Leverett George DeVeber

Leverett George DeVeber (sometimes spelled De Veber ) (February 10, 1849 – July 9, 1925) was a Canadian politician who served as Member of the Legislative Assemblies of Alberta and the North-West Territories, minister in the government of Alberta, and member of the Senate of Canada. Born in New Brunswick and trained as a physician, he joined the North-West Mounted Police and came west, eventually settling in Lethbridge after leaving the police force. He represented Lethbridge in the North-West Legislative Assembly from 1898 until 1905, when Lethbridge became part of the new province of Alberta. He was appointed Minister without Portfolio in Alberta's first government, but resigned four months later to accept an appointment to the Senate, where he remained until his death.

Early life

DeVeber was born February 10, 1849, in Saint John, New Brunswick. His great-grandfather, Gabriel DeVeber, had been a British army officer who was rewarded for his service in the American Revolution with land in New Brunswick, where his descendants had lived since. Leverett George DeVeber was educated in Saint John and Kingston before attending King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia. He was a prominent rower in New Brunswick, and also played cricket and baseball and took part in shooting, hunting, and fishing events.

He studied for a year at Harvard College and then completed his medical studies at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, from which he graduated in 1870. He then studied at the University of Pennsylvania for a year. He practiced medicine in Saint John for six years,

In 1885 DeVeber married Rachael Ann Ryan, who was born in Melbourne where her father was posted with the British Army. The pair had two children: Marion Frances DeVeber, who married shipbuilder Francis Dunn and moved to England, and Leverett Sandys DeVeber, who worked in Toronto for the Bank of Montreal. in which capacity he continued until at least 1924. He was also active with the Episcopalian church and the Canadian Order of Foresters. This position put him at odds with the Liberal federal government, led by Wilfrid Laurier, who wanted the new provinces' governments to be Liberal. A Liberal, George Bulyea, was therefore appointed Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, and it was understood that he would appoint a Liberal as the province's first premier.

After Alberta's two most prominent Liberals, Peter Talbot and Frank Oliver, made it clear that they were not interested, DeVeber considered himself as a possible candidate. DeVeber's belief that he may be appointed premier does not appear to have been well-founded: his opposition to the introduction of party lines earned him the enmity of some Liberals, not least because it aligned him with Haultain, a Conservative. In the estimation of historian L. G. Thomas, DeVeber's fellow Liberals "were not inclined to take him too seriously" as a potential premier. His time as an MLA was so short he did not sign the rolls in the Alberta Legislature and was never sworn in.

While in the Senate, DeVeber chaired the Standing Committee on Public Health and Inspection of Foods. One issue examined by this committee was water pollution: beginning in March 1909 and for nearly a year afterwards, it studied the question in view of the increasing mortality from typhoid fever, and concluded, in the words of the University of Michigan's Jennifer Read, "that the country required some form of legislation to manage the problem. However, it was at a loss about the form it should take and from what body it should emanate." As chair of the committee, DeVeber attended an October 1910 federal-provincial conference in Ottawa called to attempt to coordinate all Canadian jurisdictions' responses to water pollution.

At the same time, DeVeber's colleague Napoléon Belcourt was championing a similar measure in the Senate (as an Ottawa resident, Belcourt was disturbed by the effect on the city's water supply by the dumping of waste upstream, in Aylmer, Quebec),

Electoral record