Stanislaus Francis Perry
Encyclopedia
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...
. He represented 1st Prince
1st Prince
1st Prince was an electoral district in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, which elected two members to the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island from 1873 to 1993.The district comprised the westernmost portion of Prince County...
in the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island
Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island
The Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island, along with the Lieutenant-Governor, forms the parliament of the province. The General Assembly meets at Province House, which is located at the intersection of Richmond and Great George Streets in Charlottetown....
from 1854 to 1875 and from 1879 to 1887 and, in the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
, represented Prince County
Prince County (electoral district)
Prince County was a federal electoral district in Prince Edward Island, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1873 to 1896.This riding was created in 1873 when Prince Edward island joined the Canadian Confederation....
from 1874 to 1878 and from 1887 to 1896 and West Prince
West Prince
West Prince was a federal electoral district in Prince Edward Island, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1896 to 1904.This riding was created in 1892 from parts of Prince County ridings....
from 1897 to 1898 as a Liberal
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
member. Perry (Poirier) was the first Acadian
Acadian
The Acadians are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia . Acadia was a colony of New France...
to serve in both the provincial assembly and the House of Commons.
He was born Stanislas-François Poirier in Tignish, Prince Edward Island, the son of Pierre Poirier and Marie-Blanche Gaudet. Poirier was educated in Tignish and then was educated in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
at St. Andrew's College in Charlottetown
Charlottetown
Charlottetown is a Canadian city. It is both the largest city on and the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, Charlottetown was first incorporated as a town in 1855 and designated as a city in 1885...
. On his return to Tignish in 1843, he taught school. Poirier anglicize
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
d his name to Perry around this time. In 1847, he married Margaret Carroll. He was named a justice of the peace in 1851.
In 1854, Perry left teaching, began farming to support his family and entered politics. As an Acadian, he supported the redistribution of land on the island from the landowners to the tenant farmers. In 1870, he supported a coalition conservative government because it supported grants to Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
schools. Perry was speaker in the provincial assembly from 1873 to 1874. Perry was initially opposed to Confederation
Canadian Confederation
Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. On that day, three British colonies were formed into four Canadian provinces...
but ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons in 1873 and 1878 before being elected in 1874. He was also an unsuccessful federal candidate in 1878 and 1882. He was defeated in 1896 but won the subsequent by-election after the first election was declared invalid. Perry was a proponent of a tunnel to link the island to the mainland.
Perry helped organize the first and second Acadian national conventions in Memramcook, New Brunswick
Memramcook, New Brunswick
Memramcook is a Canadian village in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. Located in south-eastern New Brunswick, the community is predominantly people of Acadian descent who speak the Chiac derivative of the French language....
(1881) and Miscouche, Prince Edward Island
Miscouche, Prince Edward Island
Miscouche is a Canadian rural community in Prince County, Prince Edward IslandIncorporated in 1957, Miscouche is located 6 miles west of the city of Summerside...
(1884) although he boycotted the second event because he wanted the event to be held in Tignish.
He died in office in Ottawa in 1898 and was buried in Tignish.