Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, passed into history on this date in 1950. PM for almost 22 years, his political longevity will likely never be surpassed. His life and Premiership is perhaps the most chronicled of all Canada’s past leaders thanks to the massive personal diary he wrote, one that continues to fascinate all those who have delved into its pages.
King died at his country estate, Kingsmere, and been retired from the Premiership for only two-years, having made way as Liberal leader and PM for Louis St.-Laurent in 1948.
This year is, of course, the 150th anniversary of King’s birth and you can expect more entries on Art’s History as his birthday in December gets closer.
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.