MACKENZIE, William Lyon, Canadian journalist and political reformer: b. Dundee, Scotland, 12 March 1795; d. Toronto, Ontario, 28 Aug. 1861. In 1820 he came to Canada and conducted a drug and book store at Little York (now Toronto), and later at Queenstown, where in 1824-26 he published the Colonial Advocate. He transferred the Advocate office to Toronto in 1826, and there continued the paper until 1833, attacking the office-holding class and de manding governmental reforms. In 1828 he entered the provincial Parliament; and having been expelled for alleged libel against that as sembly, was five times re-elected and as often re-expelled, until the government refused to issue another writ of election. In 1832 he went to England, and having presented to the home government a petition of grievances from the Canadian reformers, was successful in obtaining the dismissal of the attorney-general and the solicitor-general of Upper Canada and the veto of the Upper Canadian bank bill. In 1834 he was elected first mayor of Toronto, in 1836 be gan the publication of The Constitution, and, in 1837 published in that journal a bold mani festo which was practically a declaration of in dependence of the provincial government. Soon
afterward he was the moving spirit in armed rebellion. An encounter took place between his followers and the government forces at Montgomery's Tavern, in the vicinity of To ronto (7 Dec. 1837), and the insurgents fled to Navy Island in the Niagara, where they were joined by about 500 Americans. The island was bombarded by Canadian troops, and as a re sult of this and the strong opposition of Gen eral Scott of the United States army, the in surgents broke camp and Mackenzie was nil prisoned for a year in Rochester jail. Later he Was a journalist in the United States, in 1849 took advantage of amnesty to return to Canada, was there a member of Parliament from 1850 58, and at Toronto published the weekly Mackenzie's Messenger from 1858 until shortly before his death. The reforms for which he so persistently contended were in the main achieved in his lifetime. He wrote 'Sketches of Canada and the United States' (1833). Con sult the (Life by Lindsey (1862) ; Lindsey's °Life° in The Makers of Canada' (1910) ; Dent, (Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion' (1885) ; Read, The Canadian Rebellion of 1837)' (1896).