William Alexander Weir (October 15, 1858 – October 22, 1929) was a

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

lawyer,

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, and judge. He was the MLA for

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in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1897–1910, held several ministries, and helped rewrite several provincial

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Biography

Early life

William Alexander Weir was born in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

on October 15, 1858, the son of William Park Weir and Helen Craig Smith, who had

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from

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in 1852. William Park Weir became Surveyor of Customs in the Port of Montreal. His brother, Robert Stanley Weir, would become famous as a judge and author of the English verses for

O Canada "O Canada" (french: Ô Canada, italic=no) is the national anthem of Canada. The song was originally commissioned by Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony; Calixa Lavallée composed the mus ...

. Weir was educated at the

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and

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

, earning a B.C.L. degree in 1881, and was called to the

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on July 12, 1881. He married Adelaide Sayers Stewart, daughter of William C. Stewart of

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in October 1885.

Early career

During the time he practised law, Weir also wrote for ''The

Montreal Star ''The Montreal Star'' was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike. It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950s and remained the domi ...

'' from 1880–1881 and the '' Argenteuil County News'' from 1895–1897. Weir published several special editions of Quebec Civil Codes and he served as Secretary of the Royal Commission to revise the Code of Civil Procedure in 1897.

Political career

Weir's first attempt at

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec in 1890 failed. In 1897, he ran again and succeeded in winning the riding of

, representing the

Liberal Party of Quebec The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP; french: Parti libéral du Québec, PLQ) is a provincial political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955. The QLP has always been associated with the colour red; ...

. He was appointed Minister without Portfolio in 1903 under Premier Simon-Napoléon Parent. On February 3, 1905, Weir, Lomer Gouin, and Adélard Turgeon joined forces and resigned from Cabinet in a push to force Parent out of the leadership. Gouin then became Premier on March 21, 1905 and Weir served as Minister without Portfolio (1905),

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

(1905–1906), Minister of Public Works and Labour (1906–1907), and Provincial Treasurer (1907–1910).

Judge

Upon appointment as a judge for the Quebec Superior Court on January 11, 1910, Weir resigned his seat. He presided over the Workman libel trial in May 1911. He finished his career becoming a Montreal District Court judge in 1923.

Death

William Alexander Weir died on October 22, 1929 in

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Published works

* ''Municipal Code of the Province of Quebec'' (1889) * ''Civil Code of the Province of Quebec'' (1890) * ''Codes of the Province of Quebec'' (1890) * ''An Insolvency Manual'' (1890) * ''The Educational Act of the Province of Quebec'' (1899) * ''Code of Civil Procedure'' (1900)

References

* Joseph Graha
The Lost History of Weir
Retrieved June 18, 2005. * * Ed. Henry James Morgan (1912). ''Canadian Men & Women of the Time 1912''. Toronto: William Briggs

Retrieved June 18, 2005. * Université de Sherbrook

(in French) Retrieved June 18, 2005. * Assemblée nationale du Québec

(in French) Retrieved June 18, 2005.