George Moffatt (1787–1865)

George Moffatt
Born	1787-08-13 Sidehead, Weardale, Durham, England
Died	1865-02-25 Montreal, Canada East
Occupation	Merchant, politician
Partner	Sophia MacRae

George Moffatt ((1787-08-13)13 August 1787 – 25 February 1865(1865-02-25) (aged 77)) was an English-born Montreal merchant, businessman, and politician who built one of the most prominent import-export firms in nineteenth-century British North America and played a significant role in the constitutional and commercial affairs of the Canadas.

Early life and arrival in Canada

Moffatt was born on 13 August 1787 at Sidehead, in Weardale, Durham, England. He arrived in Canada in 1801 at the age of fourteen, sponsored by the Montreal merchant John Ogilvy. He received schooling in London and later with William Nelson at Sorel, Quebec, before entering Ogilvy's firm, Parker, Gerrard, and Ogilvy, which was associated with the XY Company.

He subsequently joined McTavish, McGillivray, and Company, the leading firm associated with the North West Company, and participated in expeditions to Fort William, the company's great inland depot on Lake Superior — establishing his early ties to the western fur trade country.

Merchant career

In 1811, Moffatt formed a partnership with Alexander Dowie, a nephew of Sir Alexander Mackenzie. The firm eventually evolved into Gillespie, Moffatt, and Company, with Robert Gillespie serving as the London associate. By the 1820s it had become one of the major import-export houses of Montreal, dealing in manufactured goods, groceries, dry goods, hardware, and staple commodities. By the mid-1840s the firm was receiving more seaborne goods than any other Montreal house, handling the cargo of fifteen foreign ships in 1845 alone; the company owned one large ship and chartered several others annually. Moffatt's eldest son Lewis Moffatt opened a Toronto branch under the name Moffatt, Murray, and Company.

During the War of 1812, Moffatt served briefly with Montreal volunteers at Laprairie under Charles-Michel d'Irumberry de Salaberry. He subsequently assisted Colin Robertson's Hudson's Bay Company expeditions into the Athabaska country in 1815–16, and in 1819 facilitated contact between John McLoughlin and the HBC — a connection that contributed to the 1821 union of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company.

Moffatt invested widely in the commercial infrastructure of Montreal and the Canadas. He was an investor in the Lower Canada Land Company (formed 1825) and served as Canadian representative of the British American Land Company. He managed the Canadian branch of the Phoenix Fire Assurance Company, which had accumulated £285,000 in Montreal policies by 1845. He served as a director of the Bank of Montreal from 1822 to 1835, and was an early promoter of the Champlain and St Lawrence Railroad. He was a major shareholder and director of the St Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, a 245-mile line running from Saint-Lambert to Portland, Maine, begun in 1845 and completed in 1853. He also promoted the Montreal Mining Company (established 1847, exploiting Lake Huron copper), the Marine Mutual Insurance Company of Montreal (1851), Molsons Bank (1854), the Canada Marine Insurance Company (1856), the Montreal Steam Elevating and Warehousing Company (1857), and the St James Club (1857). He supported the McGill University and contributed to the St George's Society, St George's Church, and other Montreal institutions.

In 1830 Moffatt was appointed chairman of Montreal's newly established harbour commissioners. He was an original member of the Committee of Trade (formed 1822) and, after its reconstitution as the Montreal Board of Trade in 1842, served as its president from 1844 to 1846.

Political career

Moffatt entered the Legislative Council of Lower Canada in 1831, succeeding John Richardson as the principal spokesman for Montreal's business community. In 1832 he instituted criminal charges against newspaper editors Ludger Duvernay of La Minerve and Daniel Tracey of the Irish Vindicator for ridiculing the council. Their arrests preceded a violent Montreal West by-election in May 1832, in which a confrontation with the military resulted in the deaths of three persons.

Between 1832 and 1837 Moffatt directed the "constitutionalist" activities of Montreal merchants, and was likely associated with Adam Thom's "Anti-Gallic letters" published in the Montreal Herald in autumn 1835. In the fall of 1837 Moffatt and William Badgley travelled to London to represent the "British party" position to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg. When Lord Durham was appointed high commissioner in January 1838, Moffatt and Badgley submitted a detailed memorandum advocating legislative union with Upper Canada. Moffatt accompanied Durham to Canada and advised on the disposition of rebel prisoners.

On 2 November 1838, Sir John Colborne appointed Moffatt to the Special Council of Lower Canada, following the suspension of the constitution, where he served as an executive member and principal adviser. The arrival of Charles Poulett Thomson as governor general in October 1839 diminished Moffatt's influence; Thomson wrote to the Colonial Secretary in December 1840 describing Moffatt in highly unflattering terms and indicating his intention to exclude him from the new united Legislative Council.

Moffatt was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1841 as one of two members for Montreal City riding. He resigned on 30 October 1843 in protest at the relocation of the capital from Kingston to Montreal, but regained the seat in 1844, defeating Dr Pierre Beaubien. During his six-year tenure in the assembly he introduced numerous bills originating from the Montreal Board of Trade, participated in debates on railways, usury law, and McGill University, and served on special committees including one addressing the Jesuit Estates. Notably, he seconded Denis-Benjamin Papineau's 1844–45 motion to reinstate French as an official provincial language, having earlier opposed French usage in the assembly.

Moffatt did not stand in the 1847 elections. When Montreal Tories signed the Annexation Manifesto in October 1849, Moffatt remained aloof. Instead, he became president of the Montreal branch of the British American League, a Conservative association formed in response to the dismantling of imperial trade preferences. He guided the league's Kingston convention in July 1849 and attended a second convention in November 1849, where resolutions addressed inter-colonial union, reciprocity, annexation, free trade, and protection. The league made no lasting political contribution and soon dissolved. Moffatt thereafter concentrated on business and devoted considerable attention to Church of England affairs in Montreal, particularly fundraising for Christ Church Cathedral on Rue Sainte-Catherine.

Personal life

Moffatt married for the first time in 1809, to an Indigenous woman whose name is not recorded; they had a son, Lewis Moffatt. He subsequently married Sophia MacRae, with whom he had three sons.

Death

Moffatt died on 25 February 1865 in Montreal, Canada East.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography