Smith, Sidney

Sidney Smith was born October 16, 1823 at Port Hope, Upper Canada, to John David Smith and Augusta Louisa Smith. John David Smith sat in the House of Assembly of Upper Canada of Durham from 1828 to 1830. Sidney Smith was the grandson of Elias Smith. Elias was a successful merchant and trader, who left New York to settle in Upper Canada and who founded Port Hope in 1792. Sidney Smith studied law in the office of his brother, John Shuter Smith, and was admitted to the bar in 1844. Smith married Mary Ann Bennett of Cobourg, Upper Canada, on January 21, 1845. He continued to practice law throughout his life, first in Cobourg and later acted as solicitor for the Commercial Bank of the Midland District, the Bank of Montreal, the Midland Railway of Canada, the town of Cobourg, and then in Peterborough. In 1853 he was elected a municipal councilor for both Cobourg and the township of Hamilton, and was the warden for Northumberland and Durham. In 1854, Smith was elected as a Reformer to the Legislative Assembly for Northumberland West and was re-elected in 1857. From February 2, 1858 until the government's defeat on the Militia Bill in May 1862, Smith was the postmaster general in the cabinet of John A. Macdonald and George-Etienne Cartier and was also a member of the Board of Railway Commissioners. Also in 1858, Smith introduced the Upper Canada Jurors' Act and carried it through the assembly. Smith's most notable accomplishment while in office occurred in 1859 when he concluded arrangements with the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, and Prussia for mail services to Canada and the United States. By 1860, he gained abolition of Sunday labour in the Post Offices of Canada West. Smith was defeated in the general election of 1861 by James Cockburn but he was elected to the Legislative Council for Trent in the same year and was able to retain his portfolio of postmaster general. In 1863, he resigned his seat in the Upper House, sought election to the assembly of the constituency of Victoria, was defeated and resigned from politics permanently. He returned to full-time law practice in Peterborough and also served in the militia as captain of the Peterborough Infantry Company No. 2. In 1866 he was appointed inspector of registry offices for Canada West, and continued in that position for the province of Ontario after Confederation. Sidney Smith died September 27, 1889 in Cobourg, Ontario.