Street, Thomas Clark

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Donald Swainson, “STREET, THOMAS CLARK (Clarke),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/street_thomas_clark_10E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, businessman, and politician; b. probably in 1814, son of Samuel Street and Abigail Ransome; d. unmarried, 6 Sept. 1872, at Chippawa, Ont.
    • Thomas Clark Street’s father, Samuel, a United Empire Loyalist of English descent, owned, in partnership with Thomas Clark, several grist and sawmills in the Niagara area. When Clark died in 1837, Street took these over and expanded into textile milling. His son, Thomas Clark, studied law in Toronto under Christopher Hagerman and William Henry Draper, and was called to the bar in 1838. He returned to Chippawa to practise law but became more of a businessman than a lawyer. When his father died in 1844 he inherited “a liberal fortune” which he thereafter managed with considerable success. He later became a director of the Niagara Falls. Suspension Bridge Company and when he died he was president of the firm. 
    • Although his political career was long and seemingly placid and took second place to his business interests, Street was an important politician. Men like Street did not sit in parliament as mindless supporters of a particular leader; he was not dependent on his party for campaign funds, and he needed neither his sessional indemnity nor a patronage post. His own economic interests were pushed, and he often acted with independence and courage. A strong supporter of representation by population, which he advocated not for love of the measure but because of what he feared would happen without it, he refused to enter the cabinet in 1862 when asked by John A. Macdonald because it had not accepted that policy.
  • Son of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8192
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195603200/thomas-clark-street