Article

Sir James Robert Gowan

Published Online January 24, 2008

Last Edited December 14, 2013

Sir James Robert Gowan, lawyer, jurist, senator (b at Cahore, County Wexford, Ire 22 Dec 1815; d at Barrie, Ont 18 Mar 1909). At 27, Gowan was the youngest judge appointed in Canada W, and he sat on the bench 1843-83.

Gowan, Sir James Robert

Sir James Robert Gowan, lawyer, jurist, senator (b at Cahore, County Wexford, Ire 22 Dec 1815; d at Barrie, Ont 18 Mar 1909). At 27, Gowan was the youngest judge appointed in Canada W, and he sat on the bench 1843-83. He organized the judicial system in the newly created district of Simcoe, the largest jurisdiction in the colony. Gowan also served as Sir John A. MACDONALD's unofficial legal draftsman and sat on several royal commissions. These included every committee struck to revise the statute law of Canada W, Ontario and post-1867 Canada, and the commission that investigated the PACIFIC SCANDAL in 1873. Gowan also chaired several academic boards and, in 1855, founded the first legal periodical in Canada W, The Upper Canada Law Journal, which survives as the Canadian Bar Review. In 1885 he was appointed to the Senate.