Roebuck, Arthur W. (Arthur Wentworth), 1878-1971

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Roebuck, Arthur W. (Arthur Wentworth), 1878-1971

1878-1971

Arthur Wentworth Roebuck (1878-1971) was a newspaper owner and provincial and federal Liberal politician active in Ontario between 1934 and 1940.

He was born at Hamilton, Ontario on February 28, 1878 to Henry Simpson Roebuck and Lydia Abigail Macklem. He worked at a variety of commercial enterprises and the Toronto Daily Star, and then became owner of the Temiskaming Herald and the Cobalt Citizen, which he sold in 1915 when he decided to study law. He was called to the bar in 1917.

Roebuck ran unsuccessfully for office four times, representing different parties: as a Liberal in the riding of Temiskaming in the Ontario elections of 1911 and 1914; in 1917 as an Independent Labour Party candidate in the federal election; and in 1923 as a United Farmers of Ontario candidate in the riding of East York.

He was first successfully elected as a Liberal in the provincial riding of Bellwoods in 1934, and as a member of the Hepburn Liberal administration was appointed simultaneously Attorney- General, Minister of Labour and as a Commissioner to the Hydro-Electric Power Commission. He ceased being Minister of Labour in 1935, but held onto the other positions until 1937 when a disagreement with Hepburn over the entry of a labour union into Ontario forced him to resign. In the Ontario election of 1937 he won easily, and stood as an independent Liberal in the Legislature.

Roebuck was elected to the House of Commons as a federal Liberal in 1940. In 1943 he attempted to re-enter provincial politics when he stood for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party, but was unsuccessful. In 1945 he ran the federal Liberal Party campaign in Ontario, and later that year was appointed to the Senate. He died in 1971.

Archives of Ontario

Rev. Apr/12.