A western Canadian author described Nicholas Flood Davin as a scholar, poet, bon vivant, editor and journalistic agitator, past master of insults and an up-and-down politician.
For 13 years, from 1887 to 1900, Flood Davin was member of Parliament for Assiniboia West, which took in the towns of Moose Jaw and Regina and much of present-day Saskatchewan, and as such was the first to champion western interests.
Born in Ireland, Davin qualified as a lawyer and was called to the English bar, but journalism was his first love. After wild adventures as a young journalist during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) — which included escaping from Paris in a balloon — he came to Canada for a visit and stayed for the rest of his life.
His first job was as a literary critic for the Toronto Globe, but in 1874, he returned to the legal profession, his career as a lawyer pinnacling in 1880 when he was assigned to defend the accused murderer of George Brown, a Father of Confederation and editor of the Globe. His defence has been called “one of the most brilliant appeals for a human life in Canadian legal history.”
Davin saw the barren site of Regina for the first time in 1882 when townsite trustee W.B. Scarth invited him and a party of prominent people — including Dr John Rae, the Arctic explorer — to travel in his private rail coach over the newly constructed Canadian Pacific Railway. At the time the rail line had reached the vicinity of present-day Herbert.
With an incentive of $5,000 cash and $5,000 in town lots dangling before him, Davin was persuaded to stay in Regina and start a newspaper, the Regina Leader.
At the time, Regina was a mere clutter of shacks and tents, with no proper streets and not a tree in sight, which brought out Flood Davin’s famous humour: “Last week we had a rain and everybody who walked down Broad Street took a homestead on one foot and a pre-emption on the other,” he said, referring to the prairie gumbo.
In 1885. Davin carried out his most successful journalistic coup. On the eve of Louis Riel’s execution, he disguised himself as a bearded, French-speaking priest and appeared at the Mounted Police barracks as Riel’s father confessor. Mistaking the “priest” for Father Andre, Riel’s real confessor, the guard allowed him to enter. Where other journarlists had been turned away, Davin of the Leader was successful.
In 1887, when the North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan and Alberta) were given federal representation, Davin ran on the Conservative ticket and won with ease the riding of Assiniboia West (including the town of Moose Jaw) becoming its first member of Parliament. In Ottawa, he was among the first voices of prairie protest, speaking for the homesteaders and grain growers.
Flood Davin, recognized as one of the greatest orators of his day, wallowed in lively debate in the House of Commons. When a political foe addressing him said: “The honourable member for Assiniboia West has a bare face, a bald head and rooms to let,” Davin retorted: “The honourable member like myself, has no hair on his face; his head, like mine, is bald; he, like myself has rooms to let; but there is this difference, mine are furnished, and his are not.”
In a verbal head-on with Wilfred Laurier, Davin countered: “I compare your government to a congested pawn shop, full of unredeemed promises.”
One of the first of his many visits to district farms occurred in late October 1888. Accompanied by George Annable of Moose Jaw, the pair set out by horse and buggy for the William Sanders farm, a few miles north of town. Sanders was pleased with his harvested crops — 1,800 bushels of wheat, 300 bushels of oats and 100 bushels of barley.
After an overnight stop at the Smail farm, Davin and Annable stopped at the farms of the Beesley family, William Watson and George and Henry Might.
In the evening, Davin lectured on travels in Europe in Bellamy’s hall on the southwest corner of Main and High Streets. The hall was filled to the door, and at the end of the lecture, the audience rose to its feet and loudly cheered. Davin promised to be back in town two weeks later to make a political speech, and with his gift of repartee and flair for the unexpected, even standing room would be hard to come by.
In the federal election of 1900, Flood Davin was defeated by Liberal Walter Scott, owner of the Moose Jaw Times from1892 to his death in 1938. Despondent over his electoral defeat and the realization his glory days were vanishing, Davin committed suicide.
A lovely grandfather clock, a memorial from his Moose Jaw friends and family members (Reid and Alexander families) stood for many years in the entrance hall of the old YWCA on Ominica Street. When the YWCA moved out of the building, the clock vanished.
