
John Neilson (profile)
'John Neilson' (
July 17 1776 –
February 1 1848) was a
Scots-Quebecer editor of the newspaper ''
La Gazette de Québec/The Quebec Gazette'' and a politician.
Born in
Dornal,
Scotland, Neilson arrived in
Quebec City,
Lower Canada in
1791 to work for his uncle's printing company, which he inherited in
1793.

John Neilson, ca 1840
Elected to the
Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in a partial election in
1818, he was re-elected until
1830 and supported the
Parti canadien. In
1823, he accompanied
Louis-Joseph Papineau to
London to lobby against the Union project in the name of the majority of the MPs in the
Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. Again, in 1828 he was part of a delegation sent to
London (
UK) to present his party's demands for reform. In
1830, he took his distance from the
Parti patriote, which he considered to be too radical. He opposed the
Ninety-Two Resolutions of
1834, a rewrite of the
1828 demands for reform with a radical tone. In 1837, he was named to the Executive Council and
Legislative Council; Nielson was a member of the
Special Council that administered Lower Canada after the
Lower Canada Rebellion. He opposed the Union after its enactment. In 1841, he was elected to the
1st Parliament of the Province of Canada in the riding of
Quebec County. He was elected speaker, but in 1844 was appointed to the
Legislative Council. He died at
Cap-Rouge in 1848.
His daughter Mary married notary
Thomas Lee.
See also
★
Timeline of Quebec history
★
Lower Canada Rebellion
External links
★
Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
★
John Neilson biography - National Assembly of Quebec (in French)
★
THE IRISH OF QUEBEC