1880 in Canada

Decades:	1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s;
See also:	History of Canada; Timeline of Canadian history; List of years in Canada;

Events from the year 1880 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

Monarch – Victoria^[1]

Federal government

Governor General – John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne
Prime Minister – John A. Macdonald
Chief Justice – William Johnstone Ritchie (New Brunswick)
Parliament – 4th

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Albert Norton Richards
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Joseph-Édouard Cauchon
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – Edward Barron Chandler (until February 6) then Robert Duncan Wilmot (from February 11)
Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Adams George Archibald
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Donald Alexander Macdonald (until July 1) then John Beverley Robinson
Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Thomas Heath Haviland
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Théodore Robitaille

Premiers

Territorial governments

Lieutenant governors

Events

February 4 – Five members of the Donnelly family are killed near Lucan, Ontario.
February 14 – The wife of the governor general, The Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, is seriously injured when the viceregal sleigh overturns on a Rudolph Ottawa street.
March 25 – George Brown fatally shot by a disgruntled employee.
May 4 – Edward Blake becomes the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
June 24 – "O Canada" first performed.
July 16 – The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is established.
October 9 – The United Kingdom gives Canada control of the Arctic Archipelago.

Full date unknown

Emily Stowe becomes the first woman doctor to practise medicine in Canada
Sanford Fleming becomes chancellor of Queen's University
Bell Canada founded
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). British-backed Canadian firm, headed by US railroad building genius (Sir William Cornelius Van Horne) gets the deal: $25 million, 25 million acres (100,000 km²), already completed sections free, all under-construction sections finished free, 20 year monopoly as only railway and 20-year control over rate-setting.
The Varsity, created.

Arts and literature

March 6 – The Royal Academy for the Arts is founded.

New books

Charles G.D. Roberts, Orion and Other Poems

Births

January 17 – Mack Sennett, actor, producer, screenwriter and film director (d.1960)
January 18 – Richard Squires, politician and Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d.1940)
March 22 – Allison Dysart, politician, lawyer, judge and 21st Premier of New Brunswick (d.1962)
April 13 – Charles Christie, motion picture studio owner (d.1955)
August 6 – Leland Payson Bancroft, politician (d.1951)
August 12 – Jacob Penner, politician (d.1965)
August 14 – Percival Molson, athlete and soldier (d.1917)
August 29 – Marie-Louise Meilleur, supercentenarian, the oldest validated Canadian ever (d.1998)
October 12 – Healey Willan, organist and composer (d.1968)
October 27 – Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough, businessman, politician and Governor General of Canada (d.1956)

Deaths

January 19 – James Westcott, American-born United States Senator from Florida from 1845 till 1849 (born 1802)
February 6 – Edward Barron Chandler, politician (b.1800)
May 9 – George Brown, journalist, politician and one of the Fathers of the Confederation (b.1818)
June 12 – William Evan Price, businessman and politician (b.1827)
October 8 – Caleb Hopkins, farmer and politician (b.1785)
October 18 – Luc-Hyacinthe Masson, physician, businessman and politician (b.1811)
December 8 – Charles Fisher, politician and 1st Premier of the Colony of New Brunswick (b.1808)
December 24 – David Christie, politician (b.1818)

Historical documents

Statute creates Canadian Pacific Railway as government-supported private company for benefit of B.C. and N.W.T.^[2]

Chief Ocean Man and another Nakoda (Stoney) describe attack on their people by Gros Ventre and Mandan from U.S. side of border^[3]

British order-in-council transfers Arctic islands to Dominion of Canada ^[4]

Using words like "terrible evil" and "usurpation," Anti-Chinese Association petitions British Columbia legislature to stop Chinese immigration^[5]

Editorial on complaints of French-Canadians^[6]

Walt Whitman calls Thousand Islands most beautiful place on Earth^[7]

To avoid bankruptcy caused by westward expansion, Canada must declare independence^[8]

Britain gifts part of HMS Resolute to U.S. for saving that Arctic exploration ship ^[9]

Painting: Trapper approaches animal caught in leghold trap^[10]

References

^ "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
^ An Act Respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Accessed 14 October 2019
^ "No. 343; (letter of) Sir Edward Thornton to Mr. (Wm. M.) Evarts(, Department of State, Washington)" Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States[....] (1882), pgs. 570-72. Accessed 8 December 2019 Subsequent correspondence
^ Gordon W. Smith, "The Transfer of Arctic Territories from Great Britain to Canada(...)" Journal of the Arctic Institute of North America, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1961), pgs. 62-3. Accessed 14 October 2019
^ "Petition" (April 12, 1880), University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 16 June 2024
^ "A Morbid Nationalism" Canadian Illustrated News (November 11, 1880), pg. 2. Accessed 27 September 2019
^ Walt Whitman's Diary in Canada (1904), pgs. 24-5. Accessed 27 September 2019
^ William Norris, "Canadian Nationality; A Present-Day Plea" Rose-Belford's Canadian Monthly and National Review (February 1880), pgs. 113-18. Accessed 23 April 2020
^ United States Department of State, Index to the Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the Third Session of the Forty-Sixth Congress, 1880-'81 (No. 354, August 26, 1880), pg. 525. Accessed 27 September 2019
^ Harry Bullock-Webster, "Got 'im at last; Fort McLeod 1880" (Fort McLeod, B.C.). Accessed 27 June 2021

[1] "Queen Victoria | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 5 December 2022.

[2] An Act Respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Accessed 14 October 2019

[3] "No. 343; (letter of) Sir Edward Thornton to Mr. (Wm. M.) Evarts(, Department of State, Washington)" Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States[....] (1882), pgs. 570-72. Accessed 8 December 2019 Subsequent correspondence

[4] Gordon W. Smith, "The Transfer of Arctic Territories from Great Britain to Canada(...)" Journal of the Arctic Institute of North America, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1961), pgs. 62-3. Accessed 14 October 2019

[5] "Petition" (April 12, 1880), University of British Columbia Library. Accessed 16 June 2024

[6] "A Morbid Nationalism" Canadian Illustrated News (November 11, 1880), pg. 2. Accessed 27 September 2019

[7] Walt Whitman's Diary in Canada (1904), pgs. 24-5. Accessed 27 September 2019

[8] William Norris, "Canadian Nationality; A Present-Day Plea" Rose-Belford's Canadian Monthly and National Review (February 1880), pgs. 113-18. Accessed 23 April 2020

[9] United States Department of State, Index to the Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the Third Session of the Forty-Sixth Congress, 1880-'81 (No. 354, August 26, 1880), pg. 525. Accessed 27 September 2019

[10] Harry Bullock-Webster, "Got 'im at last; Fort McLeod 1880" (Fort McLeod, B.C.). Accessed 27 June 2021

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