Background
FIELDING, William Stevens was born on November 24, 1848 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Son of Charles and Sarah Fielding.
FIELDING, William Stevens was born on November 24, 1848 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Son of Charles and Sarah Fielding.
Halifax; Doctor of Civil Law Acadia University. Doctor of Laws Queen’s and M'Gill Universities.
A journalist; for twenty years connected with the Halifax Morning Chronicle. Resigned the position of managing editor of that paper to engage in the active duties of public life. Represented city and county of Halifax in the Provincial Legislature, 1882-1896.
Member of the Provincial Cabinet a few months after his election, and Prime Minister, 1884-1896, when he resigned to become Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As Minister of Finance was particularly charged with the readjustment of the Canadian tariff. Submitted to Parliament the British preferential tariff, and later the measures imposing a surtax on the products of Germany in consequence of German action adverse to Canada, and later legislation dealing with the so-called “dumping” system.
A representative of Canada at Colonial Conference, London, 1902. One of His Majesty’s plenipotentiaries for the negotiation of the Franco - Canadian commercial Treaty, Paris, 1907. And the Supplementary Treaty, 1909.
Negotiated Commercial arrangements with Germany, the United States, Italy, and Belgium, 1909-1910. Member of British Royal Commission on Canada, West India trade, 1909-1910. A governor of Dalhousie University. P.C. Canada; Minister of Finance in the Canadian Cabinet; sits in the Dominion Parliament for the electoral district of Shelburne and Queen’s.
Clubs: Rideau, Ottawa; Halifax, City, Halifax.
Spouse 1876, Hester,daughter of Thomas A. Rankine of St. John, New Brunswick.