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Patton, Hon. James, Q.C., LL.D., Collector H.M. Customs, Toronto, was born at Prescott, Ontario, on the 10th of June, 1824. He is the fourth son of the late Andrew Patton, of St. Andrews, Fifeshire, Scotland, and formerly major of her Majesty’s 45th regiment of the line. Mr. Patton’s eldest brother (for some years rector of Cornwall and Belleville and archdeacon of the diocese of Ontario) died in Belleville in 1874. The family having removed from Prescott to Toronto in 1830, James was sent to Upper Canada College, where he received the rudiments of a sound education; and in 1840, having resolved to follow the legal profession, he entered the office of the late Hon. John Hillyard Cameron, who then carried on business with the late Chancellor Spragge, to study law. In 1843, on the opening of King’s College (now the University of Toronto), he matriculated in arts, and graduated in law, and in 1858 took the degree of LL.D. In 1845 he was called to the bar, and took up his abode in the town of Barrie, Simcoe county, where in a very few years he acquired an extensive practice. At an early period of his career Mr. Patton took a deep interest in politics. The agitation consequent upon the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, and the burning of the Parliament buildings in the city of Montreal, seem to have acted as a stimulus to his conservative instincts. Therefore, in 1852, he started the Barrie Herald as the mouth-piece of his party, and conducted it with great energy for several years. At this time there was only one other paper published north of Toronto, whereas now there are nearly forty. In the meanwhile he was also engaged in legal literature,—having published the “Constable’s Assistant”—and in 1855 aided in the establishment and publication of the “Upper Canada Law Journal.” In 1859 he was elected a bencher of the Law Society, and having afterwards been a solicitor-general, is now a life bencher by statute. In 1862 he was created a Queen’s counsel. In 1853 Mr. Patton took into partnership Hewitt Bernard, and the year following the late Sidney Cosens, and in 1857 William D. Ardagh, the Barrie firm changing to Patton & Ardagh on Mr. Bernard being appointed deputy Minister of Justice. In 1860 he opened a branch office in Toronto, and the year following was joined by a former pupil, Featherston Osler, now one of the hon. justices of the Court of Appeal, and subsequently by the late Chief Justice Moss, the firm being known as Patton, Osler & Moss, and soon obtained a prominent position. In 1864 Mr. Patton having been invited by Sir John A. Macdonald to take charge of his large business, left for Kingston, but returned again to Toronto in 1872, on the removal of the Trust and Loan Company’s office to that city, Macdonald and Patton being the company’s solicitors. This partnership continued until 1878, when Mr. Patton retired from the active practice of his profession, in which he had been engaged for thirty-three years, and took charge of the English and Scottish Investment Company of Canada. This important position he held until 1881, when the Dominion government appointed him Collector of Customs for Toronto. Since that period he has faithfully performed the duties of this responsible trust, and has done a great deal to improve and simplify this branch of the civil service. Although in his younger days Mr. Patton was an active politician, yet he did not seem to aspire to parliamentary honours though often asked to become a candidate. However, when in 1856 the Legislative Council (now the Senate) was made an elective body and Upper and Lower Canada were mapped out into forty-eight electoral divisions, with twelve members to be elected every two years, he presented himself as a candidate, and was one of the six returned that year for what is now Ontario, for the group of counties consisting of Grey, Bruce and North Simcoe, known as the Saugeen Division. As a member of the Legislative Council Mr. Patton was a staunch Conservative, and he, without consulting the government, moved (seconded by the late Sir E. P. Taché) in 1858 in that body the resolution condemning the Brown-Dorion government—the same being taken up by Sir Hector Langevin, seconded by Hon. John Beverly Robinson, the next day in the Legislative Assembly—and carried it by sixteen to eight. In 1862 he became a member of the Cartier-Macdonald ministry, with a seat in the Executive Council (now the Privy Council) as solicitor-general for Upper Canada—Sir John A. Macdonald being attorney-general—but was defeated when seeking re-election, and with the fall of the government a few weeks later, he retired from public life. While in parliament the Hon. Mr. Patton carried through among other measures the Debentures Registration Act, and the act that has elevated the status of attorneys, by requiring the passage of examinations in addition to the mere service under articles; also amendments to the Grand Jury law, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to introduce the Scotch system of doing away with the required unanimity of twelve petit jurors—the bill, though passed by large majorities in the Council in four consecutive sessions, was invariably thrown out by the Legislative Assembly. The Hon. Mr. Patton assisted at the formation of the University Association, and was its president for several years, holding the office until his election as vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto. This latter office he held from 1860 to 1864, when he was succeeded by the late Hon. Adam Crooks, Minister of Education. In 1861-2 he was chairman of the University Commission issued by the Crown. In 1886 he occupied a seat in the council of the Board of Trade of Toronto, and did good service as such in helping to prepare the laws that govern that important and influential body. In 1853 he was married to Martha Marietta, the eldest daughter of the late Alfred Hooker, of Prescott.