Fonds consists of correspondence, 1868-1912, 3.875 m; memoranda and notes, 1879-1905, 0.225 m; clippings and scrapbooks, 1860-1907, 1.950 m; commissions and addresses, 1869-1914, 0.050 m.
Bowell, Mackenzie, Sir, 1823-1917 : Prime Minister of Canada (1894-96) Mackenzie Bowell was born at Rickinghall, England on 27 December 1823 and immigrated with his family to Belleville, Ontario in 1833. Bowell was a carpenter before buying the Belleville Intelligencer newspaper. He served on local bodies and helped found the Canadian Press Association. In 1867, he was elected to parliament in the riding of Hastings North. He was minister of customs (1878-92) in the cabinets of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir John Abbott, who also made him minister of railways and canals (1891-92), and militia and defence (1892). Bowell was appointed to the Senate in 1892 as leader of the government and minister of trade and commerce. He led a trade delegation to Australia in 1893 and chaired the first inter-colonial conference in 1894. Bowell became prime minister in December 1894. His attempt to resolve the Manitoba Schools Question caused a cabinet revolt and he resigned in April 1896, serving as party leader in the Senate until 1906, and remaining a senator until his death. Bowell endorsed the federal government's systematically racist relationship with Indigenous Peoples, which caused tremendous ongoing trauma, displacement, disenfranchisement and exclusion. Specifically, Bowell came to prominence in 1874, by moving to have Louis Riel expelled from the House of Commons. This reflected Bowell's role as a senior leader in the sectarian Protestant Orange Order, which was irate that one of its members had been executed by the predominantly Catholic Métis during the Red River Resistance. Bowell's government passed the 1895 amendment to the Indian Act, banning traditional festivals, dances and ceremonies. Bowell was knighted in 1895. In 1847, he married Harriet Moore. Bowell died at Belleville on 10 December 1917 and was buried in the Belleville Cemetery.
