Peters, Arthur

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Andrew Robb, “PETERS, ARTHUR,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/peters_arthur_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer and politician; b. 29 Aug. 1854 in Charlottetown, youngest son of James Horsfield Peters and Mary Cunard; m. there 25 Sept. 1884 Amelia Jane Stewart, and they had two daughters and two sons; d. 29 Jan. 1908 in Charlottetown.
    • Arthur Peters was born into what passed for an aristocracy in 19th-century Prince Edward Island. As his obituary in the Charlottetown Guardian would note, he “enjoyed the advantage of aristocratic birth, ample fortune, a liberal education and the inherited aptitude for the legal profession.” Despite this “advantage,” young Peters was to live somewhat in the shadow of both his father, a judge, and his elder brother Frederick, a lawyer. 
    • Peters’s marriage, in 1884 in St Peter’s Cathedral (Anglican), was undoubtedly a social highlight. His wife, Amelia Jane, was the daughter of the late Charles Stewart, a former mla for Kings County, 2nd District, the riding in which Peters would make his political début.
    • The last years of the 1880s, which saw Peters emerge as a rising member of the establishment in Prince Edward Island, constituted the high-water mark for the Island’s self-sufficient economy. From the early 1890s the province was to suffer a dramatic loss in population, a decline in the value of the output of its farms, fisheries, and manufactories, and a general economic malaise. Once the railway to the Pacific was completed and the federal government’s National Policy was adopted as the blueprint for transcontinental union, the Island was left isolated on the Atlantic margin. Consequently, politics there came to be dominated by issues that flowed from the Island’s declining role in an expanding federation and from its physical insularity: the preservation of Island representation in the dominion parliament, the negotiation of sufficient federal subsidies, and the continuing search for reliable, year-round communication with the mainland.
    • In 1897 Frederick Peters made a decision which astonished his party and would ultimately affect Arthur’s political career. He resigned as premier and moved to Victoria as a law partner. Peters was succeeded as premier by Alexander Bannerman Warburton, who, in turn, stepped down to accept a judgeship. Donald Farquharson assumed office next, but he too resigned, to contest a federal seat. Arthur Peters had joined his government in 1900 as attorney general and in December 1901, after Farquharson’s resignation, he was chosen party leader. On 2 January he was asked by Lieutenant Governor Peter Adolphus McIntyre to form a government. As the province greeted the new year with yet another premier, it was clear that the position was regarded by many as a way-stop on the road to better things.
    • Peters’s six years as premier and attorney general were to be dominated by established themes: the representation question, the subsidy, and winter communication. As a provincial political leader, Arthur Peters was both respected and effective. Patronage appointments remained as much part of the electoral scene as ever, and a large part of the premier’s correspondence concerned the details of such things in 2nd Kings. He had reason to pay close attention to affairs there. In the election of 1904 he and his Conservative opponent, Harvey D. McEwen, received equal numbers of votes. It was not until after a by-election in March 1905, which Peters won by acclamation, that he returned to office.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6550
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105125850/arthur-peters