About the Court

Judges of the Court

The Right Honourable Sir Samuel Henry Strong, P.C., Kt.

View image details
of the Rt. Hon. Sir Samuel Henry Strong, P.C., Kt.

Samuel Henry Strong was born in Poole, England, on August 13, 1825. He was the son of Samuel Spratt Strong and Jane Elizabeth Gosse. His family emigrated to Canada in 1836 and settled in Bytown, Upper Canada (Ottawa, Ontario). While enrolled as a student with the Law Society of Upper Canada, he articled with Augustus Keefer of Bytown, then with Henry Eccles of Toronto. Called to the bar in 1849, he established his practice in Toronto, where he later founded the firm of Strong & Matheson. In 1869, as a legal adviser to Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, he worked on a legislative proposal for the creation of a national supreme court. That year, he was appointed Vice-chancellor of the Court of Chancery of Ontario, and in 1874 he was elevated to the Ontario Court of Error & Appeal. He was appointed to the newly established Supreme Court of Canada on September 30, 1875 and named Chief Justice of Canada on December 13, 1892. He served on the Supreme Court for 27 years before retiring on November 18, 1902. Chief Justice Strong died on August 31, 1909, at the age of 84.