Alexander Mackenzie(1822–1892)

Alexander Mackenzie was born at Logierait in Perthshire, Scotland, on 28 January 1822, the third of ten sons, and trained as a stonemason. He emigrated to Canada in 1842, worked at his trade, became a building contractor and a reform newspaper editor, and entered colonial and then federal politics on a reputation for plain honesty that earned him the name Honest Sandy.

He became the first leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and, in 1873, the second Prime Minister of Canada. He held the office until 1878, governing through a severe economic depression with a frugality and probity that were never seriously questioned by his opponents.

His government laid down enduring institutions of Canadian public life. It introduced the secret ballot in federal elections in 1874, created the Supreme Court of Canada in 1875, established the Royal Military College of Canada at Kingston in 1876, and created the Office of the Auditor General to bring independent scrutiny to public spending.

He declined a knighthood on more than one occasion, holding that he had entered public life as a working man and would leave it as one. He continued to sit in Parliament until his death in 1892, respected across the House for an integrity that became proverbial.

The Mackenzie name, from the Gaelic for the son of Coinneach, the fair or bright one, is among the great surnames of the Scottish Highlands. Alexander Mackenzie carried it from a Perthshire mason's yard to the premiership of Canada and built it into the very framework of honest government there.