Sir Charles Tupper, 1st Baronet

Sir Charles Tupper, 1st Baronet (born July 2, 1821, Amherst, Nova Scotia—died Oct. 30, 1915, Bexleyheath, Eng.) was the premier of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867 and prime minister of Canada in 1896, who was responsible for the legislation that made Nova Scotia a province of Canada in 1867. As Canada’s minister of railways and canals (1879–84), Tupper introduced the bill giving the Canadian Pacific Railway its charter in 1881.

In 1855 Tupper, a physician by occupation, was elected to the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly. He became provincial secretary (1857–60, 1863–67) and later premier. Tupper was interested in the union of the British North American provinces, and he worked to make Nova Scotia a province of Canada, a goal that was accomplished in 1867. Local opposition to Tupper’s action was violent, but attempts to defeat him failed and he was elected to the new Canadian House of Commons (1867). He served in Sir John Macdonald’s Conservative cabinet from 1870 until 1873 and served again after 1878. From 1884 until 1896 he held the post of high commissioner to London, except for an interval (1887–88) when he returned to Canada as minister of finance in Macdonald’s cabinet. He became prime minister of Canada in 1896. After his party’s defeat later in that year, Tupper became leader of the opposition. Earlier he had been knighted (1879) and created a baronet (1888). Reminiscences of Tupper’s career are set forth in his Recollections of Sixty Years (1914).