Memorable Manitobans: Thomas Mayne Daly (1852-1911)

Lawyer, Mayor of Brandon (1882, 1884), MP (1887-1891), MP (1891-1896), judge.

Born in Stratford, Canada West, 16 August 1852, the second son of Thomas Mayne Daly and Helen, daughter of Peter Ferguson. He was educated at Upper Canada College, called to the Bar in 1876, and created a Q.C. in 1890. In 1879 he married Margaret Annabella [Arabella?], daughter of P. R. Jarvis of Stratford. They had two children. He came west in 1881 to Brandon, and was Brandon’s first Mayor, elected in 1882 and re-elected in 1884. He served as a Bencher for the Law Society of Manitoba.

Daly was first elected to the House of Commons in 1887, as Conservative member for Selkirk constituency, and served as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Indian Affairs from 1892-1896. He strongly supported western settlement, and introduced in 1893 the North West Immigration Act. A supporter of Mackenzie Bowell, he was left out of the cabinet in the reshuffle that accompanied Charles Tupper’s assumption of the prime minister’s position in 1896. In 1896 he went to England and France to make arrangements for re-organization of government policy on immigration. While in England he served as a delegate to the Third Commercial Congress held in London.

Rather than run in the 1896 election, he removed briefly to Rossland, BC. He soon returned to Manitoba, came to Winnipeg in 1902, and in 1903 formed a law partnership with J. M. Crichton, later the firm of Daly, Crichton, McClure and Cohen. He was a founding member of the St. Charles Country Club, in 1905. He contested the Brandon seat in 1908 and was defeated by Clifford Sifton and the Liberals by 69 votes. He was appointed Police Magistrate in 1904. When the Juvenile Court was organized in 1909 he became its first Judge. At the time of his death it was said—“a fitting memorial is the new Children’s Hospital for whose existence the late [Judge] Daly was largely responsible.”

He wrote The Canadian Spirit of the Northwest (1907), Canadian Criminal Procedure (1911), and The Magistrate’s Manual (1911).

Daly died in Winnipeg on 24 June 1911. He is commemorated by Daly Street in Winnipeg, Daly Crescent in Brandon, and the Rural Municipality of Daly in Manitoba. His Brandon home is operated as Daly House Museum.

See also:

The First Juvenile Court Judge: The Honourable Thomas Mayne Daly KC by Roy St. George Stubbs
MHS Transactions, Series 3, Number 25, 1968-69 Season

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Daly House Museum (122 Eighteenth Street, Brandon)

Manitoba Municipalities: Rural Municipality of Daly

Thomas Mayne Daly, Dictionary of Canadian Biography XIV, 265-66.

Sources:

A History of Manitoba: Its Resources and People by Prof. George Bryce, Toronto: The Canadian History Company, 1906.

Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 17 December 2011

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