Date Published:
March 2005

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

Sir Joseph Adolphe Chapleau

Chapleau, Sir Joseph Adolphe (1840-1898), prime minister of Quebec (1879-82), secretary of state for Canada (1882-92), and lieutenant-governor of Quebec (1892-8), was born at. Ste. Thérèse de Blainville, Lower Canada, on November 9, 1840, the son of Pierre Chapleau. He was educated at Masson College, and at the seminary of St. Hyacinthe ; and in 1861 he was called to the bar of Lower Canada (Q.C., 1873). From 1867 to 1882 he represented Terrebonne in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. He was solicitor-general in the Ouimet administration (1873-4) and provincial secretary in the Boucherville administration (1876-8); and from 1879 to 1882 he was prime minister of Quebec, holding the portfolio of public works, railways, and agriculture. In 1882 he became secretary of state for Canada in the government of Sir John Macdonald, and he held this office, with the exception of ten days in June, 1891, until 1892. He then became, from January to December, 1892, minister of customs in the Abbott government. On December 7, 1892, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Quebec ; and he retired from this post only six months before his death at Montreal, on June 13, 1898. In 1874 he married Marie Louise, daughter of Lieut.-Col. Charles King. In 1896 he was created a K.C.M.G.; and he was an LL.D. of Laval University, Montreal. He was the author of Léon XIII, homme d'état (pamphlet, Montreal, 1888), as well as of a number of political pamphlets. See L'honorable J. A. Chapleau, sa biographie, ses discours (Montreal, 1887), with biography by A. de Bonneterre.

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 34.