[Illustration: THE LATE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR WILFRID LAURIER]
=Laurier, the late Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid, P.C., G.C.M.G., K.C., D.C.L. (Oxon.), LL.D.= (Ottawa, Ont.), son of the late Carolus Laurier, P.L.S., and his wife, Marcelle Martineau; born at St. Lin, Quebec, on November 20, 1841, and educated at mixed schools in his native parish and at L’Assomption College. As a law student he entered the office of the late Hon. R. Laflamme in 1860, and studied at McGill University; received B.C.L. in 1864 and was called to the Bar in the same year; was appointed a Q.C. in 1880, and became head of the law firm of Laurier & Lavergne. In the earlier years of his professional career he edited and contributed to several newspapers. In May 13, 1868, he married Miss Zoe Lafontaine. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Drummond and Arthabaska in 1871, and resigned to contest the same riding for the House of Commons at the general elections in 1874, and was elected; was sworn in a Privy Councillor and appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in the Mackenzie administration, on October 8, 1877, and on going back for re-election, was defeated by D. O. Bourbeau, who obtained a majority of forty. Later he was elected for Quebec East, a seat vacated by I. Thibaudeau, and was re-elected for the same Riding at the general elections of 1878, 1882, 1887, 1891, 1896 and 1900, and also elected for Saskatchewan, N.W.T., at the general elections of 1896; was re-elected to the House of Commons at general elections of 1904 for Quebec East and Wright, and elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1908 was re-elected for Quebec East, and was also returned for the City of Ottawa, and again elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1911 he was elected for both Quebec East and Soulanges; and in 1918 for Quebec East. In October, 1878, he resigned with the Mackenzie Government, and was elected leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons in 1887. He issued a call for a Dominion Liberal Convention in 1893, which was held at Ottawa. Upon the defeat of the Tupper Government at the general elections, June 23, 1896, he was called on by Lord Aberdeen, Governor-General, to form a ministry on July 8, 1896, on which date Sir Charles Tupper resigned office; was sworn in as President of the Privy Council, July 11, 1896, and formed his Ministry, July 13, 1896. He was appointed by a sub-committee of the Privy Council to arrange for the settlement of the Manitoba School Question and an agreement was reached in November of the same year. On the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee at London, Eng., June, 1897, he represented Canada, and was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George; was received in audience by the Sovereign and accorded the leading place in the great Jubilee State Procession of all the Colonial dignitaries. Oxford and Cambridge Universities conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. (hon.) during this visit. He was sworn in an Imperial Privy Councillor July 6, 1897; was made an honorary member of the Cobden Club, and received from it a gold medal in recognition of his services in the cause of international free exchange; was presented by the President of France with the Star of a Grand Officer of the legion of Honour, at Havre, July 29, 1897, being the highest but one of that order; was received in audience by His Holiness the Pope, August 12, 1897. While in England he succeeded in securing Her Majesty’s Government’s assent to the denunciation of the commercial treaties with Germany and Belgium, which stood in the way of Canada’s new tariff, extending a preference to the United Kingdom. On his return to Canada he was accorded public receptions at Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, and received from Toronto and Queen’s Universities the honorary degrees of LL.D. In November, 1897, he went to Washington in the interest of better relations between the two countries, and was a member of the Joint Commission which met at Quebec, August 23, 1898, to discuss questions affecting jointly Great Britain, Canada and the United States. He welcomed the present King, then Duke of Cornwall and York, to Canada in September, 1901, and accompanied the Royal Party through the Dominion; was invited, and attended, the Coronation of King Edward VII, in 1902, sailing June 14, arriving in Liverpool June 21, and in London, June 22. The Coronation, fixed for June 26, was postponed on June 24, but took place on August 9. On June 30 he attended a Colonial Conference at London, and on July 26 received the freedom of the City of Edinburgh, and was honored with the degree of LL.D. by the Edinburgh University.