Date Published:
February 2005

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

Walter Humphries Montague

Montague, Walter Humphries (1858-1915), minister of agriculture for Canada (1896), was born in Adelaide, Middlesex county, Ontario, on November 21, 1858, the son of Joseph Montague, a farmer. He was educated at the School of Medicine, Toronto, and at Victoria University, Cobourg (M.D., 1882), and he practised medicine at Dunnville, Ontario. In 1890 he was elected to represent Haldimand in the Canadian House of Commons. In 1895 he became, for a few months, secretary of state in the Bowell administration, and at the end of that year he was appointed minister of agriculture. He was one of the "nest of traitors" charged by Mackenzie Bowell with conspiring against him in 1896, and he became a member of the Tupper administration of that year. He retired from office on the defeat of the Tupper government in July, 1896, and he was defeated in the general elections for the House of Commons in 1900. In 1913 he was elected to represent Kildonan in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, and at the same time he was appointed minister of public works in the Roblin government. He died at Winnipeg, where he had lived since 1908, on November 14, 1915.

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. IV, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 400p., pp. 321-322.