Lyman Duff, Supreme Court chief justice, grew up in Speedside

In a recent column, I described the difficulties that the Speedside Congregational church had in retaining local pastors. However, one thing that Speedside excelled at, quite unexpectedly, was fostering a Supreme Court chief justice.

Lyman Poore Duff was born the second son of Rev. Charles Duff in Meaford, Ont., in 1865, when his father was pastor to the local congregation. After the reverend took up the pastorate of Speedside in 1875, young Lyman attended the one-room Speedside school. He then moved on to high school in Fergus, where his father had also accepted pastoral duties in 1878.

Lyman Duff displayed a remarkable memory for facts, numbers and dates, which may have spurred his interest in the law. Nonetheless, he entered the mathematics program at the University of Toronto and graduated with an honours BA in 1887.

The precision and rigour of mathematics appealed to him.

However, the law beckoned and Duff attended Osgoode Hall, obtaining his degree in 1889. He returned to Fergus to work in the firm of Neil Munro before being called to the bar in 1893.

Seeking a place more equal to his ambitions, Duff removed to Victoria in 1894 to join the firm of Bodwell and Irving. He quickly proved his mettle and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1900.

An early distinction was Duff’s appointment as delegate to the Alaska Boundary Commission in 1903, which pleaded Canada’s case regarding the Alaska panhandle to the Privy Council in London. The task was hopeless but federal officials noted Duff’s acumen.

In 1904, at the age of 39, Duff was appointed to the British Columbia Supreme Court and, in 1906, to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In that era, the final court of appeal in Canada was the Privy Council in London. As such, appellants often simply skipped the Supreme Court entirely. Yet Duff’s rigorous and authoritative judgments helped to establish a good reputation for the Dominion’s own top court. So impressive was his work that Duff himself was appointed to the Privy Council in 1919.

Personally, Duff was considered eccentric. He would speak to himself in public, even arguing both sides of a legal case out loud while ignoring bystanders. He also suffered from alcoholism and poor financial management, a situation that only worsened with the death of his wife Elizabeth in 1926. However, his unmarried sister Annie moved to Ottawa and took charge of his personal affairs in 1932. This seemed to do the trick, and Duff was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1933 and knighted in 1934.

Duff participated in a number of important legal affairs.

In 1931, he led a royal commission into the national railways, resulting in a report that helped them to survive the Great Depression.

In 1937, the Duff court struck down Alberta taxes and regulations that were thought to intrude on federal jurisdiction, thus affirming the authority of the national government.

In 1939, Duff upheld a government bill, which had been referred to the court, that would abolish appeals to the Privy Council. The abolition was enacted in 1949, thus cutting Canada’s legal ties to the British Empire.

In 1942, Duff led a royal commission that investigated the Canadian Army’s disastrous role in the Battle of Hong Kong. The report absolved senior officers and government officials of any blame and is considered a whitewash.

Duff also served as acting governor general for five weeks in 1935 and four months in 1940.

Duff’s history in Speedside was long recalled by locals. One story relates that Lyman and his brother Ralph encountered a cow lying across the road during their return home from Fergus. Because of the swampy terrain, there was no way around, so the young men decided to drive right over it. However, when the wheels of their buggy mounted the creature’s back, it stood up, upsetting their vehicle and depositing the future top justice down into the brambles.

Perhaps this was the moment when Duff realized how exciting it could be to have all rise on his arrival.