Ogle Robert Gowan (July 13, 1803 – August 21, 1876) was a farmer, Orangeman, journalist and political figure 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 ...

and

Canada West The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on the ...

. He was born in

County Wexford County Wexford ( ga, Contae Loch Garman) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Southern Region. Named after the town of Wexford, it was based on the historic Gaelic territory of Hy Kinsella (''Uí Ceinns ...

, Ireland in 1803, the son of Hunter Gowan, an Orangeman and small landowner and godson of

George Ogle George Ogle (14 October 1742 – 10 August 1814) was an Irish Tory politician. Life He was born 14 October 1742, the only child of George Ogle (1704–1746). He was brought up at Rossminoge, near Camolin, County Wexford, under the care of ...

, a grand master of the Irish Orange Order. Hunter Gowan led a

yeomanry Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Army, British Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Army Reserve, descended from volunteer British Cavalry, cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units serve in a variety of ...

corps known as the "Black Mob" which was accused of committing atrocities against Catholic civilians before and after the outbreak of the

Wexford Rebellion The Wexford Rebellion refers to the outbreak in County Wexford, Ireland in May 1798 of the Society of United Irishmen's rebellion against the British rule. It was the most successful and most destructive of all the uprisings that occurred throu ...

; he remains a hate-figure in local nationalist tradition. In 1825, when the Irish Orange lodges were dissolved, Ogle Gowan became assistant secretary for Sir Harcourt Lees' Benevolent and Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland. He arrived in

Leeds County Leeds County is a historic county in the Canadian province of Ontario. The county was first surveyed in 1792 as one of the nineteen counties created by Sir John Graves Simcoe in preparation for the United Empire Loyalists to settle here. The count ...

, Upper Canada in 1829 and settled in

Brockville Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...

. In 1830, he called a meeting which formed the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America; Gowan became its deputy grand master and later became Canadian grand master. Gowan was elected to the

Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada The Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada was the elected part of the legislature for the province of Upper Canada, functioning as the lower house in the Parliament of Upper Canada. Its legislative power was subject to veto by the appointed Lis ...

for

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

in 1834 and 1835 but was unseated due to violence at the polls by his Orange supporters. In 1836, he was elected in Leeds; despite his innate distrust of Roman Catholics, he had formed an alliance with Catholic voters to help bolster his support at the polls. In the same year, he founded the ''Brockville Statesman''. During the

Lower Canada Rebellion The Lower Canada Rebellion (french: rébellion du Bas-Canada), commonly referred to as the Patriots' War () in French, is the name given to the armed conflict in 1837–38 between rebels and the colonial government of Lower Canada (now southe ...

of 1837, he helped raise a company of volunteers which also fought at the

Battle of the Windmill :''The "Battle of the Windmill" is also a fictional battle in the book Animal Farm.'' The Battle of the Windmill was a battle fought in November 1838 in the aftermath of the Upper Canada Rebellion. Loyalist forces of the Upper Canadian government ...

. After the rebellion, Gowan declared his support for responsible government and the division of the

clergy reserve Clergy reserves were tracts of land in Upper Canada and Lower Canada reserved for the support of "Protestant clergy" by the Constitutional Act of 1791. One-seventh of all surveyed Crown lands were set aside, totaling and respectively for each Pro ...

s among all recognized religious groups in the province. In 1844, he was elected to the

2nd Parliament of the Province of Canada The 2nd Parliament of the Province of Canada was summoned in 1844, following the general elections for the Legislative Assembly in October 1844. It first met on November 28, 1844. It was dissolved in December 1847. All sessions were held at Mon ...

for Leeds and Grenville. In the assembly, he supported

John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...

against the interests of the

Family Compact The Family Compact was a small closed group of men who exercised most of the political, economic and judicial power in Upper Canada (today’s Ontario) from the 1810s to the 1840s. It was the Upper Canadian equivalent of the Château Clique in L ...

. In 1846, he was replaced by George Benjamin as grand master of the Orange Order in Canada. He helped lead the Orange opposition to the

Rebellion Losses Bill The Rebellion Losses Bill (full name: ''An Act to provide for the Indemnification of Parties in Lower Canada whose Property was destroyed during the Rebellion in the years 1837 and 1838'') was a controversial law enacted by the legislature of ...

in Canada West. In 1849, he stated his support for an elected Legislative Council. In 1852, he moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

where he served on city council in 1853 and 1854 and took over the publishing of the ''Toronto Patriot'', formerly a Family Compact newspaper. In 1853, he regained the position of grand master, but Benjamin's supporters formed a separate Orange organization. In 1856, Gowan stepped down to allow the rift to be healed under a new grand master, George Lyttleton Allen. He was elected in an 1858 by-election to represent North Leeds and, in 1861, he retired from politics. Between 1859 and 1860, Gowan produced three volumes of ''Orangeism, its origin and history'', a history of the Orange Order. He died at Toronto in 1876.

References

* * —Novel

External links

Gowan family fonds
Archives of Ontario {{DEFAULTSORT:Gowan, Ogle Robert 1803 births 1876 deaths Members of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from Canada West Irish emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario People from Brockville Politicians from County Wexford Immigrants to Upper Canada Canadian Protestants