The Honourable Edward Blake PCKC
Blake in the 1870s
2nd Premier of Ontario
In office December 20, 1871 – October 25, 1872
Monarch	Victoria
Lieutenant Governor	William Pearce Howland
Preceded by	John Sandfield Macdonald
Succeeded by	Oliver Mowat
Leader of the Opposition
In office May 4, 1880 – June 2, 1887
Prime Minister	John A. Macdonald
Preceded by	Alexander Mackenzie
Succeeded by	Wilfrid Laurier
Member of Parliament (United Kingdom) forSouth Longford
In office July 1892 – August 1907
Preceded by	James Gubbins Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	John Phillips
Personal details
Born	Dominick Edward Blake (1833-10-13)October 13, 1833 Adelaide Township,Upper Canada
Died	March 1, 1912(1912-03-01) (aged 78) Toronto,Ontario, Canada
Resting place	Saint James Cemetery, Toronto
Political party	Ontario Liberal Party Liberal Party of Canada
Other political affiliations	Irish National Federation (1892-1900)[1] Irish Parliamentary Party (1900-1907)
Spouse	Margaret Cronyn
Relations	Samuel Hume Blake, brother William Hume Blake, father Benjamin Cronyn, father-in-law George MacKinnon Wrong, son-in-law H. H. Wrong, grandson
Signature

Dominick Edward BlakePC KC (October 13, 1833 – March 1, 1912), known asEdward Blake, was the secondpremier of Ontario, from 1871 to 1872 and leader of theLiberal Party of Canada from 1880 to 1887.^[2] He is one of three federal permanent Liberal leaders never to becomePrime Minister of Canada, the others beingStéphane Dion and the latter's immediate successorMichael Ignatieff. He may be said to have served in the national politics of what developed as the affairs of three nationalities: Canadian, British, and Irish. Blake was also the founder, in 1856, of the Canadian law firm now known asBlake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.

After retiring from Canadian politics, Blake served four terms as an MP in theUnited Kingdom Parliament representating theIrish National Federation and then theIrish Parliamentary Party.

Blake was born in 1833, inAdelaide Township,Middlesex County,Upper Canada, the son ofWilliam Hume Blake and Catherine Honoria Hume, and was educated atUpper Canada College.^[3]

In 1856, after Blake wascalled to the bar, he entered into partnership with Stephen M. Jarvis in Toronto to practice law. When his brotherSamuel Hume Blake joined soon thereafter, the firm became Blake & Blake. Today it is known asBlake, Cassels & Graydon.^[4]

As a consequence of the ruling of theJudicial Committee of the Privy Council inLong v The Bishop of Cape Town,^[5] Blake offered a legal opinion toBenjamin Cronyn (then Bishop of theAnglican Diocese of Huron) on the legality of the convening of aProvincial Synod of the various Dioceses of theEcclesiastical Province of Canada byFrancis Fulford (thenBishop of Montreal and Metropolitan of Canada). He determined that the concurrence of all of the Dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province would be required prior to the creation of the Provincial Synod, and therefore no such Synod could legally be convened until the entity first existed. This opinion was read into the Minutes of the seventh session of the Synod of the Diocese of Huron which convened in June 1864.^[6]

Blake was recruited into active politics byGeorge Brown, elected Member of the Provincial Parliament (Durham West andBruce South) became leader of theOntario Liberal Party in 1868 and premier in 1871, but left provincial politics to run in the1872 federal election, in which he was re-elected. The "dual mandate" rule that allowed a politician to sit simultaneously in a provincial and federal house had been abolished, and Blake chose to abandon his career in provincial politics. He played a major role in exposing the government of SirJohn A. Macdonald's complicity in thePacific Scandal forcing the government's resignation. Blake was offered the prime ministership, but turned it down due to ill health.

When the Liberals won the subsequent1874 federal election, Blake joined thecabinet of Prime MinisterAlexander Mackenzie and served asMinister of Justice andPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

From 1876 to 1900, he was the chancellor of theUniversity of Toronto.

The Liberals were defeated in the1878 election, and Blake succeeded Mackenzie as party leader in 1880. He failed to defeat Macdonald'sConservatives in the1882 or1887 elections. Blake resigned as Liberal leader in 1887, recruitingWilfrid Laurier as his successor, and left theHouse of Commons of Canada in 1891.

In the 1892 election, Blake entered theBritish House of Commons as anIrish NationalistMember of Parliament (MP) for the constituency ofSouth Longford in the midlands ofIreland. In 1895, he was appointed to the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, which reported in 1896.^[7]

Laurier sought several times for Blake's return to Canada by offering him nominations for theSupreme Court and other judicial appointments. However, Blake felt committed to his new role and was particularly committed tohome rule in Ireland. His idea of an Irish nation state within a federal empire met with little support.

In May 1907 he suffered astroke and was partially paralyzed on the left side of his body. He left the British House of Commons in August 1907 upon his appointment as theSteward of the Chiltern Hundreds (asinecure office used to effect resignation) and retired to Canada.

He is perhaps best remembered for the arguments that he made to theJudicial Committee of the Privy Council in favour of the Provinces in interpreting theBritish North America Act. In 1888, he argued the case ofSt. Catharines Milling v. The Queen in which the federal government was claiming the right to issue timber licenses. This speech was quoted in its entirety in the 1960 report of the QuebecRoyal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems, which influenced many Quebecers, includingRené Lévesque:

The word federal is the key which unlocks the clauses and reveals their contents. It is the glass that enables us to discern what is written. By its light the Act must be construed ...What then was the general scheme of this Act? First of all, as I suggest, it was to create a federal as distinguished from a legislative union, but a union composed of several existing and continuing entities. It was not the intention of Parliament to mutilate, confound and destroy the provinces mentioned in the preamble, and having from their mangled remains stewed in some legislative cauldron, to evoke by some legislative incantation absolutely new provinces into an absolutely new existence ... it was the design, I say, ... by gentle and considerate terms to preserve the vital breath and continue the political existence of the old provinces. However this may be, they were being made, as has been well said, not fractions of a unit but units of a multiple. The Dominion is the multiple and each province is a unit of that multiple ...^[8]

He won the case, and the Privy Council consistently afterwards took the side of the provinces.

Edward Blake married Margaret Cronyn, the daughter ofBenjamin Cronyn and Margaret Ann (Bickerstaff), in 1856. She was born in 1835 and was educated atLondon, Ontario and inToronto. Mrs. Blake practiced benevolent and other useful work. She was a member of the Toronto Ladies' Educational Association and served as the Honorary President of the Canadian Branch of the McAll Association in Toronto. She also frequently accompanied her husband on his political tours. The couple had seven children, four of whom survived them.^[9] Their daughter Sophia Hume Blake marriedGeorge M. Wrong and was the mother ofHume Wrong.

The personal and family papers of Edward Blake^[10] can be found at theArchives of Ontario, and the majority of these records were received on indefinite loan from theUniversity of Toronto Library in June 1952. There are also Edward Blake archives at theUniversity of Toronto^[11] andLibrary and Archives Canada.^[12]

On Mr. Blake's appointment as Minister without Portfolio, 7 November 1873:

By-Election: On Mr. Blake's appointment as Minister of Justice, 19 May 1875:

Archives at
Location University of Toronto Archives & Records Management Services  Source Edward Blake fonds
How to use archival material

Wikimedia Commons has media related toEdward Blake.

• Forster, Ben; Swainger, Jonathan (1998)."Blake, Edward". In Cook, Ramsay; Hamelin, Jean (eds.).Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. XIV (1911–1920) (online ed.).University of Toronto Press.
• Edward Blake – Ontario Legislative Assembly parliamentary history (archive)
• Edward Blake family fonds, Archives of Ontario
• Edward Blake – Parliament of Canada biography
• Ronan O'Brien,"An Irishman's Diary",Irish Times, 13 August 2007 (subscription required)
• Ontario's Historical Plaques
• Edward Blake archival papers held at theUniversity of Toronto Archives and Record Management Services
• Macdonald, Neil (1900)."Blake, William Hume" .Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. pp. 285–286.

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