René-Joseph Kimber (November 26, 1786 – December 22, 1843) was a physician and political figure in

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...

and

Canada East Canada East () was the northeastern portion of the Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new colony, known as the Province of ...

, in the

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

(now

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

). He represented

Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières (, ; ) is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice River, Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence River, Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Sain ...

in the

Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada The Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada was the lower house of the bicameral structure of provincial government in Lower Canada until 1838. The legislative assembly was created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. The lower house consisted of e ...

, as a member of the '' Parti patriote'', although he opposed the use of force in the

Lower Canada Rebellion The Lower Canada Rebellion (), commonly referred to as the Patriots' Rebellion () in French, is the name given to the armed conflict in 1837–38 between rebels and the colonial government of Lower Canada (now southern Quebec). Together wit ...

. After the creation of the Province of Canada, which he opposed, he was the member for the district of Champlain in the

Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada was the lower house of the Parliament of the Province of Canada. The Province of Canada consisted of the former province of Lower Canada, then known as Canada East (now Quebec), and Upper Canada ...

. He was briefly a member of the

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

, prior to his death in 1843.

Family and personal life

Kimber was born in

Quebec City Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a populati ...

in 1786, the son of a merchant, René Kimber, and Marie-Josette Robitaille. His grandfather, Joseph-Antoine Jékimbert, was a gardener from

Aix-la-Chapelle Aachen is the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is located at the northern foothills of the High Fens and the Eifel Mountains. It sits on the Wurm Riv ...

who emigrated to the colony of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

in the early 1750s, as part of a company of French colonial marines. After some ten or fifteen years in Quebec, he changed the spelling of his name to "Kimbert" or "Kimber" to give it a more French sound. From 1801 to 1806, Kimber studied at the Collège Saint-Raphaël at

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, and then in Europe for two years, from 1806 to 1808. He then apprenticed in medicine at

, where his family had relocated. He qualified to practise medicine in 1811 and set up practice at Trois-Rivières, including as physician to the local Ursuline convent.''Les Ursulines des Trois-Rivières : depuis leur établissement jusqu'à nos jours''
(Quebec: L'Imprimerie Action-Sociale Ltée, 1911), pp. 458–461. Premiere eglise Ville-Marie

In 1811, he married Apolline, the daughter of Montreal merchant and entrepreneur, Pierre Berthelet, and Marguerite Viger, at old Notre-Dame in Montreal. The couple had two children: a daughter, Harline, and a son, also named René. They eventually had a large and impressive house, which they used for entertaining. Kimber served in the militia during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

as an officer and surgeon, in the 4th Select Embodied Militia Battalion of Lower Canada. In 1814, he was promoted to captain. After the war, he was a supernumerary officer in the militia battalion commanded by his father. He was eventually appointed a justice of the peace and was involved in creating an educational society at Trois-Rivières. In 1835,

Louis-Joseph Papineau Louis-Joseph Papineau (; October 7, 1786 – September 23, 1871), born in Montreal, Province of Quebec (1763–1791), Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the ''seigneurie de la Petite-Nation''. He was the leader of the reform ...

and about a dozen other ''Patriotes'' visited Trois-Rivières on a speaking tour to build support for the ''Patriote'' movement. In a letter to his wife, Papineau recounted that after the political meeting was done, the Kimbers invited the group to their house for a fine supper, along with local notables such as

Ezekiel Hart Ezekiel Hart (15 May 1770 – 16 September 1843) was an entrepreneur and politician in British North America. He is often said to be the first Jew to be elected to Public administration, public office in the British Empire. He was elected twice ...

and Kimber's daughter and son-in-law, Harline and Henry Judah. The house was decorated with transparencies and slogans, such as "Long Live Papineau and Viger" and tributes to liberty and the people, along with fruits and garlands and cardboard cut-outs. The party went on until 3 o'clock in the morning. Kimber, in a mischievous spirit, plied his male guests with considerable amounts of fine wines, port and madeira, to the point that, according to Papineau, in the morning some of them could not recall the events of the night before. Papineau assured his wife that he had limited himself to "a little good Bordeaux", and "came out of it all as fresh and sober as when I came in". He slept from 3:30 am to 5 am, and carried on with the trip to Quebec. Kimber was a charitable man, known for his donations for those in need. In one case, he bought a house for a former servant and arranged for a regular monthly payment. When he was preparing his will, he set aside the debts which several poor people owed to him.

Political career

Lower Canada

Kimber was elected to the

for Trois-Rivières district in a by-election in 1832, and was re-elected in the general election of 1834. He supported the Ninety-Two Resolutions, which Papineau introduced in the Assembly, calling on the British government to make major reforms to the constitutional structure in Lower Canada. Also in 1834, Kimber was chair of a committee appointed by the Assembly to review the rights of Jews in Lower Canada. Two years earlier, the Parliament had passed a bill for Jewish emancipation, to put Jews on the same footing as Christians. Some questions had arisen about the interpretation of the act, which resulted in a review by the committee chaired by Kimber. Although recognised as a leader of the Patriotes in the Trois-Rivières area, he did not support the use of force, and remained committed to constitutional solutions, which helped ensure that Trois-Rivières remained relatively peaceful during the

of 1837–1838. In September 1837, prior to the outbreak of the Rebellion, he chaired a meeting with local notables to discuss the possible approaches to take. He urged prudence, and proposed options for Papineau to consider, but did not consider joining the Rebellion. In December 1837, after the outbreak of the Rebellion, he wrote a letter to

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine Sir Louis-Hippolyte Ménard '' dit'' La Fontaine, 1st Baronet, KCMG (October 4, 1807 – February 26, 1864) was a Canadian politician who served as the first Premier of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible governme ...

, in which he accused Papineau of treachery in having misled his supporters about his ultimate goals. Kimber correctly predicted that Lower Canada would be put under a provisional government or martial law, and stated that he held to positions of constitutional reform, not revolution. As a result of the Rebellion, the British government suspended the constitution of Lower Canada, including the Parliament, ending Kimber's position in the Legislative Assembly.

Province of Canada

Following the rebellion in Lower Canada, and the similar rebellion in 1837 in

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, 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 Province of Queb ...

(now

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

), the British government decided to merge the two provinces into a single province, as recommended by Lord Durham in the

Durham Report The ''Report on the Affairs of British North America'', (, 1839) commonly known as the ''Durham Report'' or ''Lord Durham's Report'', is an important document in the history of Quebec, Ontario, Canada and the British Empire. The notable Briti ...

. The ''Union Act, 1840'', passed by the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

, abolished the two provinces and their separate parliaments. It created the

, with a single Parliament for the entire province, composed of an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed

. The

Governor General Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

initially retained a strong position in the government. Kimber opposed the union of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, but stood for election to the new Legislative Assembly in the first general election, in 1841. He was elected for the Champlain riding. In the first session of the new Parliament, he voted against the union. Kimber generally aligned with the French-Canadian Group, in the sessions of 1841 and 1842. In September 1843, he was named to the

and his seat in the Assembly was vacated automatically. His son-in-law, Henry Judah, won the subsequent by-election to replace him. However, Kimber died only a few months later, in Montreal in December 1843.

Family and relations

After the death of her first husband, Kimber's sister Clotilde married Charles Langevin, who represented Hampshire in the

. His daughter Harline married Henry Judah, who represented Champlain in the Legislative Assembly after Kimber was named to the Legislative Council. His son René became the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada.Côté
''Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada''
p. 77. His cousin, Timothée Kimber, was also a doctor, practising at the town of Chambly, south of Montreal. Timothée Kimber supported the Patriotes in the Rebellion in 1837 and was imprisoned for half a year afterwards. In his will, Kimber left his gold watch, chain and seals to his friend, Dr

Wolfred Nelson Wolfred Nelson (10 July 1791 – 17 June 1863) was the mayor of Montreal, Quebec, from 1854 to 1856. Biography Nelson was born in Montreal. His father, William Nelson, was an immigrant to Colonial America from Newsham, North Yorkshire, Eng ...

, who had been a leader of the Patriotes and had taken up arms in the Rebellion. At the time of the bequest, Nelson had just recently been permitted to return from exile in Bermuda.

References