Sherbrooke (Province of Canada electoral district)

Sherbrooke electoral district included the town of Sherbrooke, the village of Lennoxville, and the rural area connecting the two municipalities (with population growth, now merged into a single municipality of Sherbrooke).

The Union Act, 1840 merged the two provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada, with a single Parliament. The separate parliaments of Lower Canada and Upper Canada were abolished.[https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/ua_1840.html Union Act, 1840, 3 & 4 Vict., c. 35, s. 2.] The Union Act provided that the pre-existing electoral boundaries of Lower Canada and Upper Canada would continue to be used in the new Parliament, unless altered by the Union Act itself.[https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/ua_1840.html Union Act, 1840, s. 18.]

Sherbrooke was one of the electoral districts altered by the Union Act. The Act provided that the town of Sherbrooke would be one electoral district, but gave the Governor General the power to draw the boundaries for the district.[https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/ua_1840.html Union Act, 1840, s. 19.][https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/ua_1840.html Union Act, 1840, s. 20.]

The Governor General, Lord Sydenham, issued a proclamation on March 4, 1841, setting the boundaries for several electoral districts in Canada East, including Sherbrooke. The boundaries for Sherbrooke were as follows:

{{block indent | 1=The Town of Sherbrooke, for the purposes aforesaid, shall be bounded and limited as follows; to wit: – shall comprehend all that part of the Township of Ascot, in the District of St. Francis, which is contained in the fifth and sixth ranges of the said Township, from lot number ten to lot number seventeen, inclusively, and in the seventh and eight ranges thereof, from lot number fourteen to lot number twenty-two, inclusively; also all that part of the Township of Orford, in the said District, which is contained in the first and second ranges thereof, inclusively; the above parts and sections conjointly including and circumscribing the said Town of Sherbrooke and the adjacent village of Lennoxville, with their respective vicinities.[https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_00967_1/13?r=0&s=3 Proclamation, March 4, 1841. Reproduced in the Journal of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada, 1841, p. xiv.]}}

Sydenham's overall goal in drawing the boundaries was to ensure that supporters of the creation of the new Province of Canada would be elected.Irving Martin Abella, [https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/CHR-047-04-02 "The 'Sydenham Election' of 1841"] (1966), 47 Canadian Historical Review 326, at p. 327-328 [subscription needed]. At that time, Sherbrooke and the village of Lennoxville were separate municipalities, three miles apart. Both had substantial anglophone populations of British background, who were more likely to vote for the new union and for Sydenham's government, than were the francophone Canadiens, who generally opposed the union. By linking Lennoxville to Sherbrooke, along with the corridor of largely rural land which connected them, Sydenham increased the likelihood that a member would be elected who supported the union and his government. The boundaries drawn by Sydenham were an example of an ethnic and linguistic gerrymander.Abella, "The 'Sydenham Election' of 1841", at p. 334.

Sherbrooke was a single-member constituency.

The following were the members of the Legislative Assembly for Sherbrooke. The party affiliations are based on the biographies of individual members given by the National Assembly of Quebec, as well as votes in the Legislative Assembly. "Party" was a fluid concept, especially during the early years of the Province of Canada.J.O. Côté, [https://archive.org/details/politicalappoint00cotj_0/page/43 Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada, 1841 to 1860] (Quebec: St. Michel and Darveau, 1860), pp. 43–58.[http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/membres/notices/index.html Québec Dictionary of Parliamentary Biography, from 1764 to the present].Paul G. Cornell, [https://archive.org/details/alignmentofpolit0000corn Alignment of Political Groups in Canada, 1841–67] (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962; reprinted in paperback 2015), pp. 93–111.

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The district was abolished on July 1, 1867, when the British North America Act, 1867 came into force, creating Canada and splitting the Province of Canada into Quebec and Ontario.[https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/section-6.html#h-2 British North America Act, 1867 (now the Constitution Act, 1867), s. 6.] It was succeeded by electoral districts of the same name in the House of Commons of Canada[https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/section-40.html#h-6 Constitution Act, 1867, s. 40, para. 2] and the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.[https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/section-80.html#h-12 Constitution Act, 1867, s. 80.]

• List of elections in the Province of Canada

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{{source attribution|Journal of the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada, 1841.}}

{{Parliament of the Province of Canada}}

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Category:Electoral districts of Canada East