William Mulock
Sir William Mulock was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, educator, farmer, politician, judge, and philanthropist. He served as vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto from 1881 to 1900, negotiating the federation of denominational colleges and professional schools into a modern university.
He was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a Liberal Member of Parliament and served from 1882 to 1905. Sir Wilfrid Laurier appointed him to the Canadian Cabinet as Postmaster General from 1896 to 1905. In 1900, Mulock established the Department of Labour, bringing William Lyon Mackenzie King into public life as his Deputy Minister.
He initiated the final agreement for a transpacific cable linking Canada to Australia and New Zealand, and he funded Marconi to establish the first transatlantic radio link from North America to Europe. In 1905, he chaired the parliamentary inquiry into telephones that led to regulation of Canadian telecommunications, and he participated in the negotiations that led to the creation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
He was Chief Justice of the Exchequer Division of the Supreme Court of Ontario from 1905 until appointed by King in 1923 as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario, a position he held until 1936. From 1931 to 1932, he served as the acting Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
Mulock was extremely active in both business and the community, being involved in the foundation of organizations as diverse as the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Toronto Star, Toronto Wellesley Hospital, and Canada's first national peace organization. In later life, he was known as the "Grand Old Man" of Canada.
Early life
Mulock was born in Bond Head, Canada West, the son of Irish immigrant Thomas Homan Mulock and Mary, the daughter of John Cawthra. His father, a physician educated in Dublin at the Royal College of Surgeons and the Medical School of Trinity College, died when Mulock was four years old. His mother then moved the family to Newmarket, Ontario, where he was educated at the Newmarket Grammar School.Mulock's older brother, John, died in 1852; he had two sisters, Marian and Rosamund. The family endured genteel poverty after the father's death, so Mulock spent much time chopping wood, milking the family cow, growing vegetables in the family garden, and on outside work such as repairing the local corduroy roads.
University of Toronto
Student
Mulock entered the new University College in Toronto in 1859; his classmates included J. M. Gibson, W. D. Lesueur, and W. B. McMurrich. On 9 November 1861, Mulock captained one of the teams in the first gridiron football game ever recorded.During the Trent Affair of 1862, Mulock asked the head of the college, John McCaul, to call a student meeting that led to the formation of the University Company of volunteers, later K Company of the Queen's Own Rifles. At the time of the Fenian Raids in 1866, Mulock received training at the Royal Military School and served in the regiment for three weeks, but he never saw action.
Starting at the same time that Mulock arrived, Egerton Ryerson led a sustained attack on the university over money and the proper purpose of a university education. Ryerson did not think that modern languages or history, practical courses, nor even law or medicine belonged in a university, and a Royal Commission was struck which recommended that the endowment of the university be distributed among all Ontario colleges. The defence of the university culminated in a large meeting at the St. Lawrence Hall on 5 March 1863, where Mulock moved the concluding motion. These efforts allowed the University to "escape extinction", according to Sir Daniel Wilson.
After graduating in 1863 with the Gold Medal for Modern Languages, Mulock became a law student, first articled to Alfred Boultbee in Newmarket, and then in Toronto, eventually in the firm of Senator John Ross. To support himself, Mulock became a house-master at Upper Canada College. Mulock was called to the bar in 1868.
University senator (1873–1944)
After graduating, Mulock, Edward Blake, Thomas Moss, and James Loudon led the struggle to broaden the University of Toronto Senate to include elected members. As a result, Ontario Minister of Education Adam Crooks passed legislation in 1873 that added 15 new senators elected by the alumni. Mulock was elected and remained a member for 71 years. Mulock moved and passed the first requirement that university finances be reported to the senate and made public. Largely due to the efforts of Mulock and Loudon, in 1876 a School of Science was established and in 1878 an independent School of Practical Science.In 1873, the Law Society of Upper Canada established a law school, and Mulock soon became Lecturer and Examiner in Equity. After the school closed in 1878, the Osgoode Literary and Legal Society attempted to provide replacement instruction, with Mulock lecturing on partnership. When Mulock became Vice-Chancellor, one of his goals was to establish the best law faculty on the continent.
Vice-Chancellor (1881–1900)
Mulock was elected Vice-Chancellor in 1881. The University of Toronto then consisted of two small buildings, and the rest of higher education in Ontario was distributed among a variety of denominational colleges and small independent professional schools. Mulock believed that a single federated university would be more efficient, less expensive, and provide better educational opportunities to students, especially in sciences and the professions. He negotiated around resistance from many quarters, leading to the Federation Act in 1887 and affiliation with St. Michael's College in 1881, Wycliffe College and Knox College in 1885, the Ontario College of Agriculture and the Royal College of Dental Surgeons in 1888, Victoria College, the Ontario Medical College for Women and the Toronto College of Music in 1890, the College of Pharmacy in 1891, the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1896, and the Ontario Veterinary College in 1897. In opposition to followers of John Rolph who believed medical education should be paid for by students since they would soon have a good income treating patients, Mulock thought it better to reduce disease by spending public money to train doctors. The Federation Act established new faculties of medicine and law. Mulock efforts were not popular with everyone, but he survived several attempts to remove him from office, resigning in 1900 because of his increased political responsibilities. As part of his internecine battles, Mulock secretly aided William Lyon Mackenzie King and other student leaders of the February 1895 student strike.In June 1893, Mulock provided the articling position needed by pioneering student-at-law Clara Brett Martin. Martin was so badly treated by her fellow male students that she eventually switched to another firm, but in 1897 she became the first female lawyer in the British Empire.
In 1897, Mulock hired surgeon Herbert Bruce into the Faculty of Medicine without consultation. Mulock later helped finance Bruce's new Wellesley Hospital and was the first chair of its board of directors.
The University awarded Mulock an Honorary Doctorate of Laws in 1894.
While Vice-Chancellor, Mulock accepted no salary, and the money accumulated was donated to the university.
In 1906, the elected office of Vice-Chancellor was abolished; the unelected President of the University took over as Chair of the Senate. Mulock later spoke out against this "reactionary step", especially since the act also "put the elected members of the senate in a hopeless minority" and reduced the senate's responsibilities to academic matters only.
Chancellor (1924–1944)
After Sir William Meredith's death in 1923, Mulock was nominated for the primarily ceremonial role of Chancellor. Mulock was supported by most elected representatives, but opposed by most professors. The senate elected Sir Edmund Walker, but Walker died shortly thereafter. Mulock was subsequently elected unanimously as Chancellor on 28 April 1924 and served until his death.Mulock's proudest achievements were his contributions to the University of Toronto. His memorials at the university include the Mulock Cup, Canada's oldest continuously awarded sporting trophy, the William Mulock Prize in Mathematics and Physics, the William Mulock Prize in Classics, and Mulock House in Whitney Hall residence.
Politics and law
Mulock entered politics in 1881, unsuccessfully seeking the Liberal nomination in the then strongly Conservative federal riding of York North. The winning nominee, Dr. John Widderfield, later withdrew and was replaced by Mulock, who then unexpectedly defeated the Conservative incumbent in the 1882 election. Mulock remained in Opposition through two subsequent elections until 1896 when the Liberals under Wilfrid Laurier took power. In order to provide "clean government", Mulock raised sufficient funds that year to provide Laurier with financial independence.Postmaster General (1896–1905)
Laurier appointed Mulock as Postmaster General.He inherited an inefficient bureaucracy that was losing almost a million dollars a year, but he believed that improved service and lower prices would increase revenue and better connect Canada and the British Empire. He campaigned for lower rates throughout the Empire, and when met by resistance decided to go it alone, announcing that at the end of 1897 Canada would unilaterally lower the letter rate to Britain from five to three cents. In response, a conference of all British Empire postal authorities was called for in mid 1898. Over the objections of the Australian colonies and New Zealand, Mulock succeeded in implementing an Imperial Penny Post. Mulock also took advantage of this meeting to negotiate the final financial agreement for the transpacific cable first proposed by Sir Sandford Fleming to link Canada to Australia and New Zealand. The cable was completed on 31 October 1902, finishing the All Red Line. By 1903, the Post Office was generating a surplus of almost a million dollars a year.
To mark the start of the Imperial Penny Post, Mulock personally designed and issued a new stamp with a map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire. Partly by accident, this became the world's first Christmas stamp.
On 1 April 1898, Mulock introduced an amendment to the Post Office Act that made Canada the first country in the world to give franking privileges, i.e. free postage, for Braille materials and books for the blind. He also initiated a program to provide Post Office employment for the deaf.
After the first successful transatlantic radio communication in 1901 to his station at Signal Hill, Dominion of Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi learned that the Anglo-American Cable Company had a monopoly on transatlantic telegraphy from Newfoundland, so he planned to move to a new location in the United States. When Mulock learned this, he immediately negotiated an agreement with Marconi for him to set up his North American radio station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, where the first transatlantic message from North America was sent on 17 December 1902.
Mulock was Canada's representative at the opening of Australia's first Parliament in 1901, and was one of Canadian representatives at the coronation of King Edward VII. Mulock was knighted in 1902 for his services, in particular for the Penny Post, Transpacific Cable, and wireless telegraphy between Canada and Great Britain.
In order to protect the public against quackery Mulock amended the Post Office Act in 1904 to curtail advertising of "marvellous, extravagant or grossly improbable cures". Mulock was also active in the negotiations that led to the formation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905.
In 1905, Mulock chaired the select parliamentary inquiry into telephone systems, especially the unregulated Bell Telephone monopoly.
The committee shed much light on the operations and finances of Bell, but Mulock was replaced when it became apparent that he was likely to recommend the telephone service be a government owned utility. The committee's work nevertheless led in 1906 to the first federal regulation of telephone and telegram service by the Board of Railway Commissioners, the ancestor of the current Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Despite being a wealthy businessman and fervent anticommunist, Mulock believed that government operation of public franchises provided better service at lower cost, with greater protection of personal privacy and public interest.
Mulock was probably the best administrator in the Laurier Cabinet, but he did not always consider the political consequences of his actions. Without consulting Laurier, he fired the influential journalist as Montreal's Postmaster. Mulock had ample cause, but Laurier immediately ordered Dansereau reinstated, straining Laurier's relationship with Mulock.
Mulock once let politics try to overrule physics. He proposed the Newmarket Canal to the centre of his riding to help local industry, despite engineering reports that that natural water flow would leave the canal dry for much of the year. "Mulock's Madness" was cancelled when Robert Borden became prime minister in 1911, but its partially completed remains are still prominent.