Article

Isaac Buchanan

Published Online January 22, 2008

Last Edited December 5, 2013

Isaac Buchanan, merchant, politician, pamphleteer (b at Glasgow, Scot 21 July 1810; d at Hamilton, Ont 1 Oct 1883). As founder and leading local partner of Upper Canada's largest wholesale firm, he was prominent from 1832 to 1844 in the commerce of Toronto and, after 1851, of Hamilton.

Buchanan, Isaac

Isaac Buchanan, merchant, politician, pamphleteer (b at Glasgow, Scot 21 July 1810; d at Hamilton, Ont 1 Oct 1883). As founder and leading local partner of Upper Canada's largest wholesale firm, he was prominent from 1832 to 1844 in the commerce of Toronto and, after 1851, of Hamilton. Strongly independent in politics, he was MPP for Toronto, 1841-43, and Hamilton, 1857-65.

He was an early advocate of a protective tariff, either for Canada alone or for Canada and the US together, which he said would foster Canadian industry. Of his many pamphlets on politics, religion and economics, the best known is a compilation of materials by himself and others titled The Relations of the Industry of Canada, with the Mother Country and the United States (1864). His business, and with it his influence, failed in 1867.