Sir Dominick Daly was the Governor of Prince Edward Island from 11 July 1854 to 25 May 1859 and later Governor of South Australia from 4 March 1862 until his death on 19 February 1868.

He was born in Ardfry, County Galway

County Galway

County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 in 1798 and studied in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. In 1823, he came to Lower Canada

Lower Canada

The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...

 as secretary to Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton

Francis Nathaniel Burton

Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton was a British colonial administrator in Lower Canada and Irish politician....

. In 1827, he was appointed provincial secretary

Provincial Secretary

The Provincial Secretary was a senior position in the executive councils of British North America's colonial governments, and was retained by the Canadian provincial governments for at least a century after Canadian Confederation was proclaimed in 1867...

 for Lower Canada. After the Act of Union in 1840, it became a prerequisite for his post that he be elected and he ran successfully in the Canada East

Canada East

Canada East was the eastern portion of the United Province of Canada. It consisted of the southern portion of the modern-day Canadian Province of Quebec, and was primarily a French-speaking region....

 riding of Mégantic

Mégantic (electoral district)

Mégantic was a federal electoral district in the province of Quebec, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1935, and from 1949 to 1968.-History:It was created by the British North America Act of 1867...

 in 1841. In 1841, he was appointed provincial secretary of Canada East and a member of the Executive Council. When the council resigned en masse in November 1843 in a dispute with Governor Sir Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, Daly chose to remain, which was viewed as a betrayal by Reformers. This left Daly as acting head of government for several weeks. In 1844, he became provincial secretary for both Canada East and Canada West. In March 1845, he was challenged to a duel by Reformer Thomas Cushing Aylwin

Thomas Cushing Aylwin

Thomas Cushing Aylwin was a Quebec lawyer, judge and political figure.He was born in Quebec City in 1806, the grandson of Thomas Aylwin. Aylwin studied at Harvard University, then articled in law and was called to the bar in 1827. He entered the practice of law in partnership with Edward Short...

; shots were fired but no one was injured. Daly was removed from the Executive Council in 1848 when Robert Baldwin

Robert Baldwin

Robert Baldwin was born at York . He, along with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, led the first responsible ministry in Canada, regarded by some as the first truly Canadian government....

 and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine

Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine

Sir Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine , 1st Baronet, KCMG was the first Canadian to become Prime Minister of the United Province of Canada and the first head of a responsible government in Canada. He was born in Boucherville, Lower Canada in 1807...

 came to power; he returned to England and served on a commission of inquiry.

In 1852, Daly was appointed lieutenant-governor of Tobago

Tobago

Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...

; he was next appointed to the same post in Prince Edward Island. In 1858, he announced his resignation and departed the following year. In October 1861, he was appointed the next Governor of South Australia and died in office in 1868 in Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

.

Geography

The town of Daly Waters was named after the new Governor of South Australia by John McDouall Stuart

John McDouall Stuart

John McDouall Stuart was one of the most accomplished and famous of all Australia's inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return, and the first to do so from a starting point in South Australia, achieving this...

 in 1862 on his third attempt to find a path from south to north across the centre of Australia. The Daly River further north was named after him in 1865 by surveyor Boyle Finniss

Boyle Finniss

Boyle Travers Finniss was the first Premier of the Colony of South Australia, serving from 24 October 1856 to 20 August 1857.-Early life:...

.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Political Summary