O-435

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Peter White

Portrait of Speaker Peter White

Peter White’s time in the House of Commons was unique. Between 1872 and 1904, he lost five elections but won seven. While he was Speaker for only five years, from 1891 to 1896, he held the seat during the terms of five Prime Ministers, including Macdonald, Abbott, Thompson, Bowell and Charles Tupper, whose 69 days as Prime Minister is the shortest term in Canadian history. White was born in 1838 in Pembroke, Ontario and made a fortune in lumber. Robert Harris painted his portrait in 1894 and portrayed him as strong and formidable, like a massive tree in the forests he felled. He died in 1906.

Robert Harris

More than a century after his death in 1919, Robert Harris remains the most famous portrait painter in Canada. Born in Wales in 1849, his family moved to Prince Edward Island in 1856. His best-known work, the painting of the Fathers of Confederation formally titled “Meeting of the Delegates of British North America to Settle the Terms of Confederation, Quebec, October 1864,” was destroyed in the fire at Parliament in 1916. His 1885 masterpiece “A Meeting of the School Trustees,” set in rural P.E.I., and many other of his works hang at the National Gallery of Canada.