Thomas Bunn

The Hon. Thomas Bunn (16 May 1830 – 11 April 1875) was a Métis legislator, lawyer, negotiator, landowner, farmer, clerk of the court, and politician in Manitoba. He represented St. Clements from 1870 to 1874 in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. He helped usher in the Manitoba Act. He was Secretary of State in the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia until it was overthrown by the John A. Macdonald government and dissolved eight months after it began. Thomas Bunn was English-Metis to Louis Riel's French, and the two men didn't always agree but were staunch in their resolve to protect the rights of the Metis people. Thomas Bunn made the first motion in the Assembly of Assiniboia.

Personal life Thomas Bunn was born on 16 May 1830 in the Red River Colony. He was the oldest son of Catherine Thomas, the daughter of an HBC governor who went to Hudson Bay as a surgeon in 1789; and John Bunn, a judge, surgeon, coroner, and politician who started his career as an Edinburgh trained surgeon and "filled numerous public offices with distinction and proved that fine judges need not be lawyers." (“Law, Life, and Government at Red River, Vol. 2, General Quarterly.) The British Medical Association paid homage to John Bunn 70 years after his death.

In 1854, Bunn moved to the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews and married Isabella Clouston, who died in 1857; the pair had two children. Bunn married again, in 1859, to Rachel Harriot and they had eight children. Two years later, he resettled in Mapleton. He was a farmer throughout his time in the Red River Colony.

Public career Bunn was a clerk for the Council and Quarterly Court of Assiniboia from 1865 to 1869 and was then appointed to the council in January 1868. He became council's executive officer on 17 December 1869

Thomas Bunn and two others recorded in a journal what they personally considered to be most interesting or important during the sessions of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia Debates.

Canadian military forces under Colonel Garnet Wolseley reached Fort Garry on 24 August 1870 and deposed the Provisional Government. Bunn survived the fall of the Provisional Government and began studying law. He was elected in December 1870 to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba in the province's first general election and called to the bar in 1871. Bunn was made a clerk for Manitoba's First General Quarterly Court on 16 May 1871.