Date Published:
July 2007

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

John Henry Dunn

Dunn, John Henry (d. 1854), receiver-general of Upper Canada (1837-41) and of Canada (1841-3), was an Englishman who came to Canada in 1820. In 1823 he was sworn a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. In 1837 he was appointed receiver-general of Upper Canada; and, with Robert Baldwin and John Rolph, he was induced by Sir F. Bond Head to enter the Executive Council. Three weeks later he resigned from the Council with all his colleagues, though he continued to act as receiver-general until the Union. In 1841 he was elected to the first Legislative Assembly of United Canada for Toronto; and he became receiver-general in the administration formed by Lord Sydenham in 1841. He continued to hold this office in the first Baldwin-Lafontaine administration of 1842-3. When this government resigned in 1843, he retired with his colleagues; and in the elections of 1844 he was defeated at the polls. He later returned to England, and he died in London on April 21, 1854.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 250.