1875 in Canada

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1875 in Canada: A brief, easy-to-read summary

What was happening in government
- Monarch: Queen Victoria.
- Governor General: Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava.
- Prime Minister: Alexander Mackenzie.
- Parliament: 3rd Canadian Parliament.
- Chief Justice: William Buell Richards (from September 30).

Provincial and territorial leaders
- British Columbia: Premier George Anthony Walkem; Lieutenant Governor Joseph Trutch.
- Manitoba: Premier Robert Atkinson Davis; Lieutenant Governor Alexander Morris.
- New Brunswick: Premier George Edwin King.
- Nova Scotia: Premier William Annand (until May), then Philip Carteret Hill (from May 11).
- Ontario: Premier Oliver Mowat.
- Prince Edward Island: Premier Lemuel Cambridge Owen.
- Quebec: Premier Charles Boucher de Boucherville.
- Northwest Territories (territorial government): Lieutenant Governor Alexander Morris (separate from Manitoba’s after April 8).

Key events of 1875
- January 14: The Halifax Herald newspaper begins publication.
- January 18: Ontario general election; Oliver Mowat’s Liberal Party wins a second consecutive majority.
- March 1: The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto) is founded.
- April 5: The Supreme Court of Canada is created.
- April 8: Northwest Territories receives a separate lieutenant-governor from Manitoba.
- May 11: Philip Carteret Hill becomes premier of Nova Scotia (replacing William Annand).
- June 1: Construction begins on the Canadian Pacific Railway.
- June 30: Prince Edward Island implements the Land Purchase Act to address land issues tied to Confederation.
- July 7: Quebec election; Charles-Eugène Boucher de Boucherville’s Conservatives win a third straight majority.
- July 20: British Columbia general election is held.
- September 2: Guibord Affair violence related to the Guibord case (began in 1874) flares up again.

Notable other events (dates not always exact)
- A convent school in Montreal faces a typhoid fever outbreak; body-snatching linked to the event prompts changes to the Anatomy Act in Quebec.
- Louis Riel is granted amnesty on condition of five years’ banishment.
- Jennifer Trout becomes the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada (although Emily Stowe had been practicing in Toronto since 1867 without a license).
- Grace Lockhart receives Mount Allison University’s first Bachelor of Arts degree awarded to a woman.

Births of notable Canadians in 1875
- February 26: Edith Jane Miller, concert contralto.
- March 29: Harry James Barber, politician.
- June 12: Sam De Grasse, actor.
- June 15: Herman Smith-Johannsen, ski pioneer.
- August 26: John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, novelist and later Governor General of Canada.
- August 2: Albert Hickman, politician (important in Newfoundland).
- August 21: Winnifred Eaton, author.
- August 22: François Blais, politician.
- September 6: Edith Berkeley, biologist.
- October 5: Anne-Marie Huguenin, journalist.
- November 19: John Knox Blair, politician, physician, teacher.
- December 5: Arthur Currie, World War I general.

Deaths of notable Canadians in 1875
- March 1: Henry Kellett, Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer.
- June 22: William Edmond Logan, geologist.
- July 15: Charles La Rocque, priest and bishop.
- July 22: Amable Éno, dit Deschamps, political figure.
- August 21: George Coles, premier of Prince Edward Island.
- December 14: Marie-Anne Gaboury, early female explorer.