Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley
Samuel Tilley was a New Brunswick politician who was very important to the occurrence of Confederation and the naming of the new country. Tilley was born in Gage town, New Brunswick in 1818. He grew up in this town and in 1838, became a pharmacist and opened his own drugstore. In the 1960’s he sold this store because of the increasing amount of time politics was taking up. Through his career in politics he had two terms as the premier of New Brunswick and when confederation occurred, he became the minister of customs and the minister of finance for the Federal Government of Canada. He was also on the New Brunswick legislative assembly for many years between 1850 and 1867. Samuel Tilley attended all three of the conferences on confederation and he was believed to have come up with the name “Dominion” for the new country. Even though Tilley had a large part in the creation of Confederation and was very much in favour of it, he lost election because of the way he went ahead with Confederation in New Brunswick without consulting the citizens. He lost this election to A.J. Smith who was opposed to Confederation alike to the people of New Brunswick. However, during his term as premier, the citizens changed there minds on the topic of Confederation. Smith was forced to resign and Tilley was reelected. Tilley was important to his time period not only because of his part in creating Confederation, but also because of his movements to obtain an inter-colonial railroad, his multiple tries to prohibit alcohol in New Brunswick, and being selected as the first member of the Federal Cabinet. Fun Fact: Samuel Leonard Tilley is to date, the only person ever to throw up in the House of Commons.
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