VanKoughnet, Philip Michael Matthew Scott

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. L. Morton, “VanKOUGHNET (Vankoughnet), PHILIP MICHAEL MATTHEW SCOTT,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/vankoughnet_philip_michael_matthew_scott_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Politician and judge; b. 21 Jan. 1822 at Cornwall, Upper Canada, son of Philip VanKoughnet and Harriet Sophia Scott; m. Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Charles Barker Turner, and they had two sons; d. 7 Nov. 1869 at Toronto, Ont.
    • Philip Michael VanKoughnet studied under Hugh Urquhart at the Eastern District Grammar School, and was destined for the priesthood of the Church of England. In the rebellion of 1837–38 he served in his father’s battalion of militia which saw action at the battle of the Windmill. Perhaps influenced by that experience and by a strongly loyalist and anti-rebellion speech of Christopher Alexander Hagerman, attorney general of Upper Canada from 1837 to 1840, he chose to study law. In the fall of 1838 he entered the office of George Stephen Benjamin Jarvis of Cornwall. A hard worker and a brilliant student, he moved to Toronto and the firm of John Shuter Smith and Robert P. Crooks, and in 1843 was admitted to the bar of Upper Canada.
    • In 1856, at the urging of his friend John A. Macdonald, whom he had known at least since the meeting of the British American League in 1849, VanKoughnet accepted the posts of president of the Executive Council and minister of agriculture in the Étienne-Paschal Taché-Macdonald government. He successfully contested Rideau District, the first elective seat to be opened in the Legislative Council, in the same year. As minister of agriculture he turned what had been considered a sinecure into an active department.
    • After passing through the “double shuffle” in 1858, VanKoughnet was appointed commissioner of crown lands and became chief superintendent of Indian affairs in 1860 when the department was transferred from imperial control. He had some. success in settling long-standing land claims.
    • In his 1856 election campaign VanKoughnet had suggested that the charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company was invalid and that Canada should claim the northwest. It also fell to him as commissioner of crown lands to arrange the western exploring expeditions of Simon James Dawson and Henry Youle Hind. He joined other expansionists to petition in 1858 for the incorporation of the North-West Transportation, Navigation, and Railway Company.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8642
  • Find A Grave : Cannot locate