Lash, Zebulon Aiton, 1846-1920

Person

Lash, Zebulon Aiton, 1846-1920

Zebulon Aiton Lash was born in September 1846 in St. John's, Newfoundland, to William Lash and Margaret Fannon. The Lash family moved to the Dundas area of Upper Canada, where Zebulon studied law with William Nicholas Miller. He was called to the Bar in 1868 and initially set up a practice in the Toronto Exchange. In 1870, Lash joined the commercial law firm of Beatty and Chadwick, where he remained a partner until 1878. Beginning in 1872, Lash served as a lecturer and examiner in commercial and criminal law at the law school at Osgoode Hall. Though still formally a partner at the Beatty and Chadwick firm, in 1876, Lash moved to Ottawa to become Deputy Minister of Justice. He left the Department of Justice in 1882 to join Edward Blake's corporate law firm in Toronto, where he served as counsel to the Canadian Bankers' Association, the Canadian Northern Railway, and the Canadian Bank of Commerce. Lash's ties to business led to directorships at Bell Telephone, British America Assurance, Canada Life Assurance, National Trust, and Western Canada Flour Mills, as well as the role as vice-president for Canadian Northern Railway Company, the Canadian Bank of Commerce, Mexico Tramways Company, and the Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company. Lash was elected a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1886 and he became a life bencher in 1911. An opponent of the 1911 reciprocity agreement between the United States and Canada, Lash was the founding president of the Canadian National League, established to defeat the reciprocity deal. Lash also served as president of the York County Law Association, a member and vice-chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto, and was a trustee of the Toronto General Hospital. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1879. Zebulon Aiton Lash died in Toronto on January 24th 1920.