Beauharnois (Province of Canada electoral district)

Beauharnois was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of the Province of Canada, in Canada East, in a rural area south of Montreal. It was created for the first Parliament in 1841 and was based on the previous electoral district of the same name for the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. It was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.

This article is about the pre-Confederation electoral district. For the successor federal electoral district, see Beauharnois (electoral district). For the successor provincial electoral district, see Beauharnois (provincial electoral district).
Beauharnois
Canada East
Province of Canada electoral district
Defunct pre-Confederation electoral district
LegislatureLegislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
District created1841
District abolished1867
First contested1841
Last contested1863

The electoral district was abolished in 1867, upon the creation of Canada and the province of Quebec.

Boundaries

The electoral district of Beauharnois was south of Montreal (now in the Beauharnois-Salaberry Regional County Municipality), extending south to the boundary with the United States. The town of Beauharnois was the major centre.

The Union Act, 1840 merged the two provinces of Lower Canada and Upper 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 Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.[2]

The Beauharnois electoral district of Lower Canada was not altered by the Act, and therefore continued with the same boundaries which had been set by a statute of Lower Canada in 1829:

The County of Beauharnois shall be bounded on the north east by the said County of Laprairie, on the north west by the River Saint Lawrence, and on the south west and south by the southern boundary of the Province, and shall include the Grande Isle, and all the Islands nearest to the said County, and in whole or in part fronting the same; which County so bounded, comprises the Seigniory of Beauharnois, and the Townships of Hemmingford, Hinchinbrooke, and Godmanchester, and the tract of Indian lands to the west thereof, extending to the Indian Village of Saint Regis, inclusively, on the southern boundary of the Province.[3]

Map showing the location of Beauharnois:

Members of the Legislative Assembly

Beauharnois was represented by one member in the Legislative Assembly.[4] The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly from Beauharnois.

Parliament Years Members[5] Party[6]
1st Parliament
1841–1844		 1841–1842 John William Dunscomb[note 1] Tory
1842–1844
(by-election)		 Edward Gibbon Wakefield[note 2] Groupe canadien-français; later Tory

Notes
  1. Resigned on October 8, 1842, following appointment as Warden, Trinity House, Montreal on July 15, 1842.[7]
  2. Elected in by-election November 9, 1842.[8]

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.[9] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[10] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[11]

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References
  1. Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.
  2. Union Act, 1840, ss. 16, 18.
  3. An Act to make a new and more convenient subdivision of the Province into Counties, for the purpose of effecting a more equal Representation thereof in the Assembly than heretofore, SLC 1829, c. 73, s. 1, para. 25.
  4. Union Act, 1840, s. 18.
  5. J.O. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860 (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.
  6. For party affiliations, see biographies of individual members: Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present.
  7. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (1).
  8. Côté, Political Appointments and Elections, p. 59, note (2).
  9. British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.
  10. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2
  11. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Statutes of Lower Canada, 13th Provincial Parliament, 2nd Session (1829), c. 74

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