Many county residents were pleasantly surprised last week when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Rob Black to the Senate of Canada.
Black, who lives just outside Fergus, is the first local representative in the Senate in almost 70 years.
The county councillor and CEO of the Rural Ontario Institute is now the fifth Senator to ever call Wellington County home.
His predecessors were:
– Adam J. Fergusson Blair, son of the founder of Fergus, who served in 1867;
– Robert Watson, who grew up in Elora before moving to Manitoba, 1900 to 1929;
– James McMullen of Mount Forest, 1902 to 1913; and
– Robert W. Gladstone of Guelph, 1949 to 1951.
Fergusson Blair
A.J. Fergusson (1815-1867) was the second of seven sons born to Adam Fergusson (1783-1862), the co-founder of Fergus.
A.J. came to Canada with his father in 1833 at the age of 18. He went back to Scotland to finish his education in law, and returned to Canada after graduating.
He was called to the Canadian bar in 1839, established a practice in Guelph and in 1842 was appointed judge for the newly-created District of Wellington.
In 1847 he was awarded the Waterloo seat in the assembly of the Province of Canada, which he held from 1848 to 1854.
He served three more years for the new riding of Wellington South.
He was also solicitor for Wellington County after its creation in 1854.
In 1860, A.J. was elected to the Legislative Council for the District of Brock, a rough equivalent of the present-day Senate, where he played an important role leading up to Confederation in 1867.
A.J., who in 1862 changed his surname to Fergusson Blair, received an appointment to the new Canadian Senate following Confederation. However, he died on Dec. 30, 1867, just nine weeks following his appointment.
Watson
Robert Watson (1853-1929) was born in Elora in 1853. His parents came to Canada from Scotland in 1847. The family lived in several houses, mostly in Salem.
Watson became a millwright like his father, but when his dad died in the mid-1870s, milling in Ontario was in decline. So, while in his 20s, Watson headed west to the Portage la Prairie area of Manitoba.
With the help of a brother he built successful planing and flour mills and a machine shop.
In 1883 he ran for MP as a Liberal, winning subsequent elections until he stepped down in 1892. He petitioned tirelessly for a railway to Manitoba.
Watson later entered provincial politics, serving as in provincial cabinet as Minister of Public Works from 1892 to 1900.
Watson sat in the Senate as the representative for the Portage la Prairie division from 1900 until his death in 1929.
McMullen
James McMullen (1833-1913) was born in Ireland, and emigrated to Canada with his family in 1846, settling near Fergus.
As a Mount Forest merchant, he pushed hard for the Georgian Bay and Wellington Railway, including a stint as vice president, but the line was eventually acquired by the Grand Trunk Railway and never reached the vision of McMullen and others.
In 1880 McMullen left his store and his seat on local council to become Liberal MP of North Wellington. He was re-elected in 1887, 1891 and 1896 but was defeated in 1900. Two years later he was appointed to the Senate on the recommendation of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and served until his death in 1913.
Gladstone
Robert William Gladstone (1879-1951) was born in Oxford, Ontario and later relocated to the Guelph area.
In the fall of 1925, Wellington South Liberals nominated Gladstone, a newcomer to politics, for the federal election. A former teacher, he was proprietor of the Canada Ingot Iron Company of Guelph, which manufactured galvanized pipe and culverts.
Gladstone was defeated by Hugh Guthrie, but came back to defeat Guthrie a decade later to become MP. He was re-elected in 1940 and 1945.
He was appointed to the Senate in 1949, where he served until his death on June 1, 1951.
– With files from Stephen Thorning’s history columns
