G. D'Arcy Boulton

This article is about a Canadian political figure. For other people with this name, see D’Arcy Boulton (disambiguation).

The Hon. Mr Justice (George) D’Arcy Boulton (May 20, 1759 – May 21, 1834) was a lawyer, judge and political figure in Upper Canada.

The second son of Henry Boulton (1732-1788) J.P., of Moulton, Lincolnshire, by his third wife, Mary (1734-1779), the daughter of D'Arcy Preston of Askham Bryan Hall, Yorkshire. He studied law at the Middle Temple. After his business in England failed in 1793, he came to the Hudson River valley of New York in 1797. Boulton later moved to Augusta Township in Upper Canada around 1802. In 1803, he was admitted to the bar. In 1804, he assumed the position of Solicitor General after the death of Robert Isaac Dey Gray on the HMS Speedy; he was also elected to Gray's former seat in the 4th Parliament of Upper Canada in a by-election. In 1807, he became a judge for the Court of King's Bench.

In 1810, while sailing to England, he was taken prisoner by a French privateer. Boulton fought vigorously in the short-lived attempt to defend the ship and for his troubles he received a sabre slash across his forehead; he was kept at Verdun and released in 1813. He was admitted to the English bar in the same year and secured the post of attorney general in December 1814. Boulton and his family were considered to be part of the Family Compact, a clique of Upper Canada's elite who held great power in the province.

At London in 1782 he married Elizabeth (whose elder sister married D'Arcy's elder brother), daughter and co-heiress of Chief Justice James Forster of the Isle of Ely, Serjeant-at-law, by Susannah, daughter of Sir John Strange. He died at York (Toronto) in 1834 at The Grange, the home of his son, D'Arcy Boulton (1785-1846), Auditor-General of Upper Canada, brother-in-law of Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet, of Toronto. He was the father of Henry John Boulton and the grandfather of D'Arcy Boulton Jr.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Boulton of Moulton

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Name	Boulton, D'Arcy
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Date of birth	May 20, 1759
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Date of death	May 21, 1834
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