Sir Robert Laird Borden (June 26, 1854 – June 10, 1937) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920. He is best known for his leadership of Canada during World War I.
Borden was born in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia. He worked as a schoolteacher for a period and then served his articles of clerkship at a Halifax law firm. He was called to the bar in 1878 and soon became one of Nova Scotia's most prominent barristers. Borden was elected to the House of Commons in the 1896 federal election, representing the Conservative Party. He replaced Charles Tupper as party leader in 1901, but was defeated in two federal elections by Liberal Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1904 and 1908. However, in the 1911 federal election, Borden led the Conservatives to victory, on the basis that that the Liberals' proposed trade reciprocity treaty with the United States would lead to the U.S. influencing Canadian identity and weaken ties with Great Britain.
Borden's early years as prime minister focused on strengthening relations with Britain. Within three years of taking office, World War I broke out. To support the war effort, he established the Canadian Expeditionary Force and enacted the War Measures Act, which granted the government sweeping powers. To finance the conflict, his government issued victory bonds, raised tariffs, and introduced new taxes, including the federal income tax. In 1917, facing what he believed to be a shortage in Canadian soldiers, Borden introduced conscription, which caused significant controversy in French Canada and ignited the Conscription Crisis. Despite this, his Unionist Party, a coalition of Conservatives and pro-conscription Liberals, was elected with an overwhelming majority in the 1917 federal election. After the war, Borden sought to expand the autonomy of Canada and other Dominions at the Paris Peace Conference, including by signing the Treaty of Versailles as independent parties. In doing so, Canada established itself as a founding member of the League of Nations. Domestically, Borden's government dealt with the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, introduced women's suffrage in federal elections, nationalized railways by establishing the Canadian National Railway, and deployed the North-West Mounted Police to suppress the 1919 Winnipeg general strike.
Borden retired from politics in 1920. In his retirement, he was Chancellor of Queen's University from 1924 to 1930 and was president of two financial institutions, the Barclays Bank of Canada and the Crown Life Insurance Company, from 1928 until his death in 1937. Borden places above-average among historians and the public in rankings of prime ministers of Canada. He was the last prime minister born before Confederation and the last prime minister to be knighted, having accepted a knighthood in 1914.
Early life and career (1854–1874)
Borden was born and educated in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, a farming community at the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley. His great-grandfather, Perry Borden Sr. of Tiverton, Rhode Island, had taken up Acadian land in this region in 1760 as one of the New England Planters. The Borden family had immigrated from Headcorn, Kent, England, to New England in the 17th century. Also arriving in this group was a great-great-grandfather, Robert Denison, who had come from Connecticut at about the same time. Perry had accompanied his father, Samuel Borden, the chief surveyor chosen by the government of Massachusetts to survey the former Acadian land and draw up new lots for the Planters in Nova Scotia. Through the marriage of his patrilineal ancestor Richard Borden to Innocent Cornell, Borden is descendant from Thomas Cornell of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
Borden's father, Andrew Borden, was judged by his son to be "a man of good ability and excellent judgement" and of a "calm, contemplative and philosophical" turn of mind, but "he lacked energy and had no great aptitude for affairs." His mother Eunice Jane Laird was more driven, possessing "very strong character, remarkable energy, high ambition and unusual ability". Her ambition was transmitted to her first-born child, who applied himself to his studies while assisting his parents with the farm work he found so disagreeable. Borden's cousin, Sir Frederick Borden, was a prominent Liberal politician.
At age nine, Borden became a day student for the local private academy, Acacia Villa School. The school sought to "fit boys physically, morally, and intellectually, for the responsibilities of life." There, Borden developed an interest in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages. At age 14, Borden became the assistant master for classical studies. In late 1873, Borden began working as a professor for classics and mathematics at the Glenwood Institute in Matawan, New Jersey. Seeing no future in teaching, he returned to Nova Scotia in 1874.
Despite having no formal university education, Borden went to serve his articles of clerkship for four years at a Halifax law firm. Borden also attended the School of Military Instruction in the city during the winter of 1878. In August 1878, Borden was called to the Nova Scotia Bar, placing first in the bar examinations. He went to Kentville, Nova Scotia, as the junior partner of the Conservative lawyer John P. Chipman. In 1880, Borden was inducted into the Freemasons St Andrew's lodge No. 1. In 1882, Borden, despite being a Liberal, accepted Wallace Graham's request to move to Halifax and join the Conservative law firm headed by Graham and Charles Hibbert Tupper. In 1886, Borden broke with the Liberal Party after he disagreed with Premier William Stevens Fielding's campaign to withdraw Nova Scotia from Confederation. In the autumn of 1889, when he was only 35, Borden became the senior partner following the departure of Graham and Tupper for the bench and politics, respectively.
His financial future guaranteed, on September 25, 1889, Borden married Laura Bond, the daughter of a Halifax hardware merchant. Ms. Bond was an organist and regular attendant of St. Paul's Anglican Church in Halifax, and it has been speculated that the pair first met there. They had no children. Bond later became president of the Local Council of Women of Halifax, until her resignation in 1901. She also later became president of the Aberdeen Association, vice-president of the Women's Work Exchange in Halifax, and corresponding secretary of the Associated Charities of the United States. The Bordens spent several weeks vacationing in England and Europe in the summers of 1891 and 1893. In 1894, Borden bought a large property and home on the south side of Quinpool Road, which the couple called Pinehurst.
In 1893, Borden successfully argued the first of two cases which he took to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He represented many of the important Halifax businesses and sat on the boards of Nova Scotian companies, including the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Crown Life Insurance Company. By the mid-1890s, Borden's firm was so prominent that it attracted notable clients, such as the Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada Atlantic Steamship, and the Nova Scotia Telephone Company. Borden had several court cases in Ottawa, and while in that city he frequently met with Prime Minister John Sparrow David Thompson, a fellow Nova Scotian. In 1896, Borden became president of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society and took the initiative in organizing the founding meetings of the Canadian Bar Association in Montreal.
On April 27, 1896, Borden went to Charles Tupper's home for a dinner party. Tupper, who was about to succeed Mackenzie Bowell as prime minister, asked Borden to run for the federal electoral district of Halifax for the upcoming election. Borden accepted the request.
Early political career (1896–1901)
Campaigning in favour of his party's National Policy, Borden was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) in the 1896 federal election as a Conservative. However, the Conservative Party as a whole was defeated by the Liberals led by Wilfrid Laurier.