Sydenham, Charles Edward Poulett Thomson, Baron
Sydenham, Charles Edward Poulett Thomson, Baron
(sĭd`ənəm), 1799–1841, British statesman. Entering Parliament (1826) as a Liberal with the aid of Jeremy Bentham, he became a proponent of free trade and financial reform. He was a leader of the colonial reformers, a group that promoted liberalized but permanent imperial ties. He supported the views of Edward Gibbon WakefieldWakefield, Edward Gibbon,1796–1862, British colonial statesman. He was attached to the British embassies in Turin (1814–16) and Paris (1820–26), but in 1826 was convicted of an attempt to marry an heiress by trickery.
..... Click the link for more information. on systematic colonization. He was made president of the Board of Trade in 1834, and in 1839 he was appointed governor-general of Canada. There, in accordance with the policy of his predecessor, the 1st earl of DurhamDurham, John George Lambton, 1st earl of
, 1792–1840, British statesman. A stormy liberal career in Parliament (1813–32), which earned him the nickname Radical Jack, culminated in the important role he
..... Click the link for more information. , he successfully carried through the union of Upper and Lower Canada, accomplished by the Act of Union (1840). He was raised to the peerage in 1840.