- William Raney
William Edgar Raney, K.C. (1859-1933) was a lawyer, politician and judge in
Ontario ,Canada , in the early twentieth century.Raney was a well known lawyer in the first decades of the last century and came to the public eye through his opposition to gambling on
horse racing , against which he had authored a series of reports.Raney was first elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Ontario as theMember of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Wellington East in the 1919 provincial election that brought the neophyteUnited Farmers of Ontario (UFO) party to power. A lawyer, he was appointed to the cabinet asAttorney-General and was a leading force in the UFO-Labour government ofE.C. Drury . Raney was best known for what has been described as his zealous appolication of Ontario'sprohibition laws. The government's strict enforcement of the "Ontario Temperance Act" alienated its support in cities, in which it was already felt that the UFO government was too inclined towards rural causes and hostile towards cities. [ [http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume3/chapter15/289-295.htm Welcome to... / Bienvenue à... ] at collections.ic.gc.ca]The return of only 17 UFO and 4 Labour MLAs in the provincial election of 1923 saw Premier Durry lose his own seat along with his government. Raney took over the leadership of the Progressives (as the UFO-Labour bloc of MLAs had become known), and led its unsuccessful effort in the 1926 election, with the return of only 17 Progressive/UFO/Labour MLAs. A year later, Raney resigned his seat to accept a judicial appointment.
Raney and his family eventually moved to
Brighton, Ontario , Canada. His son,Paul Hartley Raney , a fighter pilot in theFirst World War , was KIA, shot down over German territory on August 21st, 1917.Notes
External links
* [http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/members_all_detail.do?locale=en&ID=1740 "Legislative Assembly of Ontario - William Edgar Raney, MPP - Parliamentary History"]
* cite book
title=The Captive Court
author=Ian Bushnell
year=1992
publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
isbn=0773508511
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Q5telT6zFRUC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=william+edgar+raney&source=web&ots=a4AAoCu1Fh&sig=hrm_X6kVzMnEvp18sgywrTgg4og#PPA170,M1 "(Raney is mentionned on Page 169 onwards)"
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.