Sir Charles Tupper (1821-1915) was one of the Canadian fathers of confederation. He was a political leader in Nova Scotia and then Canadian Cabinet minister, high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and prime minister of Canada.

Charles Tupper was born on July 2, 1821, at Amherst, Nova Scotia, of Puritan stock. He was educated at Horton Academy, Wolfville, and in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he earned a degree in medicine in 1843. He practiced medicine successfully in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, and developed a wide acquaintance which in 1855 helped him defeat a formidable opponent, Joseph Howe, for the Cumberland seat in the Legislative Assembly. Thereafter Tupper, an aggressive politician, rose rapidly in the ranks of the Conservative party, and he became premier of Nova Scotia in 1863.

Tupper's leadership was marked by a courageous reorganization of the province's educational system under the nonsectarian Council of Public Instruction and by his persistent championing of...