Date Published:
February 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Charles Joseph Doherty

Doherty, Charles Joseph (1855-1931), minister of justice for Canada (1911-21), was born at Montreal, Quebec, on May 11, 1855, the son of the Hon. Marcus Doherty and Elizabeth O'Halloran. He was educated at St. Mary's Jesuit College and at McGill University (B.C.L., 1876; D.C.L., 1893), and was called to the Quebec bar in 1,877 (Q.C., 1887). He practised law in Montreal, and in 1891 he was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of the province of Quebec. He retired from the bench with a pension, in 1906, and entered political life. From 1908 to 1921 he represented the St. Ann's division of Montreal in the Canadian House of Commons; and from 1911 to 1921 he was minister of justice in the Borden and Meighen administrations. In 1918 he was one of the Canadian representatives at the Peace Conference at Paris, and he signed the Treaty of Versailles on behalf of Canada. He also represented Canada at the Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1920-21. On his defeat in the general elections of 1921 he retired to private life, and he died at Montreal on July 28, 1931. He was an LL.D. of Ottawa University (1895) and of McGill University (1913); and in 1920 he was made an imperial privy councillor. In 1888 he married Catherine Lacy, daughter of Edmund Barnard, K.C., Montreal ; and by her he had one son .and four daughters.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 219-220.