John Wilson, (February 5, 1807 – June 3, 1869) was an

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

lawyer, judge and political figure. He shot and killed Robert Lyon in what is believed to have been the last duel fought in Ontario and the last fatal duel in

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. He was born in

Paisley, Renfrewshire Paisley ( ; sco, Paisley, gd, Pàislig ) is a large town situated in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. Located north of the Gleniffer Braes, the town borders the city of Glasgow to the east, and straddles the banks of the White Cart Wate ...

, Scotland in 1807 and settled in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

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 ...

with his family around 1823. He studied law in Perth with

James Boulton James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

. The duel was fought on June 13, 1833 over comments that Lyon, another law student, had made against the character of a Miss Elizabeth Hughes (who Wilson later married). Wilson and his second were charged with murder but acquitted. He was called to the Upper Canada bar in 1835, joined Boulton's practice at

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and later set up his own practice at

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. He helped organize local resistance against the

Upper Canada Rebellion The Upper Canada Rebellion was an insurrection against the oligarchic government of the British colony of Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) in December 1837. While public grievances had existed for years, it was the rebellion in Lower Canada (p ...

and was named a captain in the militia in 1838. Wilson served as warden for the

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from 1842 to 1844 and also served as solicitor for the city of London. He was elected to the

Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada was the lower house of the legislature for the Province of Canada, which consisted of the former provinces of Lower Canada, then known as Canada East and later the province of Quebec, and Upper C ...

in an 1847 by-election as a Conservative and then was reelected in 1848 and 1854. In 1856, Wilson was named

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

. He was elected to the Legislative Council for St. Clair division in 1863 but was named judge in the Court of Common Pleas a few months later. He sentenced seven

Fenian The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...

s captured during the Fenian raids to death, but these sentences were commuted. Wilson died in Westminster Township in 1869. Other sources, however, agree that it was the last duel in Ontario which was then known as

, but not the last fatal duel in what is now the country of Canada. For example,

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and the

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

refer to documents that state that the last fatal duel occurred on 22 May 1838, in Quebec, then known as

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...

, between British officer Major Henry Warde and lawyer Robert Sweeney; Warde was wounded and subsequently died.

References

External links

Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''''The lives of the judges of Upper Canada and Ontario : from 1791 to the present time'', D.B. Read (1888)The Duel of 1833 - Lanark County Genealogical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, John 1807 births 1869 deaths Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from Canada West Canadian judges People from Perth, Ontario Scottish emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario Canadian duellists People of the Fenian raids Speakers of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada Canadian King's Counsel Immigrants to Upper Canada 19th-century Canadian judges