Partelow, John Richard

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. S. MacNutt, “PARTELOW, JOHN RICHARD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/partelow_john_richard_9E.html
  • DCB profile:
    • Merchant and politician; b. 1796 at Saint John, N.B., son of a shoemaker, Jehiel Partelow; m. in 1819 Jane Hamlin Matthews, and they had eight daughters; d. 13 Jan. 1865 at Fredericton, N.B
    • Of loyalist extraction, John Richard Partelow was educated in the public schools of Saint John and by private tuition. After working as a clerk in a Saint John store, he was by 1827 engaged in business as a general merchant. Partelow became prominent in 1823 as a partisan of Ward Chipman Sr when the presidency of the Council was contested by Christopher Billopp and Chipman following the death of Lieutenant Governor George Stracy Smyth. At the time of his entry into the assembly in 1827 as a member for Saint John County, he enjoyed a public confidence probably unequalled by any other politician. He remained in the assembly until 1855.
    • Partelow was not renowned for eloquence, but the leadership he acquired as chairman of the appropriations committee brought him to the fore in the contest to gain greater colonial autonomy in the 1830s. Success came in 1837 when the British government agreed to turn over control of the casual and territorial revenues to the assembly in return for a guaranteed civil list. Partelow’s influence was now immensely enlarged because of the vast increase in revenue at the disposal of the assembly. In an era of free spending he presided over the flow of public money for construction of roads and bridges, subsidies to schools, pensions and gratuities to those who deserved favour.
    • Though Partelow remained behind the scenes, all governments of the 1840s were dependent on his support. Yet at this stage Partelow could not be considered a reformer. He was eminently satisfied with the existing system of administration and disapproved of the idea of responsible government which appeared on the horizon in 1846–47. Fenety’s unvarnished opinion was that he was “opposed to any change in the Constitution” and that he was “the most influential opponent of Responsible Government and Reform.” Without holding any important provincial office, he was the master of the administration by reason of his grip on a financial apparatus that must be described as disorderly as well as popularly based.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6432
  • Find a Grave: Cannot locate.