Carvell, Frank Broadstreet

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Robert Craig Brown, “CARVELL, FRANK BROADSTREET,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/carvell_frank_broadstreet_15E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, businessman, and politician; b. 14 Aug. 1862 in Bloomfield, N.B., son of A. Bishop Carvell and Margaret Lindsay; m. 28 July 1887 Caroline B. Parks in Lakeville, N.B., and they had a daughter; d. 9 Aug. 1924 in Woodstock, N.B.
    • Frank Carvell was born in the village of Bloomfield, about a mile from the Maine border and twenty miles from Woodstock. His father was a farmer descended from loyalist stock.
    • Carvell was educated in the public schools of Bloomfield and Woodstock and then taught school for a time, obtaining a first-class teacher’s licence in December 1884. Two years after his marriage to Carrie Parks in 1887, he enrolled in Boston University. He was awarded the llb degree with honours in 1890 and returned to Woodstock to practise law with Lewis Peter Fisher. Quickly successful, he earned a reputation as a powerful advocate and formidable prosecutor. He was elected to the Carleton County Council and became a well-known businessman who held considerable stock in the Woodstock Power Company and the Carleton Electric Company. He was also a director of the New Brunswick Telephone Company Limited. In due course he purchased the Carleton Sentinel, a vigorous voice for Liberalism in the province, and he was for a time a principal shareholder in the Carleton Observer as well. 
    • Until the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier was defeated in 1911, Carvell was a minor figure in Liberal affairs in Ottawa. Henry Robert Emmerson, minister of railways and canals, was New Brunswick’s spokesman in the party until he was forced to resign over a personal scandal in 1907. Carvell’s friends then launched a campaign urging his appointment to the cabinet. But Laurier had other petitioners too. Pugsley, who had been a senior member in the Liberal New Brunswick government since 1900 and was briefly premier in 1907, won out. Laurier appointed him minister of public works at the end of August. Two years later, in May, Pugsley was promoting Carvell to Laurier for an appointment to the Supreme Court of New Brunswick. Laurier was not enthusiastic and himself asked Carvell to stay in the House of Commons. Against his wife Carrie’s wishes, Carvell agreed, telling Laurier that he had “decided to remain as requested.”
    • After 1911, in opposition, Carvell acquired the prominence that had so long eluded him as a government backbencher. His sharp tongue and belligerent speaking style made him one of the most persistent and damning critics of Robert Laird Borden’s government. A favourite target was the minister of militia and defence, Samuel Hughes. Carvell was convinced that Hughes was extravagantly wasting the public’s money. In the committee on supply in March 1912 he went after Hughes at every turn.
    • As the Liberal party quarrelled and split over the issue, Borden approached Carvell about crossing the floor. Carvell refused. In late September 1917 he helped Laurier with a plan for what Laurier would do about conscription if he won the forthcoming election. Then, suddenly, Conservatives were awash in rumours that Laurier was going to resign and that Carvell would become the new leader of the Liberal party and join the Union government. New Brunswick Tories were appalled. They told Borden that Carvell would join the Union government only to “wreck it,” that he could not command the support of Conservatives in his own constituency, and that the move would be “suicidal” for the party in the province. For his part, Laurier did not resign, but Carvell did join the Union government as minister of public works on 13 October. Borden told a New Brunswick Tory that “Carvell has been altogether too bitter in his political warfare” but “now that he has come in he comes in whole-heartedly.” Laurier confessed that “Carvell is more and more an enigma for me.”
    • Carvell had joined for the duration of the war. It was a difficult role for him and for his colleagues. His talent as a destructive critic had to be reined in for the responsibilities of governing.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1337
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103761534/frank-broadstreet-carvell