Thomas Edmund Campbell

Thomas Edmund Campbell (ca 1810 – 1872) was a seigneur and political figure in Canada East.

He was born in London, England around 1810 and served in the British Army in the Near East. He came to Lower Canada during the Lower Canada Rebellion and he led a group of Mohawks against the Patriote forces at Châteauguay. He stopped pillaging by other loyalist forces afterwards and arrested the ringleaders who had instigated it. He became Governor Charles Edward Poulett Thomson's military secretary and aide-de-camp in 1838. As such, he helped structure the first election held in the Province of Canada in 1841 to aid candidates favoured by the Governor. Around 1840, he married Henriette-Julie, the daughter of seigneur Michel-Louis Juchereau Duchesnay, and inherited the seigneury of Rouville in 1844. Campbell settled at Saint-Hilaire in 1846 and set up a model farm there. A year later, he became civil secretary for the new governor, Lord Elgin and superintendent-general of Indian affairs. He resigned this post when the capital was moved to Toronto in 1849. In 1858, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for Rouville and generally voted with the Conservatives. After he was defeated in 1861, Campbell retired from politics. He was also a director of the Bank of Montreal and the Grand Trunk Railway. He was a member of a commission set up in 1862 with the aim of improving civil defence in the province. Campbell continued to supervise the operation of the seigneury of Rouville until his death in 1872. Unlike many seigneur of English origin, Campbell conducted the business of the seigneury in French.

External links

* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=4877 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]