Neil McLeod (politician) dating history

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Neil McLeod (December 15, 1842 – October 19, 1915) was a Prince Edward Island lawyer, judge and politician, the fifth premier. He was born at Uigg on the island to Roderick McLeod and Flora McDonald, Baptist immigrants from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. He was educated at the Uigg Grammar School and in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, articled in law at Charlottetown and was called to the bar in 1873. Four years later, his marriage to Isabella Jane Adelia Hayden, the Methodist granddaughter to Irish Roman Catholic immigrant and merchant John Roach Bourke, furthered Gaelic intersections among Islander cultural enclaves. McLeod was the child of immigrants from the Isle of Skye. In that context, historians continue to research his positions on the 1877 Public Schools Act, the 1882 replacement of French-language texts with bilingual readers for French Acadians, late nineteenth-century prohibitions on Canadian Gaelic, and corporal punishment in Prince Edward Island schools. During this period, McLeod practiced law with partner Edward Jarvis Hodgson before joining the McLeod, Morson, and McQuarrie law firm. He also served as Commissioner for the Poor House and as a "trustee" to the public Prince Edward Island Hospital for the Insane, which replaced the Lunatic Asylum following a Grand Jury inquest. He entered politics in 1879, winning a seat in the provincial legislature as a Conservative. He was re-elected in 1882 and became secretary-treasurer and then minister without portfolio in the government of William Wilfred Sullivan after the resignation of the Davies government. During his electoral campaigns, McLeod garnered endorsements from labor organizations by promoting a Mechanics’ Lien Bill, which passed in the legislature, along with an indigent debtors bill and regulations that circumscribed punitive measures for debt. In 1889, Sullivan resigned to become Chief Justice of the province's Supreme Court and McLeod became party leader and Premier. He supported construction of a mainland tunnel and liquor licensing laws after the defeat of provincial temperance legislation. His government, a majority by only one delegate, faced three by-election losses in 1891 after three members resigned to pursue seats in the House of Commons of Canada. On April 17, 1891, McLeod's Cabinet (Executive Council) requested dissolution in order to facilitate deliberations over deficit spending and what became known as legislative "amalgamation." Despite a refusal by Lieutenant Governor Jedediah Slason Carvell, reports of a pending Motion of No Confidence five days later compelled McLeod to tender his resignation by telephone prior to the next legislature session. He thereafter carried the dubious distinction of being the first elected official in the Canadian Confederation, and what would become the Commonwealth of Nations, to resign a government with a phone call.