Controversy followed Canada’s late Prime Minister, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, even after he died. On this date in 1918 the Kingston Whig-Standard reported there was a dispute over Bowell’s will that would soon be decided in court. The fifth Prime Minister had, of course, passed into history the previous December at the ripe old age of 93. The headline to the paper’s story was: “Litigation over Plate Presented to Sir Mackenzie Bowell in Riel Case.”
“When Sir Mackenzie Bowell died he willed that three family oil paintings and a service of sliver valued at some $1,100 should remain in possession of his daughter, Mrs. Evelyn Margaret McCarthy, while she lived at the family homestead, after which it was to pass to his son, John Moore Bowell, and then to his namesake, Mackenzie Bowell. There is some doubt as to what becomes of the silver plate, and application is being made to Justice Bose for an Interpretation of the will.”
“The service has a peculiar interest as, according to the will, it was presented to Sir Mackenzie Bowell, ‘for the course pursued by me while a member of the House of Commons in the conduct of the Investigation, and in moving the expulsion of Louis Riel (the murderer of (Thomas) Scott, brother Orangeman) from the House of Commons, of which he was then a member.”
So far, I have not been able to discover via my research how the case eventually played out. Perhaps one of the readers of Art’s History might be able to report the whereabouts of this fascinating piece of Canadian political history? Over to you.
Arthur 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.