White, Albert Scott

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Barry Cahill, “WHITE, ALBERT SCOTT,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/white_albert_scott_16E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, politician, and judge; b. 12 April 1855 in Sussex, N.B., son of James Edward White and Margaret Scott; m. 8 June 1892 Ida May Vaughan in St Martins, N.B., and they had one son; d. 17 March 1931 in Saint John.
    • Albert Scott White was a great-grandson of the fighting American loyalist who gave his name to Whites Cove, N.B. Destined by his father for a mercantile career, Albert was determined to become a lawyer. After graduating in 1873 with a ba from Mount Allison Wesleyan College (he would later serve on the governing body of his alma mater), he proceeded to Harvard law school. He received his llb in 1877 and was called to the New Brunswick bar the same year.
    • Subsequently appointed to the bench, White was but one of the judicial nominees in post-confederation New Brunswick whose path to advancement, in the words of historian D. G. Bell, “lay through partisan politics”. Yet he was to prove unusual among this group because of his eminence as both a lawyer and a judge; in this regard he was a throwback to the prelapsarian meritocracy before confederation. White’s political career began with the official birth of the New Brunswick Liberal Party in the spring of 1886, when, a few days after his 31st birthday, he was elected as a Liberal for Kings County. A wunderkind of provincial politics, he was a member of the House of Assembly for 14 years, speaker of the house at age 35, and a minister at 38. A protégé of Premier Andrew George Blair, White got his break in 1892 when the newly appointed solicitor general, Ambroise-D. Richard, did not win election and White was named in his stead. He retained office under James Mitchell and went on to serve as attorney general and commissioner of public works in Henry Robert Emmerson’s administration.n since 1943 as Homer Watson Memorial Park.
    • White was too much the instinctive lawyer ever to have reached the top of the greasy pole in provincial politics. The bench was his element, and in his 17 years as an appellate judge he was largely responsible for restoring the reputation of the New Brunswick judiciary. His enviable record and his legacy go some distance towards explaining why, in the 20th century, most Atlantic Canadian justices who served on the Supreme Court of Canada were from New Brunswick. In his time he was the most highly regarded jurist in eastern Canada. Had it not been Nova Scotia’s “turn” to send a puisne judge to the Supreme Court in 1924, White would have succeeded native New Brunswicker Francis Alexander Anglin (the post went to Edmund Leslie Newcombe instead).
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=9000
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/247490625/albert-scott-white