One of the most important parliamentarians of his generation was born on this date in 1835. Richard Cartwright, who would go on to serve in the cabinets of Alexander Mackenzie and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, started his life in his native Kingston as a firm supporter of his friend John A. Macdonald. This all changed when the first PM left Cartwright out of cabinet. Cartwright then became a Liberal and developed an almost irrational hated of Macdonald that lasted until the end of his days. Historian and journalist Pierre Berton once described Cartwright the following way: “He was a vengeful man, full of bitterness against Macdonald, as his memoirs show, unforgiving because he had once been passed over for Cabinet material in favour of (Sir Francis) Hincks, and permanently obsessed by the Pacific Scandal.”
Hardly an endorsement. Still, Cartwright spent decades in the House (and later the Senate) and anchored the Liberal front bench for years and years. He also played a key role in advocating for free trade with the United States.
You can read more about this fascinating man at his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography at this link: www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cartwright_richard_john_14E.htmlArthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney's best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen's Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.