Memorable Manitobans: Sedley Blanchard (1849-1886)

Lawyer.

Born at Truro, Nova Scotia on 1 February 1849, son of J. F. Blanchard, he was educated at Dalhousie College [later Dalhousie University] in Halifax and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1871. He came to Manitoba later that year to become private secretary to Lieutenant-Governor Adams Archibald and clerk of the executive council. In 1873 he formed a private law practice in partnership with John Farquhar Bain and W. R. Mulock. He was a participant in the December 1878 ceremony to mark the opening of the first railway to Winnipeg. In 1879, he served a single one-year term on the Winnipeg City Council. During the Winnipeg boom of 1881-1882, he invested (and lost) heavily in real estate. He was appointed Queen’s Council in 1884. He served as a Bencher for the Law Society of Manitoba from 1877 to 1886. On 1 August 1876, he married Jane Bell Clarke, daughter of HBC employee Lawrence Clarke. They had four children, including Jessie Bell Blanchard (b 1877) and Sedley Blanchard Jr. (b 1878). He died at Winnipeg on 7 March 1886, from the effects of typhoid fever, and was buried in the St. John’s Cathedral Cemetery. He is commemorated by the town of Sedley, Saskatchewan.

Sources:

A Political Manual of the Province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories by J. P. Robertson, Winnipeg: Call Printing Company, 1887.

1881 Canada census, FamilySearch.

Birth registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“Sedley Blanchard, Q.C.,” Manitoba Free Press, 8 March 1886, page 2.

“The last sad rites,” Manitoba Free Press, 10 March 1886, page 4.

“Wm. R. Mulock, K.C., dies, aged 80 years,” Manitoba Free Press, 21 January 1930. [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B8]

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 19 May 2018

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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