Product Code Database
Sir William Mulock (19 January 1843Most sources after 1914 incorrectly list Mulock's birth year as 1844. See Mulock's birth was not registered , and after Mulock's death his grandson reported that the family bible recorded the birth year as 1843. See and – 1 October 1944) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, educator, farmer, politician, judge, and philanthropist. He served as vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto from 1881 to 1900, negotiating the federation of denominational colleges and professional schools into a modern university.
He was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal Member of Parliament and served from 1882 to 1905. Sir Wilfrid Laurier appointed him to the Canadian Cabinet as Postmaster General from 1896 to 1905. In 1900, Mulock established the Department of Labour, bringing William Lyon Mackenzie King into public life as his Deputy Minister.
He initiated the final agreement for a transpacific cable linking Canada to Australia and New Zealand, and he funded Marconi to establish the first transatlantic radio link from North America to Europe. In 1905, he chaired the parliamentary inquiry into telephones that led to regulation of Canadian telecommunications, and he participated in the negotiations that led to the creation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
He was Chief Justice of the Exchequer Division of the Supreme Court of Ontario from 1905 until appointed by King in 1923 as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario, a position he held until 1936. From 1931 to 1932, he served as the acting Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
Mulock was extremely active in both business and the community, being involved in the foundation of organizations as diverse as the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Toronto Star, Toronto Wellesley Hospital, and Canada's first national peace organization. In later life, he was known as the "Grand Old Man" of Canada.
Mulock's older brother, John, died in 1852; he had two sisters, Marian and Rosamund (later married to George W. Monk). The family endured genteel poverty after the father's death, so Mulock spent much time chopping wood, milking the family cow, growing vegetables in the family garden, and on outside work such as repairing the local .
Starting at the same time that Mulock arrived, Egerton Ryerson led a sustained attack on the university over money and the proper purpose of a university education. Ryerson did not think that modern languages or history, practical courses, nor even law or medicine belonged in a university, and a Royal Commission was struck which recommended that the endowment of the university be distributed among all Ontario colleges. The defence of the university culminated in a large meeting at the St. Lawrence Hall on 5 March 1863, where Mulock moved the concluding motion. These efforts allowed the University to "escape extinction", according to Sir Daniel Wilson.
After graduating in 1863 with the Gold Medal for Modern Languages, Mulock became a law student, first articled to Alfred Boultbee in Newmarket, and then in Toronto, eventually in the firm of Senator John Ross. To support himself, Mulock became a house-master at Upper Canada College. Mulock was called to the bar in 1868.
In 1873, the Law Society of Upper Canada established a law school, and Mulock soon became Lecturer and Examiner in Equity. After the school closed in 1878, the Osgoode Literary and Legal Society attempted to provide replacement instruction, with Mulock lecturing on partnership. When Mulock became Vice-Chancellor, one of his goals was to establish the best law faculty on the continent.
In June 1893, Mulock provided the articling position needed by pioneering student-at-law Clara Brett Martin. Martin was so badly treated by her fellow male students that she eventually switched to another firm, but in 1897 she became the first female lawyer in the British Empire.Constance Backhouse (1991). 9780889611610, The Women's Press for the Osgoode Society. . ISBN 9780889611610
In 1897, Mulock hired surgeon Herbert Bruce into the Faculty of Medicine without consultation. Mulock later helped finance Bruce's new Wellesley Hospital and was the first chair of its board of directors.
The University awarded Mulock an Honorary Degree of Laws in 1894. While Vice-Chancellor, Mulock accepted no salary, and the money accumulated was donated to the university.
In 1906, the elected office of Vice-Chancellor was abolished; the unelected President of the University took over as Chair of the Senate. Mulock later spoke out against this "reactionary step", especially since the act also "put the elected members of the senate in a hopeless minority" and reduced the senate's responsibilities to academic matters only.
Mulock's proudest achievements were his contributions to the University of Toronto. His memorials at the university include the Mulock Cup, Canada's oldest continuously awarded sporting trophy, the William Mulock Prize in Mathematics and Physics, the William Mulock Prize in Classics, and Mulock House in Whitney Hall residence.
mark the start of the Imperial Penny Post, Mulock personally designed and issued a new stamp with a map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire. Partly by accident, this became the world's first Christmas stamp. See also
On 1 April 1898, Mulock introduced an amendment to the Post Office Act that made Canada the first country in the world to give franking privileges, i.e. free postage, for Braille materials and books for the blind. See also He also initiated a program to provide Post Office employment for the deaf.
After the first successful transatlantic radio communication in 1901 to his station at Signal Hill, Dominion of Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi learned that the Anglo-American Cable Company had a monopoly on transatlantic telegraphy from Newfoundland, so he planned to move to a new location in the United States. When Mulock learned this, he immediately negotiated an agreement with Marconi for him to set up his North American radio station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, where the first transatlantic message from North America was sent on 17 December 1902.
Mulock was Canada's representative at the opening of Australia's first Parliament in 1901, and was one of Canadian representatives at the coronation of King Edward VII. Mulock was knighted in 1902 for his services, in particular for the Penny Post, Transpacific Cable, and wireless telegraphy between Canada and Great Britain.
In order to protect the public against quackery Mulock amended the Post Office Act in 1904 to curtail advertising of "marvellous, extravagant or grossly improbable cures". See also Mulock was also active in the negotiations that led to the formation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905.
In 1905, Mulock chaired the select parliamentary inquiry into telephone systems, especially the unregulated Bell Canada monopoly. The committee shed much light on the operations and finances of Bell, but Mulock was replaced when it became apparent that he was likely to recommend the telephone service be a government owned utility. The committee's work nevertheless led in 1906 to the first federal regulation of telephone and telegram service by the Board of Railway Commissioners, the ancestor of the current Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Despite being a wealthy businessman and fervent anticommunist, Mulock believed that government operation of public franchises provided better service at lower cost, with greater protection of personal privacy and public interest.
Mulock was probably the best administrator in the Laurier Cabinet, but he did not always consider the political consequences of his actions. Without consulting Laurier, he fired the influential journalist as Montreal's Postmaster. Mulock had ample cause, but Laurier immediately ordered Dansereau reinstated, straining Laurier's relationship with Mulock.
Mulock once let politics try to overrule physics. He proposed the Newmarket Canal to the centre of his riding to help local industry, despite engineering reports that that natural water flow would leave the canal dry for much of the year. "Mulock's Madness" was cancelled when Robert Borden became prime minister in 1911, but its partially completed remains are still prominent.
Mulock retired from politics in 1905 due to rheumatism and neuritis exacerbated by overwork, but the movement of his political views to the left may also have contributed to his decision.
On 28 February 1930, a Ku Klux Klan mob invaded the home of a mixed race couple in Oakville, Ontario. Several men were eventually convicted, but given only a small fine. On appeal, Mulock described the fine as a "travesty of justice", and replaced it with a three-month prison term. Mulock reported himself as an ardent Abolitionism in his youth, and as a politician he actively campaigned in Black communities, but in his ruling Mulock denounced only mob law, not the underlying racial issues. This ruling marked the start of a significant decline in Klan activity in Canada.
In 1931, Tim Buck and seven other members of the Communist Party of Canada were convicted of seditious conspiracy and membership in an unlawful organization. The strongly anticommunist Mulock presided over the appeal of the convictions in 1932, and despite dismissing the conspiracy charge, upheld the other convictions and his lengthy written decision established the Communist Party as an unlawful organization, effectively banning it.
By modern standards, Mulock's judgements were not always free of apparent bias or conflicts of interest. In the long and very public case of Campbell v Hogg, he was close to all participants, and Elizabeth Campbell was so unhappy with his court's judgement that to overturn it she became the first woman to argue a case before the Privy Council. (2025). 9780774810524, UBC Press for the Osgoode Society. ISBN 9780774810524
Mulock was one of the founders of The Dominion Bank, See also which opened for business in 1871 and in 1955 merged with the Bank of Toronto to form the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada's second largest bank. He was also one of the founders (1882) and Directors of Toronto General Trusts, Canada's first trust company and an ancestor of TD Canada Trust.
In 1899, as chief Liberal Party organizer in Ontario, Mulock wanted a Liberal paper to counterbalance the Conservative Toronto Telegram. He led a group that purchased the ailing Toronto Star and offered Joseph Atkinson the position as editor. Atkinson accepted on the condition that he have editorial independence and that part of his pay would be in shares. Mulock unhappily agreed, and Mulock and Atkinson clashed for the rest of their lives. It gave Atkinson great pleasure at the 1913 annual shareholders' meeting to interrupt Mulock in mid-tirade to announce that he was now the majority shareholder and would do what he chose.
Despite playing a key role in forcing Laurier to commit Canadian forces in the Boer War,Carmen Miller (1993). 9780773509139, Canadian War Museum and McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 9780773509139 after his retirement from politics, Mulock spoke out against militarism. Mulock became the first president of Canada's first national, secular peace organization, the Canadian Peace and Arbitration Society, founded in 1905 by Charles Ambrose Zavitz. When Britain entered World War I, Mulock immediately started organizing the Toronto and York County Patriotic Fund (later part of the Canadian Patriotic Fund) to assist soldier's families. Mulock was President of the Toronto and York Fund for its entire existence (and chair of the Canadian executive); the Toronto fund raised $8,939,143, with only about 2% spent on expenses. At age 99 during World War II, he served as Chair of the Canadian Committee of the International YMCA, responsible for supervising enemy prisoners in Canada. He considered information from Canadian prison camp officials to be hearsay that could not replace direct inspection.
Mulock's use of profanity was said to be the most picturesque in parliament, and he was known for his consumption of and rye whisky. Just before Prohibition came into force in Ontario in 1916, he had special concrete compartments built in his house into which he stored a lifetime supply of whisky.
Mulock was described as "The man who did", his work ethic recognized even by those who sometimes disagreed with what he did. Sir Daniel Wilson referred to him as "the mule". At a luncheon in his honour shortly after his 87th birthday, Mulock described his attitude on growing old: and
Mulock is buried in Newmarket Cemetery. Named is his honour in Ontario are:
|
|
