montgomery's Tavern and utterly defeated. Mackenzie managed to escape to Navy Island on the Niagara River. He tried to prolong the insurrection from American soil, but in 1839 was arrested by the United States government and condemned to twelve months' imprisonment for breaking the neutrality laws. Mackenzie's movement thus ended in failure. It, however, effectively called the attention of the home government to colonial abuses. To Mackenzie, therefore, the establishment of responsible government in Canada is largely due.
After his release from prison Mackenzie remained for some years in America, and contributed regularly to the 'New York Tribune.' On the proclamation of the amnesty in 1849 he returned to Canada. In 1850 he was elected to the legislature of the then united provinces, and sat there till 1858. He started a journal, 'Mackenzie's Message,' which was not a success. His name had lost its attraction, and during his latter years he depended on pecuniary assistance from his friends. He died at Toronto on 28 Aug. 1861.
[Lindsey's Life of W. L. Mackenzie; H. J. Morgan's Sketches of Celebrated Canadians; Histories of Canada by Dent, Withrow, and Bryce; Canadian Parliamentary Reports; English Parliamentary Reports.]