Date Published:
January 2005

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

Louis Amable Jetté

Jetté, Sir Louis Amable (1836-1920), lieutenant-governor of Quebec (1898-1908) and chief justice of the court of King's Bench in Quebec (1909-11), was born at L'Assomption, Lower Canada, on January 15, 1836, the son of Amable Jetté, a merchant, and Caroline Gauffreau. He was educated at L'Assomption College, and was called to the bar in Lower Canada in 1857. He practised law in Montreal, and in 1870 distinguished himself in the famous Guibord case. In 1872 he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the Liberal interest for Montreal Bast, defeating Sir George Cartier. He represented this constituency until 1878, when he was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec. In 1898 he retired from the bench to accept appointment as lieutenant-governor of .Quebec; and this post he held until 1908, being re-appointed for a second term. During this period he was a member of the Alaska Boundary Tribunal in 1903, and he was one of the commissioners who dissented from the award of the tribunal. In 1908 he was re-appointed to the bench, and in 1909 he became chief justice of the court of King's Bench in Quebec. He retired from the bench finally in 1911, and he died at Quebec on May 5, 1920. In 1862 he married Berthe, daughter of Toussaint Laflamme, of Montreal ; and by her he had one son. He was an LL.D. of Laval University (1878) and of the University of Toronto (1908), and a D.C.L. of Bishop's College, Lennoxville (1899). In 1901 he was created a K.C.M.G. See L. O. David, Mes contemporains (Montreal, 1894), and Souvenirs et biographies (Montreal, 1911), with portrait.

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 296.