Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Bourinot, John George
BOURINOT, Sir JOHN GEORGE (1837–1902), writer on Canadian constitutional history, born at Sydney, Cape Breton, on 24 Oct. 1837, was eldest son in the family of five sons and two daughters of John Bourinot, a member of the Canadian senate, by his wife Mary Jane, daughter of Judge John Marshall, well known as a temperance advocate of Nova Scotia. The father, of Huguenot extraction, came to America from Jersey. After private education, Bourinot entered in 1854 Trinity College, Toronto, where he graduated B.A. with distinction in 1857. Next year he joined the staff of the 'Toronto Leader.' In 1860 he founded the 'Halifax Herald,' and for several years he was its editor-in-chief. He was long a voluminous contributor to the English and American, as well as to the Canadian press. In 1861 he was appointed chief reporter of the Nova Scotia Assembly, and thus commenced his long career as a parliamentary official. In 1868, after Confederation, he joined the Hansard staff in the Canadian Senate. He became in 1873 second assistant clerk of the Canadian House of Commons; in 1879 first assistant clerk; and in 1880 chief clerk, a position which he held until his death. In that capacity he devoted himself to a study of the constitutional law and history of Canada, and acquired a high reputation by his writings on those subjects.
His useful 'Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in Canada' (1884; new edit. 1892) was the fruit of sound learning and long experience. His 'Manual of the Constitutional History of Canada' (1888; new and revised edit. 1901) became a standard text-book, although the constitutional lawyer's point of view is unduly obtruded. As an historian, Bourinot, although accurate and painstaking, seldom penetrated the surface of events, and his method was formal and unimaginative. His 'Canada under British Rule' (1900) and 'Story of Canada' ('Story of the Nations' series, 1897) show his characteristic defects, but these are less apparent in 'Lord Elgin' (published posthumously in 1903 in the 'Makers of Canada' series). Other works are : 'The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People' (1881); 'Local Government in Canada ' (1887); 'Federal Government in Canada' (1889); 'How Canada is Governed' (1895); and 'Builders of Nova Scotia' (1900).
In his later life Bourinot was also much occupied with the Royal Society of Canada, of which he became the first secretary in 1882; was president in 1892; and from 1893 to 1902 honorary secretary. To his efforts the society largely owed its success, and to its 'Transactions' he contributed many important papers.
Bourinot received numerous honours. In 1883 he was elected an honorary member of the American Antiquarian Society. He was made hon. LL.D. of Queen's University, Kingston (1887), and of Trinity College, Toronto (1889); hon. D.C.L. of King's College, New Brunswick (1890), and Bishop's College, Lennoxville (1895); and, although a protestant English-Canadian, hon. docteur-ès-lettres of the Roman catholic French-Canadian University of Laval (1893). In 1890 he was created a C.M.G., and in 1898 K.C.M.G.
He died at Ottawa on 13 Oct. 1902, and was buried in Beech wood cemetery, Ottawa.
Bourinot married three times: (1) in 1858 Delia, daughter of John Hawke; (2) in 1865 Emily Alden, daughter of Albert Pilsbury, the American consul in Halifax; and (3) in 1889 Isabelle, daughter of John Cameron of Toronto. He had one daughter and four sons.
[Obituary notices in the Globe and the Mail and Empire, Toronto; Rose, Cyclopædia of Representative Canadians; Trans. Royal Soc. of Canada, 1894 (bibliography) and 1903.]