Samuel Bickerton Harman Explained

Samuel Bickerton Harman
Order:18th
Office:Mayor of Toronto
Successor:Joseph Sheard
Term Start:1869
Term End:1870
Birth Date:20 December 1819
Birth Place:Brompton, London, England
Death Place:Toronto, Ontario
Spouse:Georgiana Huson
Children:six sons
two daughters
Alma Mater:King's College School
Trinity College, Toronto
Profession:Lawyer, accountant, politician, civil servant

Samuel Bickerton Harman (20 December 1819 – 26 March 1892) was a Canadian lawyer, accountant, politician, civil servant, and Mayor of Toronto from 1869 to 1870.

Early life

Harman was born in Brompton, London, England, to Samuel Harman, West Indian planter and office holder, and Dorothy Bruce Murray. After graduating from King's College School in London, he became a clerk with the Colonial Bank at its Barbados branch in 1840, and in 1843 became accountant and later manager of its Grenada branch. He married Georgiana Huson, the daughter of a Barbadian planter, in Toronto in 1842.

He returned to England in 1847 and moved to Upper Canada the following year in order to tend to some investments of his wife's family. By the early 1850s, he was reading law, and was called to the bar in 1855. He would serve as a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada from 1869 to 1871.

Harman was involved in many significant activities concerning Toronto's upper class:

When the Institute of Accountants and Adjusters of Ontario failed to secure an Act of incorporation from the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Harman was named as its president. His political skills and stage-managing of the Toronto business élite enabled its incorporation as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario in 1883.[1]

Political career

Harman held many elected and appointed positions with the City of Toronto:

Notes and References

  1. An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accountants of Ontario. S.O.. 1883. 62. https://archive.org/stream/statutesofprovin1883onta#page/494/mode/2up.