Canadian politician
Sir George Eulas Foster
|
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|
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|
In office
October 10, 1911 ? September 21, 1921
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Prime Minister
| Robert Borden
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Preceded by
| Richard John Cartwright
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Succeeded by
| Henry Herbert Stevens
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|
In office
May 29, 1888 ? July 8, 1896
|
Prime Minister
| John A. Macdonald
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Preceded by
| Charles Tupper
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Succeeded by
| William Stevens Fielding
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|
In office
December 10, 1885 ? May 28, 1888
|
Prime Minister
| John A. Macdonald
|
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Preceded by
| Archibald McLelan
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Succeeded by
| Charles Hibbert Tupper
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|
In office
September 22, 1921 ? December 30, 1931
|
Nominated by
| Arthur Meighen
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Appointed by
| The Lord Byng of Vimy
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|
In office
January 11, 1905 ? September 22, 1921
|
Preceded by
| District created in 1903
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Succeeded by
| Thomas Langton Church
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|
In office
August 19, 1896 ? February 6, 1901
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Preceded by
| Thomas Temple
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Succeeded by
| Alexander Gibson
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In office
February 8, 1883 ? August 19, 1896
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Preceded by
| James Domville
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Succeeded by
| James Domville
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Born
| (
1847-09-03
)
September 3, 1847
Carleton County, New Brunswick
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Died
| December 30, 1931
(1931-12-30)
(aged 84)
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Resting place
| Beechwood Cemetery
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Political party
| Conservative
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Spouses
|
Adeline Davis Chisholm
(
m.
; died
)
Jessie Allan
(
m.
1920)
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Education
| University of New Brunswick
(
B.A.
)
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|
Sir George Eulas Foster
,
PC
,
GCMG
(September 3, 1847 – December 30, 1931) was a Canadian politician and academic.
Foster was a
Member of Parliament
(MP) and a
Senator
in the Canadian Parliament for a total of 45 years, 5 months and 24 days. He enjoys the unique distinction of having served in the cabinets of seven
Canadian Prime Ministers
: Macdonald, Abbott, Thompson, Bowell, Tupper, Borden and Meighen.
He coined the phrase "
splendid isolation
" to praise British foreign policy in the late 19th century.
[1]
Two factors thwarted whatever ambitions he may have had to become Prime Minister himself: his legally questionable marriage in Chicago to his newly divorced former landlady,
[2]
and his later involvement in a trust company scandal.
[3]
Background
[
edit
]
Born in
Carleton County, New Brunswick
, Foster received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the
University of New Brunswick
in 1868.
He taught in various high schools and seminaries until 1870 when he was appointed Professor of
Classics
and Ancient Literature in the University of New Brunswick. He shortly afterwards studied in
Edinburgh, Scotland
, and
Heidelberg, Germany
, resuming his professorship in 1873. He resigned in 1879 and became a noted
temperance
lecturer.
[4]
Politics
[
edit
]
Foster entered politics with his election to the
House of Commons of Canada
in the
1882 federal election
as a
Conservative
MP representing
New Brunswick
. He joined the
Cabinet
of Sir
John A. Macdonald
as
Minister of Marine and Fisheries
in 1885, and was promoted to
Minister of Finance
in 1888. Foster retained this position after Macdonald's death and through the successive governments of Prime Ministers
Abbott
,
Thompson
,
Bowell
and
Tupper
. He led a group of seven cabinet ministers who resigned temporarily in January 1896 to force the retirement of Bowell, who denounced them as a 'nest of traitors'. Foster's debates with Sir
Richard Cartwright
, the former Liberal Minister of Finance under Prime Minister
Mackenzie
, are the stuff of Canadian Parliamentary legend.
With the defeat of the Tories in the
1896 election
, Foster retained his seat and joined the
Opposition
. He was a prominent supporter of Canada's involvement in the
Anglo-Boer War
from 1899 to 1901. He lost his seat in the
1900 election
but returned to parliament
in 1904
, this time representing the
riding
of
Toronto North
in
Ontario
. He remained an Opposition MP until his party returned to government in the
1911 federal election
under Sir
Robert Borden
and he continued in the government under
Arthur Meighen
.
During his final years in cabinet, Foster served as Minister of Trade and Commerce, and received a knighthood (KCMG) in 1914 for his work in the Royal Commission on Imperial Trade; he was named to the
Imperial Privy Council
in 1916 and elevated to GCMG in 1918.
[5]
He served as a Canadian delegate to the 1919
Versailles Peace Conference
. He was acting Prime Minister in 1920, when Borden was absent due to ill health. From 1920 to 1921, he was chairman of the Canadian delegation to the first assembly of the
League of Nations
. In 1921, he was appointed to the
Canadian Senate
in which he served until his death.
"Splendid isolation"
[
edit
]
Foster is known for coining the term "splendid isolation" in January 1896 when praising Britain's foreign policy of isolation from European affairs.
The term was popularized by
Lord Goschen
,
First Lord of the Admiralty
, during a speech at Lewes on 26 February 1896: "We have stood here alone in what is called isolation ? our splendid isolation, as one of our colonial friends was good enough to call it."
[6]
The phrase had appeared in a headline in
The Times
, on 22 January 1896, paraphrasing a comment by Foster to the
Parliament of Canada
on 16 January 1896: "In these somewhat troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe."
[6]
The ultimate origin of "splendid isolation" is suggested in Robert Hamilton's
Canadian Quotations and Phrases
,
[7]
which places the Foster quotation beneath a passage from the following paragraph from Cooney's
Compendious History of Northern New Brunswick and Gaspe
(reprinted in 1896) describing England's situation in 1809?1810 during the
Napoleonic Wars
:
In the midst of this terrific commotion, England stood erect: wrapt up in her own impregnability, the storm could not affect her: and therefore, while others trembled in its blast, she smiled at its fury. Never did the 'Empress Island' appear so magnificently grand; ? she stood by herself, and there was a peculiar splendour in the loneliness of her glory.
[8]
This, in turn, echoes the stoicism of
Marcus Aurelius
: "Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it."
[9]
Death and family
[
edit
]
His first wife was the ex-spouse of
Daniel Black Chisholm
, a former Liberal-Conservative Ontario MP, and his second wife was a daughter of
Sir William Allan
, a former British MP for Gateshead.
He died without issue. Foster and his first wife are buried in Ottawa's
Beechwood Cemetery
, near the grave of Sir
Cecil Spring Rice
.
[10]
Following his death, Foster's widow granted Canadian historian
William Stewart Wallace
permission to produce an authorized biography of her late husband. Wallace was provided manuscripts, papers, and diary entries handwritten by Foster, including an unfinished
autobiography
. Wallace's biography of Foster, titled
The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir George Foster,
was published in 1933.
[11]
Archives
[
edit
]
There is a George Foster
fonds
at
Library and Archives Canada
.
[12]
Electoral record
[
edit
]
By-election: On election being declared void
By-election: On Mr. Foster's acceptance of the office of Minister of Marine and Fisheries
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"How Did Alliances Contribute to WW1?"
.
historyjustgotinteresting.com
. Retrieved
13 April
2023
.
- ^
"Biography ? DAVIS, ADELINE ? Volume XIV (1911-1920) ? Dictionary of Canadian Biography"
.
www.biographi.ca
. Retrieved
22 October
2020
.
- ^
Augustus Bridle,
Sons of Canada: Short Studies of Characteristic Canadians
(Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1916) pp. 221-227.
- ^
"Matthew Heiti, "Sir George E. Foster" in
New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia
(Spring 2009), accessed December 21, 2015"
. Archived from
the original
on 22 December 2015
. Retrieved
21 December
2015
.
- ^
W. Stewart Wallace,
The Memoirs of The Rt. Hon. Sir George Foster, P.C., G.C.M.G.
(Toronto: Macmillan, 1933) pp. 174, 179, 189.
- ^
a
b
Angela Partington,
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
(4th ed. 1992).
- ^
Robert M. Hamilton.
Canadian Quotations and Phrases: Literary and Historical
(McClelland and Stewart, 1952).
- ^
Robert Cooney,
Compendious History of Northern New Brunswick and Gaspe
(1832) p. 8, reprinted 1896.
- ^
Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations
(1862) transl. George Long, Book IV.
- ^
"Jacques Faille, "The fascinating lives of Sir George Eulas and Lady Adeline Foster" in
The Beechwood Way
, vol. 8, issue 30 (Summer 2013), pp. 4-5, accessed December 21, 2015"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 22 December 2015
. Retrieved
22 October
2020
.
- ^
Wallace, William (1933).
The Memoirs of The Rt. Hon. Sir George Foster P.C., G.C.M.G
. Toronto: Macmillan. p. v.
- ^
"George Foster fonds, Library and Archives Canada"
. Retrieved
3 September
2020
.
External links
[
edit
]
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Ministers of Marine and Fisheries (1867?1930)
1
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Ministers of Fisheries (1930?69)
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Minister of Fisheries and Forestry (1969?71)
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Ministers of the Environment (1971?76)
2
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Ministers of State (Fisheries) (1974?76)
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Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (1976?79)
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Ministers of Fisheries and Oceans
(1979?2015)
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Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard
(2015?)
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1
The office of Minister of Marine and Fisheries was abolished and the offices of Minister of Fisheries and Minister of Marine were created in 1930. The Minister of Marine office was a precursor to the Minister of Transport.
2
From 1971 to 1976 the Minister of the Environment was also the Minister of Fisheries.
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Ministers of Trade and Commerce (1892?1969)
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Ministers of Industry (1963?69)
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Ministers of Industry, Trade and Commerce (1969?83)
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Minister of State for International Trade (1979?80)
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Minister of State (Trade) (1980?82)
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Ministers of State (International Trade) (1982?83)
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Ministers of International Trade (1983?2018)
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Minister of International Trade Diversification (2018?)
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International
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National
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Other
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