Roblin, Sir Rodmond Palen

  • DCB profile notes:
    • Farmer, businessman, and politician; b. 15 Feb. 1853 in Sophiasburgh Township, Upper Canada, son of James Platt Roblin and Deborah Anne Ketchepaw (Kotchapaw); m. there first 13 Sept. 1875 Adelaide Louise Demill (d. 1928), and they had four sons; m. secondly 5 Feb. 1929 Ethel M. Leggett (d. 1962) in Los Angeles; they had no children; d. 16 Feb. 1937 in Hot Springs, Ark.
    • Rodmond Palen Roblin’s loyalist family (possibly of Pennsylvania German descent) included successful farmers and businessmen as well as politicians such as his great-uncle John Philip Roblin. They were Methodists and young Rodmond received his education at Albert College, a Methodist school in Belleville. He began his working life on the family farm, where he built a cheese factory, and he was soon procuring cheese from other farmers for export. While recuperating from a serious accident caused by a bolting horse, he decided to join the thousands of Ontarians who were heading northwest; he arrived in Manitoba, probably in 1877. After being employed as a labourer in Winnipeg, he bought land with his brother-in-law and hired a surveyor to lay out the townsite for what was to become Carman.
    • In addition to his farm, Roblin was involved in various other ventures, including buying and selling cattle and horses. Most important was his grain-purchasing business, which prospered during the 1880s and 1890s. A founder of the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange in 1887, he served on its board and on those of several grain-industry bodies. In 1893 he was a promoter and, with Nicholas Bawlf and others, a member of the first board of directors of the highly profitable Northern Elevator Company Limited. Four years later he, Joseph Harris, and a number of partners organized the Dominion Elevator Company, of which he was president.
    • He successfully contested Dufferin in a by-election held in March 1888 and was acclaimed to the riding in the general election of July. He was welcomed as a bright new member of Premier Thomas Greenway’s Liberal caucus. 
    • He then led the Conservatives until 1897, when he stepped aside so that the popular Hugh John Macdonald could take the party to victory. After Premier Macdonald resigned in the fall of 1900 to run in a federal constituency, Roblin became party leader once again and was sworn in as premier on 29 October; he took on the additional responsibilities of railway commissioner on 3 November and minister of agriculture and immigration on 22 December.
    • Sir Rodmond Palen Roblin was an energetic and progressive premier at a time of dramatic growth in Manitoba. He saw a large role for government in the economy and put laws and infrastructures in place to support the expansion of the young province. He was socially conservative and did not support innovations in the way government worked or in such areas as women’s suffrage. His dramatic fall from power has eclipsed his many accomplishments and the positive aspects of his career have been largely forgotten.
  • Second Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7075
  • Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39910913/rodmond-palen-roblin