Date Published:
February 2005

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

John Neilson

Neilson, John (1776-1848), journalist and politician, was born in Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, on July 17, 1776, the son of William Neilson and Isabel Brown. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Canada, whither his elder brother Samuel (d. 1793) had preceded him, to join his uncle, William Brown, proprietor of the Quebec Gazette. He succeeded to the ownership of the paper in 1797, and conducted it for over fifty years. From 1818 to 1834 he represented Quebec county in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada; and in 1822 and in 1828 he was one of the delegates sent to London to represent the views of the Lower Canada Reformers. In 1834 he parted company with the extreme Reformers, headed by Louis Joseph Papineau; and in 1835 he went, for a third time, to London, as a representative of the "Constitutional Associations" of Lower Canada. In 1841 he was again elected to represent Quebec county, in the Legislative Assembly of Canada; and in 1844 he was appointed a member of the Legislative Council. He died at Quebec on February 1, 1848. The Neilson papers are in the Public Archives of Canada.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. IV, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 400p., p. 388.