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ROBERT
STUART WOODS, Q.C., revising officer of the electoral district of Kent,
late junior judge of Kent, local judge of the high court of justice,
surrogate judge of the maritime court of Ontario, and for fifty years a
prominent figure in the Western District, is, with his more than fourscore
years, one of the grand old men of Kent. His eye is as bright, his mind
as clear, his step as elastic, as when in the flush of early manhood he
was called to the Bar.
In both paternal and maternal lines Judge
Woods is of Scottish descent. His grandfather Woods was a Scotchman
engaged in mercantile pursuits in St. John’s, Lower Canada. His maternal
grandfather, Hon. Alexander Grant, familiarly known as Commodore Grant,
was a member of the ancient family of that name at Glenmoriston,
Inverness, Scotland, and came to Canada as a midshipman under Lord
Amherst, in 1759, being appointed to the command of a sloop of war, and
taking an active and honourable part in the exciting events of those early
days. Later he became commander or commodore of the western lakes, and at
the time of his death had been an officer in His Majesty’s service for
nearly 57 years. Commodore Grant was one of the seven men called by
Governor Simcoe to the first legislative council, and was the third member
of the first executive council of Upper Canada; and in 1805-06 he was
lieutenant-governor of that province. Although both Judge Wood’s
grandfathers were reared in the strict faith of the Scotch Presbyterians,
both of them wedded French Canadian wives, of the Roman Catholic Church.
James Woods, father of Judge Woods, was a
barrister-at-law at the Montreal Bar. In 1800 he came to the Western
District, and took an active part in public matters. At his death he left
a large landed estate. He married Elizabeth, seventh daughter of the late
Alexander Grant.
Robert Stuart Woods was the fourth son of his
parents, and was born at Sandwich, Essex, Ontario, in 1819. He was
educated in the district grammar schools under Rev. David Robertson, and
the late Rev. William Johnson, until he was 17 years of age, and
subsequently under the Rev. Alexander Gale, of Hamilton. The course of
study in those days was somewhat limited as compared with the curricula of
modern schools, but what was lacking in extent was amply compensated for
by thoroughness. In 1837 came the Rebellion, and the young student went
to the relief of Toronto under Colonel MacNab, as one of the famous 56 men
of “Gore”, in the steamer “Gore”, by means of whom, on the first day of
the Rebellion, the city was saved from MacKenzie’s forces. He continued
with Colonel MacNab throughout the campaign, and of one of the exploits of
that force, the cutting out of the “Caroline”, Judge Woods has written an
interesting account.
Judge Woods pursued his legal studies under
Judge O’Reilly, of Hamilton, was called to the Bar in 1842, and was made a
Q.C. by the Earl of Dufferin in 1872. Up to the time of his appointment
as junior judge, in 1885, he was actively engaged in the practice of law,
and he won for himself a high place through his lofty conception of the
duties and the dignity attendant upon members of his profession. From
1846 to 1849 he was solicitor of the county council of the Western
District, and is the oldest municipal officer in Kent. In 1843 he acted
as judge of the division court, at a time when the circuit was 150 miles
in length, and two weeks were required for the work. In 1850 he came to
Kent, and at once took his place among those interested in the advancement
and development of this section. His means and his energies have been
given freely to the securing of railways, good roads, canals and other
enterprises. To him is due the forcing of Hamilton citizens into the
construction of the Great Western railway, which, with the opening of the
Michigan Central to Chicago (1849), became the link between the roads of
the East and the West.
Judge Woods has never belonged to any secret
society. While a faithful member of the Church of England, he has a broad
sympathy for all other denominations, and is liberal in his aid to further
any of them in good work. He belongs to the Church of England Synod, and
is an earnest advocate of temperance, and of all legislation to promote
it. For some time he was president of the Kent branch of the Dominion
Alliance, and has belonged to other organizations having similar intent.
In his politics he is a Conservative, first and last, and is proud of the
fact that his allegiance to his party has never wavered, even while his
personal relations with the leaders of the opposition have ever been most
cordial. In 1854 he contested Kent against Larwill, McKellar & Waddell,
when Larwill was returned, and Mr. Woods was defeated on the
secularization of the Clergy Reserves, on which question he was in advance
of his party.
In 1849 Judge Woods was united in marriage
with Emma Elizabeth Schwarz, eldest daughter of the Honourable John E.
Schwarz, adjutant-general of the State of Michigan. Since the advent of
the year 1904 Judge Woods has retired from the junior judgeship, followed
by the good wishes of all his legal brethren, whose admiration for his
honourable career and reverence for his high character were unbounded.
His public career has covered an important and historic period in the
Province, and his reminiscences of the conditions and of people a lifetime
ago are of great interest. His volume, “Harrison Hall and its
Associations”, gives the history of the District of Hesse and the Western
District from their earliest organization, with that of their municipal,
judicial, political and educational interests. He is a fine
conversationalist and is by nature most social, and time spent in his
society is never devoid of pleasure. |
