O-693

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable John Willson

Portrait of Speaker John Willson

John Willson was born, in the thick of the American Revolution, in New Jersey in 1776. As a young adult he moved to the Niagara region and became a prosperous and self-described “plain farmer.” He was elected to Parliament in 1809 and known as a steady defender of religious and civil liberties. He drafted the Common School Act for Upper Canada that established public support of elementary schools, and once cast the lone vote against the suspension of habeas corpus during the War of 1812. He later became a justice of the peace and judge, and died in 1860 on his farm near Hamilton, Ontario. His portrait was painted by Théophile Hamel in 1855.

Théophile Hamel

Théophile Hamel was born in 1817 in Sainte-Foy, Quebec, and studied art in Quebec and in many of the great cultural centres of Europe. He was an astute business man and a tremendously successful artist, and the National Gallery of Canada calls him “one of early Canada’s greatest portrait painters.” In 1853 the government of the United Canadas appointed him official portrait painter, and tasked him with creating portraits of all Speakers since 1791, many of which were copied from portraits held by families or elsewhere. His subjects also included the generals Montcalm and Wolfe, and many other eminent figures of early Canada.