Pugsley, William

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Robert Craig Brown, “PUGSLEY, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/pugsley_william_15E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, businessman, and politician; b. 27 Sept. 1850 in Sussex, N.B., son of William Pugsley and Frances Jane Hayward; m. first 6 Jan. 1876 Frances (Fannie) Jane Parks (d. 1914) in Saint John, and they had three sons and two daughters; m. secondly 1915 Gertrude Macdonald (d. 1963); they had no children; d. 3 March 1925 in Toronto.
    • William Pugsley was born in the village of Sussex on the Kennebecasis River in Kings County, N.B. He was of loyalist stock. A paternal ancestor had come from England to be one of the earliest settlers on the Croton River in the future state of New York. Pugsley’s great-grandfather John Pugsley had fought on the side of the crown in the Revolutionary War and then left the United States to take up residence in the Hammond River valley in Kings County. His paternal grandfather, Daniel, settled in what became Cardwell Parish in the same county and his father, also William, was a farmer near Sussex.
    • After three years of university he graduated in 1868 with an honours ba. In 1872 he was admitted to the bar and entered into partnership in Saint John with his brother Gilbert R. Pugsley and John Herbert Crawford. Pugsley was reporter for the New Brunswick Supreme Court for several years and also served as examiner in civil law for the university. The university awarded him a bcl in 1879 and would confer honorary degrees of dcl in 1884 and lld in 1918. Pugsley was created a qc on 4 Feb. 1891. He built a large and prosperous practice in Saint John and was recognized as a leader of the bar.
    • Pugsley was first elected to the provincial House of Assembly in an 1885 by-election following the death of a Kings County representative, Edwin Arnold Vail. Re-elected in 1886 and 1890, he served as speaker of the assembly from 1887 to 1889, when Andrew George Blair, the premier, appointed him solicitor general. In 1892 Pugsley resigned his seat to devote all his time to his law practice. He returned to provincial politics in the 1899 election, standing successfully again in Kings, and the following year, when Lemuel John Tweedie became premier, he was made attorney general. He was a commanding figure in the rough-and-tumble of New Brunswick politics. 
    • Then, early in 1907 Laurier dismissed Henry Robert Emmerson, New Brunswick’s member in cabinet. Both George Robertson, one of the provincial members for Saint John City, and Alfred O. Skinner, president of the New Brunswick Liberal Association, urged Laurier to appoint Pugsley to replace him. Pugsley, Robertson assured Laurier, “will be able to unite every section of the liberal party in this province and lead them to victory at whatever time an election may be held.” On 29 August Pugsley was made minister of public works in the Laurier government. On 18 Sept. 1907 Pugsley was returned to the House of Commons by acclamation.
    • It was a heady time to be a cabinet minister in Ottawa. The nation was prosperous and building rapidly, with industrial expansion in the east and agricultural development on the prairies. The expenditure on public works more than doubled from $4.7 million in 1900–1 to $11.8 million in 1910–11. Most of the money was spent on harbour and river facilities, dredging, roads and bridges, and public buildings. 
    • William Pugsley was just four months shy of 40 years of public service when he died. Throughout his career he was an ardent champion of Saint John, the city he loved. He was no less an advocate of his home province and, like many of his generation, devoted in national politics to currying favours for it. Once aligned with the Liberal party he became a powerful lieutenant to his leader, an able minister of the crown, and a much-feared critic of Sir Robert Borden’s government. Only when, as he saw it, the stakes for Canada and for its young men at the front were higher than the interests of the Liberal party did Pugsley abandon his leader and accept Borden’s viceregal appointment. Mackenzie King, who gave Pugsley his last assignment, might have sympathized with Pugsley’s choice to leave active politics: he too, in 1917, had wavered over conscription before casting his future with Laurier’s Liberals.
  • Grandson of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7568
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61411917/william-pugsley