Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

1867 TO 1901 55understanding that five per cent, might be allowed in exceptionalcases. This resolution was not to affect existing arrangementswith savings bank depositors.During the year 1869, negotiations for the amalgamationof the Gore Bank were successfully concluded. In November,Mr. Edward Blake, Q.C.,1was requested to prepare thenotice of application to Parliament to sanction the arrangementwith that bank. Mr. Blake was then at the outset ofa career which was to bring him fame as a lawyer and a statesman on both sides of the Atlantic. It is interesting to notethat at the meeting of shareholders held on October 26, toratify the Gore Bank agreement, the names of two citizenslong connected with financial affairs in Toronto, John L.Blaikie 2 and Henry Pellatt, 3 father of Sir Henry Pellatt, appear^The Hon. Edward Blake (1833-1912), jurist and statesman, entered both theDominion House of Commons and the Ontario Legislature at Confederation. In 1869he assumed the leadership of the Liberal party in the latter assembly, and on the defeatof the Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald in 1871 became Premier of Ontario. Shortlyafterwards, on the abolition of dual representation (for which see note on page 42) heresigned his seat in the provincial legislature, and devoting himself to Federal politics,joined the Liberal administration of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie in 1873, and from1875 to 1878 held the portfolio of Justice. On the return to power of Sir John A.Macdonald, Mr. Blake became Leader of the Opposition, which post he held until 1887,when he was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Wilfrid Laurier. In 1892 he was nominatedas an Irish Nationalist candidate for the British House of Commons and sat forSouth Longford until 1907, when he retired from public life. By profession a barrister,he founded in Toronto, in conjunction with his brother, the late Hon. Samuel HumeBlake, the legal firm now known as Blake, Lash, Anglin and Cassels, which has actedas general solicitors for The Canadian Bank of Commerce since December, 1881. Mr.Blake was at one time Chancellor of the University of Toronto, and was the first presidentof the Toronto General Trusts Corporation, holding office for fourteen years.'John Lang Blaikie (1823-1912), a native of Scotland, came to Canada in 1858,and in partnership with William Alexander established the Toronto brokerage firm ofBlaikie and Alexander. Mr. Blaikie was a director of the old Northern Railway(running from Toronto to Georgian Bay and now forming part of the Grand TrunkRailway System), and was president of the Canada Landed and National InvestmentCompany, the North American Life Assurance Company and the Consumers' GasCompany (Toronto).'Henry Pellatt, Senior (1830-1909), was born in Glasgow and came to Canada in1852. In 1860 he went into business in Toronto as a stock-broker. Later on heentered into partnership with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edmund Boyd Osier, and stilllater with his son, now Sir Henry Pellatt. He was president of the Toronto StockExchange from 1876 to 1880.