Chipman, Ward Jr.

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Phillip Buckner, “CHIPMAN, WARD (1787-1851),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/chipman_ward_1757_1851_8E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, office holder, judge, and politician; b. 10 July 1787 in Saint John, N.B., only child of Ward Chipman and Elizabeth Hazen; m. 24 March 1817 Elizabeth Wright; there were no children of this marriage; d. 26 Nov. 1851 in Saint John.
    • At birth Ward Chipman became heir apparent in one of the most important families in colonial New Brunswick. His father, a prominent loyalist lawyer with close ties to the Fredericton establishment.
    • Unfortunately there were limited opportunities for such young men in early 19th-century New Brunswick. For several decades after 1784 the colony languished and many loyalists drifted back to the United States. Few of the loyalist office holders joined this exodus but for the children of those who remained the prospects were bleak.
    • A much larger number, including the younger Chipman, were directed toward the legal profession, a career which, in time, might lead to public office. But the critical problem was to earn a livelihood while waiting for the older generation of officials to die off. There were lawyers aplenty in Saint John and too little work to support them all in the style of life to which the children of the gentry aspired. Chipman Jr therefore began to study law in his father’s office and in July 1808, on coming of age, he became an attorney.
    • But his father’s practice did not generate enough business to support two lawyers. However, his father succeeded to a Judge vacancy in 1809 and Chipman inherited his father’s law practice and replaced him as advocate general and clerk of the crown. 
    • Inevitably, Chipman was also drawn into provincial politics. He was elected to the House of Assembly in June 1820, topping the poll in Saint John County and eventually he got to Bench and in 1834 he was promoted to the position of chief justice of New Brunswick.
    • Yet there is a less attractive side to Chipman’s achievements. As a lawyer he drew his practice almost exclusively from the colonial élite and as a judge he was primarily concerned with protecting the interests of the property-owning class. When humanity and the protection of property clashed, he sided with the latter.
    • None the less, the influence of the second-generation loyalist gentry was receding in the face of large-scale non-loyalist immigration and of changes both within New Brunswick society and in the policies of the imperial government. In politics Chipman and his kind fought to preserve the constitutional structure established by their fathers.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1438
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/183561051/ward-chipman