Newton Rowell

The Hon. Newton Wesley Rowell

Newton Wesley Rowell, PC (November 1, 1867 – November 22, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer and politician and leading lay figure in the Methodist church. Rowell led the Ontario Liberal Party from 1911 to 1917 and put forward a platform advocating temperance. Rowell's Liberals failed to oppose the Whitney government's passage of Regulation 17 which restricted the teaching of the French language in schools alienating the province's French-Canadian minority.

He was born in London Township, Ontario. In 1917, Rowell, a supporter of conscription during World War I left the Ontario legislature and broke with Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party of Canada to join the national Unionist government of Sir Robert Borden as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. He served in Borden's government as President of the Privy Council of Canada and, later, as Canada's first Minister of Health. Rowell did not run for re-election in 1921. After the war Rowell served as a Canadian delegate to the League of Nations and became involved in international affairs. He also helped lead the Methodists into a merger with Presbyterians to form the United Church of Canada.

As a lawyer he had one of the strongest litigation practices in Toronto, arguing many cases before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, including Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General). In 1903, he founded the firm that is now known as McMillan LLP. In 1929 he argued and won the Person's case, concerning whether women were eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada said no, but Rowell took the case to the Privy Council in London and won. It was a foundation case for female equality in Canada. In 1936 he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario.

He is also noted for being the first chair of the 1937 Rowell-Sirois Commission into Dominion-Provincial economic relations and for being a founding leader of the United Church of Canada.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest it had ow as in now: row-ELL. (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

Rowell was the maternal grandfather of former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hal Jackman and current Senator Nancy Ruth. His daughter Mary wed Harry Jackman in 1930.

References

• Synopsis of federal political experience from the Library of Parliament
• Member's parliamentary history for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
• Entry from the Canadian Encyclopedia

Party political offices
Preceded by Alexander Grant MacKay	Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party 1911–1917	Succeeded by William Proudfoot

Persondata
Name	Rowell, Newton
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 1, 1867
Place of birth
Date of death	November 22, 1941
Place of death