====== Maclennan, James ====== (17 March 1833-8 or 9 June 1915), judge. (Justice Maclennan, Judge Maclennan) Born in Lancaster Township, GC, probably in the 3rd Concession Parents: Roderick Maclennan or McLennan, a native of Scotland, and his wife Mary Macpherson. He attended Williamstown Grammar School and Queen’s University (B. A., 1849), and studied law in Kingston under the direction of Alexander Campbell (later Sir Alexander Campbell), who has a place in Canadian history as the law partner and intimate, long-term political associate of Sir John A. Macdonald. Maclennan was called to the bar in 1857. He practised law in Hamilton for two years, then in Feb. 1860 became the law partner in Toronto of Oliver Mowat (later Sir Oliver Mowat), who was to be premier of Ontario from 1872 to 1896: virtually a quarter century. The law firm Mowat and Maclennan (the title varied) continued until Maclennan was appointed a justice of appeal in the Supreme Court of Judicature of Ontario in 1888. On 5 Oct. 1905, Maclennan was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. He retired as a Supreme Court judge on 13 Feb. 1909. He campaigned in the summer of 1867 to become the MLA for GC but withdrew from the contest before nomination day. (The victor at the polls was James Craig.) The editor of the //Freeholder//, who strongly opposed Maclennan’s involvement in the GC campaign, sharply criticized him for issuing a printed election address, a thing which, so far as the editor knew, had never before been done in GC. (//Cornwall Freeholder// 12 July-30 Aug. 1867. He is said (though not consistently in the sources) to have been defeated as a candidate for the GC constituency in the Ontario general election of 1871; R. R. (Big Rory) McLennan has also been named as the Maclennan who was the unlucky candidate in this contest. James Maclennan was elected to the House of Commons for Victoria North in 1874, but the election was afterwards voided; he was re-elected for the same constituency at a by-election in Dec. of the same year, but again the election was voided; and in the election of 1878 he was defeated in that constituency. But if he was unsuccessful in politics, elsewhere honours and achievements, and opportunties for public service, flowed freely. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Queen’s University at various times from the 1870s till his death, and he was chairman of the board from 1890 to 1912. He was also a senator of the University of Toronto, 1892 to 1902. He was variously a lieutenant in the militia, the president of the Gaelic Society of Toronto, a member of the Board of Public Instruction, a member of the Educational Council of Ontario, a vice-president of the Ontario Conservatory of Music, and a member of the board of directors of the Toronto //Globe//. He was made a Q. C. in 1873, and received the degree of LL. D. from Queen’s University in 1885. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He was the author of James Maclennan, ed., //The Ontario Judicature Act, 1881// (Toronto, 1881; pp. 542; another edition, Toronto, 1884; pp. 818). He was executor of the will of Robert Sutherland (d. 1878, aged 48), a Walkerton, Ont., lawyer who was one of the earliest blacks to attend Queen’s University, and who left to Queen’s what was, for its day, a very large bequest. Maclennan died at his home in Toronto. On his death, the Toronto //Globe// exuberantly wrote that this child “of Highland Scottish parents… inherited the shrewdness of judgment and integrity of character which are characteristic of his race… He was one of the greatest jurists of his time.” The //Globe// added that when he was “before the Bar he enjoyed an immense practice, and is said to have amassed a fortune.” In politics, he was a Liberal. By his will, he left $500 to the Lancaster Public Library. (//Cornwall Standard// 19 Aug. 1915) He was married (1) in 1862 to Elizabeth McGill, and (2) in 1905 to Mary L. Strange. (possibly children, but none surviving him, both marriages) He was the brother of John Maclennan, sheriff of Victoria County. He was the uncle of James Dingwall and of William Stewart the blind lawyer of Lancaster. Another nephew, Dr Duncan Neil Maclennan, born at Port Hope, Ont., was resident house surgeon at the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, London, and resident chief medical officer, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, Golden Square, London, before establishing his medical practice in Toronto. ---- //Cornwall Standard// 17 June 1915 (largely from Toronto //Globe//) * Johnson (1968) * Morgan (1898) 708, Morgan (1912) 710-711 (lives of two of his nephews Roderick James Maclennan, a lawyer, and Dr Duncan Neil Maclennan also on these pp.) * Ross, //Lancaster//, 267 * A. Margaret Evans, //Sir Oliver Mowat// (1992): index * mentioned //Dictionary of Canadian Biography//, XIII, 727, 730 * Rose, i, 749 (family history in life of his nephew James Dingwall) * Roderick Lewis, 94 * Campbell, Tannis, & Stewart, //MacDougalls//, 170, 174 * Robert Sutherland: //QAR// (July-Aug. 1975) 20-21 * gives Lancaster Public Library a set of //Encyclopedia Britannica//, //Glengarry News// 15 April 1904 * retires as Supreme Court judge, //GN// 12 Feb. 1909 * commemorated at Queen’s University, //Cornwall Freeholder// 14 Feb. 1924 [<6>]