# Canadian aristocracy, did such a thing exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775 "2016-12-28T14:11:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/21 "2016-12-29T12:55:11Z")
None of which stopped us from naming slews of schools/hospitals etc after various Aristocrats. I attended Lord Durham Public school, around the corner from Lord Elgin PS. At the top of the street I currently live on is Lord Roberts PS. Etc, etc, on endlessly! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/22 "2016-12-29T14:26:35Z")
I live a few blocks from what was once D’Arcy McGee Secondary School. It was converted to apartments/condos some time ago. I never attended it myself but had friends who did. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/23 "2016-12-29T14:28:42Z")
Lord Durham and Lord Elgin were both Governors-General and both made substantial contributions to the development of democracy in Canada. Sent by the British government to investigate the 1837 rebellions, Lord Durham essentially found that there were legitimate political grievances. He recommended that the British government implement responsible government in British North America, greatly reducing the role of the Governor-General and the Lieutenant Governors, appointed by the British government. Ten years later, Lord Elgin implemented Lord Durham’s recommendation for responsible government by granting royal assent to the _Rebellion Losses Act_,at some personal risk to his own safety: angry rioters opposed to the bill threw stones at his carriage, then burnt down the Parliament building. As a result of those two aristocrats, the principle that the Crown’s representative acts solely on the advice of the elected local governement was firmly established. It’s the foundation of our modern democratic system and has never been questioned since. Yeah, I think we could name a school or two after them. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/24 "2016-12-29T14:49:54Z")
I am aware of their contributions, and got no complaint about naming things after them, AT ALL. :dubious: My remark was simply that while we didn’t have aristocrats we have memorialized many of them, many times over, is all. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2016, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/25 "2016-12-29T14:50:11Z")
And ‘Bobs’ was a great general, if not a pleasant man ( he was frightened of cats, which is a sure sign of bad character ). > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The closest I can think of to that was the Seigneurial system in Quebec, where the Seigneur had certain hereditary, almost feudal rights. Paralleled by the Patroon system in New York state. Started by WIC, patroons had many privileges, which continued into the 19th century ( long possession of land creates aristocratical outlook and control anyway, regardless of legal recognition ). Formally abolished by the British, which drove them to the rebel side; and after which revolution was complete, the revolutionaries confirmed the British decision. ( Dutch names are still considered American aristocratic in New York society. ) ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/26 "2016-12-30T06:03:59Z")
Hmm. No mention of the [Baronetage of Nova Scotia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baronetcies_in_the_Baronetage_of_Nova_Scotia) ? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/27 "2016-12-30T09:06:57Z")
Those were created by James VI to encourage settlement in the Scottish colony of Nova Scotia. Scottish men of means who pledged to provide financial support to a certain number of colonists could become baronets of Nova Scotia. However, it was never expected of them that they would actually _move_ to Nova Scotia. Good heavens, no! That was just for peasants and crofters, not for gentleman. The baronets got to be called “Sir” and wear a special insignia when they attended the Scottish court. The baronets were simply a sub-set of Scottish nationalists nobility. They didn’t have any special political powers in Nova Scotia, or actually have any real connection to Nova Scotia, any more than Earl Alexander of Tunis, Baron Byng of Vimy, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, or Earl Mountbatten of Burma had to the places commemorated in their titles. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/28 "2016-12-30T09:36:16Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > A few were big landowners or from prominent families, but most weren’t. Who are you thinking of, [Captain Amazing\*\*? There was John William Ritchie, who was certainly of a prominent family (you couldn’t throw a brick at major public functions in Halifax or Saint John without hitting a Ritchie 🙂 ), but they got that way through a mixture of business and law (two Ritchies on the Supreme Court, one in the diplomatic service, etc.). But I’m having trouble thinking of a major land-holding Father of Confederation? > **[John William Ritchie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Ritchie)** > > John William Ritchie (March 26, 1808 – December 13 or 18, 1890) was a Canadian lawyer and politician from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia who is one of the Fathers of Confederation. > Appointed to the Nova Scotia legislative council as Solicitor General in 1864, he was a delegate to the London Conference on Canadian Confederation and as such is considered one of the Fathers of Confederation. Appointed to the Senate of Canada in 1867, he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia from 1873 to 188... ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/29 "2016-12-30T10:07:46Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > or actually have any real connection to Nova Scotia, Up to a point… I recall a large flat paperback from the 1830s I had which detailed the author’s struggle to recover the Earldom of Sterling founded by the great King. Non-fiction ( _but…_ ) Sterling is in the centre of Scotland. **[Earl of Stirling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Stirling)**: _It was created on 14 June 1633 for William Alexander, 1st Viscount of Stirling. He had already been created a Baronet, of Menstrie in the County of Clackmannan, in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia on 12 July 1625, Lord Alexander of Tullibody and Viscount of Stirling on 4 September 1630 and was made Lord Alexander of Tullibody and Viscount of Canada at the same time as he was granted the earldom. The other peerage titles were also in the Peerage of Scotland._ The title lapsed in the 18th century, although an American revolutionary general, **[Lord Sterling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Alexander,_Lord_Stirling)** descendant of a Jacobite father, made a denied claim — as he died 1783, he would not have been the author of my book, maybe an ancestor… - the court case against Alexander Humphrys-Alexander (1783–1859) filed in 1839 ruled that the documents in support of such case were forgeries.\* _The case and the associated forgery was one inspiration for the very popular three-volume novel Ten Thousand a Year, by Samuel Warren. Warren also wrote directly of the case in his “Miscellanies”, titling the article “The Romance of Forgery”. There Warren stated that the Earl of Stirling had the right to create Nova Scotia baronets._ However the **[1st Earl,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Alexander,_1st_Earl_of_Stirling)** friend of his master and lord, Charles I, was a fine man, and **did** for a while reside in Nova Scotia. Or at least his son did, Wiki is unclear: \*He briefly established a Scottish settlement at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, led by his son William Alexander (the younger). However the effort cost him most of his fortune, and when the region—now Canada’s three Maritime Provinces and the state of Maine—was returned to France in 1632, it was lost. He spent his later years with limited means, and died in London on 12 September 1640. However Alexander’s settlement provided the basis for British claims to Nova Scotia and his baronets provided the Coat of arms of Nova Scotia and Flag of Nova Scotia which are still in use today. \* Many a man is ruined by the conclusion of a peace. However his King did him a favour and told the little wretches of the Providence Company [puritan] to give him Long Island. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/30 "2016-12-30T14:42:32Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Having never lived in Canada, but visiting Vancouver 20 years ago as a kid and getting stuck on Victoria island because no one told my cousin and I the ferry stops running late at night, I have special insight on the question of Canadian royalty. I think you mean [Vancouver Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island). [Victoria Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Island_%28Canada%29) is thousands of kilometres away, in the Arctic Ocean, and isn’t connected by ferry to Vancouver. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/31 "2016-12-30T15:03:49Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Who are you thinking of, [Captain Amazing\*\*? There was John William Ritchie, who was certainly of a prominent family (you couldn’t throw a brick at major public functions in Halifax or Saint John without hitting a Ritchie 🙂 ), but they got that way through a mixture of business and law (two Ritchies on the Supreme Court, one in the diplomatic service, etc.). But I’m having trouble thinking of a major land-holding Father of Confederation? > > [John William Ritchie - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Ritchie) I think I was thinking mostly of Alexander Tilloch Galt, who was related somehow to the founder of the Allen Shipping line. Second cousin or something? Also, wasn’t Andrew McDonald descended from some Scottish Laird who led his people to PEI during the Highland Clearances? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/32 "2016-12-31T07:16:38Z")
Galt and Hugh Allen were first cousins (more Scots!), but Allen himself was an immigrant to Canada who built up his tremendous shipping line: at the time of his death it was the largest privately owned shipping line in the world. He built it on the foundations of a business begun by his father in Scotland, but looking at his wiki biography, he appears to have started in the business at a young age and steadily expanded it through his own business acumen. So, a very rich cousin to Galt, but I wouldn’t think someone who steadily built a commercial empire would qualify as nobility or aristocracy. And, no apparent ties to British nobility. > **[Hugh Allan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Allan)** > > Sir Hugh Allan (September 29, 1810 – December 9, 1882) was a Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate, financier and capitalist. By the time of his death, the Allan Shipping Line had become the largest privately owned shipping empire in the world. He was responsible for transporting millions of British immigrants to Canada, and the businesses that he established from Montreal filtered across every sphere of Canadian life, cementing his reputation as an empire builder. His home, Ravenscrag, was the prin... With respect to MacDonald of PEI, I agree you are correct that he came from a locally prominent land-holding family. The bio in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography goes into more detail than the wiki article. I wasn’t aware of that background. Even so, his family was heavily involved in business and he himself went to work at age 15 in a store. That kind of background isn’t usually considered aristocratic. Thanks for pointing that family background out. > **[Biography – MACDONALD, ANDREW ARCHIBALD – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary...](http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macdonald_andrew_archibald_14E.html)** > > MACDONALD, ANDREW ARCHIBALD, merchant, politician, and office holder; b. 14 Feb. 1829 at Brudenell Point, P.E.I., eldest child of Hugh Macdonald and Catharine Macdonald; m. 25 Nov. 1863 Elizabeth Lee Owen\* in Georgetown, P.E.I.,... ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775/33 "2017-01-01T20:21:11Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The baronets got to be called “Sir” and wear a special insignia when they attended the Scottish court. They also got 18 square miles of land (each) in Nova Scotia with extensive territorial, seigneurial, and commercial rights. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The baronets were simply a sub-set of Scottish nationalists nobility. Well, Nova Scotia _was_ part of the county of Edinburgh…🙂 > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > They didn’t have any special political powers in Nova Scotia, or actually have any real connection to Nova Scotia… Sir William Alexander (the Lieutenant-General) was granted powers in Nova Scotia not far short of those of a king, and those powers were hereditary. The baronets were intended to form a ruling class under him and his heirs. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > …any more than Earl Alexander of Tunis, Baron Byng of Vimy, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, or Earl Mountbatten of Burma had to the places commemorated in their titles. Well, maybe a closer parallel would be the Ulster Baronetcies after which the Nova Scotia baronetcies were modeled… I recognize that the Hereditary Lieutenant Generalship of Sir William Alexander and the Baronetage of Nova Scotia is not much of an affirmative answer to the OP (Did Canada ever have a royal upper class?), but in my understanding this was because of the abortive nature of the enterprise (financial difficulties of settlement, the British losing control of the area to the French), not because an aristocratic upper class was not the plan (or - arguably - did not briefly exist, in embryo). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-aristocracy-did-such-a-thing-exist/775775.md?page=1)