Armstrong, James Sherrard

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Fernard Harvey, “ARMSTRONG, JAMES SHERRARD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/armstrong_james_sherrard_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer and judge; b. 27 April 1821 at Sorel, Lower Canada, son of Captain Charles Logie Armstrong and Marjory (Margery) Ferguson; m. probably in 1847 Marie-Anne-Charlotte Olivier, niece of François Boucher, seigneur of Carufel and of part of the seigneury of Maskinongé; d. 23 Nov. 1888 at Sorel.
    • James Sherrard Armstrong descended from loyalists who had settled at Yamachiche, Que., in the autumn of 1778. Called to the bar on 12 Feb. 1844, he practised law in Montreal for four years, and was soon interested in landed property. Legal practice did not keep Armstrong from a continuing interest in landed property. In addition to the Hope fief, which he retained until his death, in 1871 he bought the rights to cens et rentes from the Sorel seigneury, and in 1885 the same rights for the Gentilly seigneury. He sold these rights on 15 July 1886. For several years he was also president of the Montreal-Sorel railway.
    • In the end, loyalty to the Conservative party was partially rewarded by his appointment on 7 Dec. 1886 as chairman of the Royal Commission on the Relations of Capital and Labor in Canada. Nothing in his background had prepared Armstrong to chair this commission of inquiry, one of the most important in the 19th century. His rural ancestry, his interests in the Montreal-Sorel railway, and his dependence on the Conservative party were scarcely conducive to objectivity, let alone an understanding of the problems of the urban proletariat and the beginnings of industrialization. Consequently he had difficulty in imposing his authority on the two factions into which the commissioners had split at the outset of the public hearings.
    • Armstrong’s contribution to the work of the commission is difficult to evaluate, but it does not seem to have been a decisive one. Jules Helbronner and some of the other commissioners made contributions of much greater significance, particularly in the drafting of the appendices to the commission’s report. A conservative both politically and ideologically, Armstrong was violently criticized by the English-language working-class newspapers of Montreal and Toronto for favouring employers. Furthermore, at the beginning of 1888, a libel action was brought against him by the Hochelaga Cotton Manufacturing Company, for having made statements alleging immorality among their female workers, which by implication impugned the conditions in their factory. The incident is an illustration of the reactionary attitudes then held by employers concerning labour issues.
  • Great Grandson of proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=210
  • Find A Grave : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/171955187/james-armstrong