Premier of Ontario, Canada. One of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation, he served as the 3rd Premier of Ontario from October 1872 until July 1896 and was the 8th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from November 1897 until his death in 1903. Born in Kingston, Upper Canada (now Ontario) as a youth he fought with the loyalists during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. He trained as a lawyer in January 1836 in the law office of John A. Macdonald and was called to the bar in November 1841. In 1856 he was appointed Queen's Counsel and the following year first entered politics as an alderman of the City of Toronto, Canada in 1857. The following year he became a member of the Legislative Assembly for South Ontario, serving until 1864. During his time in the Legislative Assembly, he served as Provincial Secretary (1858) and Postmaster-General (1863-1864) in pre-Confederation government (the John Sandfield Macdonald administration). With Toronto journalist George Brown, he helped create what became the Ontario Liberal Party as well as the Liberal Party of Canada. In 1864 he became a member of the Great Coalition government and was a representative at that year's Quebec Conference, where he helped work out the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. In November of that year he was appointed to the judiciary as Vice-Chancellor of the Court of Chancery of Upper Canada, a position he held until he was appointed Ontario's premier in October 1872. He led a moderate government and attempted to cut across divisions in the province between Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as between country and city. He also oversaw the northward expansion of Ontario's boundaries and the development of its natural resources, as well as the emergence of the province into the economic powerhouse of Canada. He also served as his own Attorney-General concurrently with his service as Premier, introducing reforms such as the secret ballot in elections, extending suffrage beyond property owners, extending laws regulating alcohol, and consolidated the law relating to the municipal level of government. In 1892 he was knighted and received the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. In 1896 the leader of the opposition, Wilfrid Laurier, convinced him to enter federal politics and he became Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, serving until November 1897, when he was appointed the 8th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. He died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the age of 82. A statue in his honor resides at Queen's Park in Toronto. In 1969 the public high school Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute was built in his honor in Toronto. He was the great-great-uncle of Canadian author Farley Mowat.