George Sylvester Tiffany (1805–1856) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was born in 1805 at Ancaster, Upper Canada. He married Eliza Anne Strange, and they had one son and four daughters. He was mayor of

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

in 1848 and died in 1856. He is buried at St. John's Anglican Churchyard in Ancaster. The Tiffany family was prominent in Ancaster. His father George was a lawyer, his uncle Oliver a physician, and his uncles Sylvester and Gideon were the publishers of the ''Upper Canada Gazette'' from 1794 to 1798 and the ''Canada Constellation'', the first independent newspaper in

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...

, from 1799 to 1800. Tiffany was educated at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, prior to opening a large practice in Hamilton on Hughson Street S. In 1845 he became a director of the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

, whose president was Sir

Allan MacNab Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet (19 February 1798 – 8 August 1862) was a Canadian political leader who served as joint Premier of the Province of Canada from 1854 to 1856. Early life He was born in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) to All ...

. He borrowed heavily from his uncle Oliver's estate to finance speculation in real estate related to the railway line and, along with MacNab, profited by buying land along the waterfront where the Great Western yards were established. Tiffany Street, named after him, is located in this area. He was also a stockholder in the London and Gore Railway. Tiffany participated in the community in several capacities. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment of Gore Militia 13 December 1838. Tiffany was a Reformer and took prominent role in an 1839 meeting of Hamilton Reformers that recommended more self-government for the colony. In 1843 he was a member of the board of examiners appointed by Hamilton's board of police to find suitable teachers and temporary schoolhouses in the town's five common school districts, in accordance with the requirement of the Common School Act of 1843. Tiffany served as mayor of Hamilton in 1848, and in 1855 was a trustee of a corporation which tried unsuccessfully to establish a college in Hamilton. An Anglican, he was at first a pew-holder in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church but left it in 1837 after the construction of Christ's Church, the first Anglican place of worship in Hamilton. A

freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

, he became affiliated with Barton

Lodge Lodge is originally a term for a relatively small building, often associated with a larger one. Lodge or The Lodge may refer to: Buildings and structures Specific * The Lodge (Australia), the official Canberra residence of the Prime Ministe ...

9 September 1846.

References

*Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol I, 1791–1875); Thomas Melville Bailey; W.L. Griffin Ltd, (1981); Pg:196-197

External links

* Biography of his Uncle Sylvester Tiffany * Biography of his Uncle Gideon Tiffany 1805 births 1856 deaths Mayors of Hamilton, Ontario {{Ontario-mayor-stub