Harold Timmins

{{Short description|Canadian politician}}

{{Use Canadian English|date=September 2021}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Harold Timmins

| birthname = Harold Aberdeen Watson Timmins

| image = Photograph of Harold Watson Timmins (cropped).jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Timmins between 1939 and 1945.

| birth_date = {{birth date|1896|04|14}}

| birth_place = Alliston, Ontario

| death_date = {{death date and age|1966|07|29|1896|04|14}}

| death_place = Long Point, Balsam Lake, Ontario

| spouse = Amy M. Fleming

| parliament = Canadian

| riding = Parkdale

| predecessor = Herbert Alexander Bruce

| successor = John Hunter

| term_start = October 1946

| term_end = June 1949

| profession = Lawyer, lecturer, judge

| party = Progressive Conservative

}}

Harold Aberdeen Watson Timmins (April 14, 1895Ontario Birth Registration, Harold Aberdeen Watson, date of return March 19, 1926, file 902759-1926.Attestation Papers, Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force, no. 337910 (Timmins, Harold Watson) – July 29, 1966) was a Canadian politician and jurist.

Timmins was born in Alliston, Ontario, the son of James S. Timmins and Charlotte Amelia Watson,{{cite book |title=The Canadian Directory of Parliament 1867-1967 |last=Johnson |first=J.K. |year=1968 |publisher=Public Archives of Canada}} and raised in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale where he attended Parkdale Collegiate Institute before studying at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School."H.W. Timmins: Toronto judge was alderman, Parkdale MP", Globe and Mail, July 30, 1966 He was called to the Ontario bar in 1920. Timmins was named a King's Counsel in 1942.

He served with the Canadian Army as a gunner during World War I and was wounded at the Battle of Arras.

A lawyer by profession who also lectured at Osgoode Hall Law School on contract law and liens, Timmins was a popular alderman on Toronto City Council representing Parkdale's Ward Six from 1944 until 1946 when he ran in a federal by-election in Parkdale.{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804013,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110219223947/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804013,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 19, 2011 | magazine=Time | title=Canada: POLITICS: To the Right | date=October 28, 1946 | accessdate=May 4, 2010}} He was elected as a Progressive Conservative MP and sat in the House of Commons of Canada until his defeat in the 1949 federal election by John Hunter of the Liberals in what was considered an upset victory as Parkdale had been a safe Tory seat since its creation in the 1917 federal election.

During his time in the House of Commons, Timmins was an advocate for building housing for veteran's and for the creation of a national health plan.

In 1958, Timmins was appointed as a judge on the County Court of York. Prior to that he'd been a magistrate-at-large in Ontario and an official arbitrator for Toronto for three years.