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Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 56.2 (2001) 189-190



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Book Review

Sir Charles Tupper, Fighting Doctor to Father of Confederation


Jock Murray and Janet Murray. Sir Charles Tupper, Fighting Doctor to Father of Confederation. Canadian Medical Lives Series. Markham, Ontario, Associated Medical Services, Inc. and Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1999. 155 pp., illus. $18.95 (Canadian).

For students of Canadian history, Sir Charles Tupper (1821—1915) is usually known as the man who was prime minister for the shortest time (two months in 1896). Jock and Janet Murray’s highly empathetic portrayal of Tupper is an account of a man who was both a well-liked physician and a controversial but successful politician. Theirs is the twenty-third volume in a series of biographies produced by the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine that celebrates important figures in the history of Canadian medicine. The book is by no means the first biographical look at Tupper, who published his recollections in 1914, and whose edited letters were published in 1916. He is the subject of four biographies and one Ph.D. thesis. In addition to their narrative, Murray and Murray’s biography includes a genealogy and chronology of Tupper’s life and ancestry as well as the full text of William Osler’s obituary of Tupper. More than a recounting of [End Page 189] Tupper’s medical and political careers, the purpose of their book is to set straight Tupper’s place in the history of Canada, particularly with reference to Joseph Howe, another key figure in Nova Scotia and national politics.

Charles Tupper was born in a small town in rural Nova Scotia and received most of his formal medical training at Edinburgh. Upon returning to Nova Scotia from Scotland, Tupper set up a practice and pharmacy in his hometown of Amherst, where he worked as a doctor for thirteen years. His political career unofficially started in 1852 when he introduced a candidate at a nomination meeting. It was at this event that his longstanding rivalry with the liberal Joseph Howe began, and it continued until Howe’s death in 1873. Tupper and Howe’s disagreements related to Nova Scotia’s status as a colony, the creation of Canada as a country, and the role of the state in realms such as education and religion.

Tupper was elected to the Nova Scotia government in 1855 as a conservative and became premier in 1864. While he was in the Nova Scotia government, he secured government funding for health care for the poor. He was one of the men responsible for the creation of Dalhousie University and its medical college, and he was elected the founding president of the Canadian Medical Association in 1867, a post he held for three terms. Tupper participated in the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, which led to the formation of Canada as a country three years later and to Tupper being one of the Fathers of Confederation. For the rest of his life, Tupper was either an elected or appointed official in the Canadian government. He was often accused of arm-twisting, offering patronage, and making threats, especially in relation to his involvement in the signing of the British North American Act and the building of the national railway. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1879 and became Canada’s High Commissioner to London in 1883. Much of Tupper’s later life was spent in England, and he died there in 1915.

Murray and Murray essentially provide a straightforward biography of Charles Tupper, although their narrative occasionally obscures the chronology, leaving the reader to confirm the order of events in the appendix. The authors present much of Tupper’s early political career as a battle with Joseph Howe, and they end the book arguing for a more balanced view, since they believe that up to this point, history has unfairly attributed many of Tupper’s political achievements to Howe. While they are interested in Tupper’s medical career, they focus more on his political...

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