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Meet some of the founders of the Force, including Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Lieutenant-Governor Alexander Morris, and George Arthur French, first Commissioner of the Mounted Police. Read on to find out more about the challenges of “Creating a Mounted Police”.
- Policing The Frontier
- North-West Mounted Police
- Patrols and Forts Established
- Rebellion and Modernization
- Klondike and Arctic Expansion
- Royal NWMP
- RCMP Established
- Expansion and War
- Intelligence Gathering
- Post-War Policing
Canada’s national police service had small, temporary beginnings. After Confederation, when the newly formed nation was negotiating the purchase of Rupert's Land, the federal government faced the problem of how to administer this vast territory peacefully. The Hudson's Bay Company had ruled this frontier (what is today northern Quebec and Ontario, ...
Nothing further happened until 1873, when Ottawa, as part of plans to administer the North-West Territories, revived the idea of a federal police force. In May that year, Parliament passed an Act establishing a force, and 150 recruits were sent west that August to spend the winter at Fort Garry (what is now Winnipeg). The following spring another 1...
On 8 July 1874 the new, 300-man force of mounted police left Dufferin, Manitoba and marched west. Their destination was present-day southern Alberta, where whisky traders from Montana were known to be operating among the Blackfoot people. The previous June there had been a serious incident in the Cypress Hills (in what is now southern Saskatchewan)...
For a decade and a half, the NWMP concentrated on building close relations with Indigenous peoples. The police helped prepare Indigenous people for treaty negotiations with the government, and mediated conflicts with the few settlers in the region. The NWMP played a role in the signing of treaties covering most of the southern Prairies in 1876 and ...
By the mid-1890s the NWMP had also begun moving north. Rumours of gold discoveries in the Yukon prompted the government to send Inspector Charles Constantine to report on the situation in that remote region. His recommendations led to the stationing of 20 police in the Yukon in 1895. This small group was barely able to cope with the full-scale gold...
By this time the force was known as the Royal North-West Mounted Police – the "Royal" being added in 1904 in recognition of the service of many mounted policemen in the South African War. The permanence of the force also became an accepted fact by the early 20th century. When the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created out of the North-W...
When the end of war in 1918 reduced the need for security work, the future of the mounted police was very uncertain. Late that year, N.W. Rowell, the president of the Privy Council, a senior federal civil servant, toured western Canada to seek opinion about what to do with the force. In May 1919 he reported to Cabinetthat the police could either be...
In August 1931, Major-General James MacBrien became commissioner. The seven years of his leadership marked a period of rapid change. The size of the RCMP nearly doubled in this period, from 1,350 to 2,350 men, as the force took over provincial policing in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. It also took over the ...
The international tensions of the Cold War era, which the Gouzenko case heralded in Canada, ensured that security and intelligence work would continue to be a major preoccupation for the mounted police. After Gouzenko, these activities attracted almost no public attention until the mid-1960s, when Vancouver postal clerk George Victor Spencer was di...
The postwar period saw a continued expansion of the RCMP's role as a provincial force. In 1950 the RCMP assumed responsibility for provincial policing in Newfoundland (which had joined Canada in 1949), and also absorbed the British Columbiaprovincial police. In 1959, the most serious conflict over the split federal-provincial jurisdiction of the fo...
Major General Sir George Arthur French, KCMG (19 June 1841 – 7 July 1921) was an Irish soldier who served as an officer in the British Army, as the first Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, from October 1873 to July 1876, and as Commandant of the colonial military forces in Queensland (1883–91) and New South Wales (1896–1902 ...
Jan 24, 2008 · Sir George Arthur French, soldier (b at Roscommon, Ire 19 June 1841; d at London, Eng 7 July 1921). A Royal Artillery officer, French established the Canadian Militia gunnery school at Kingston in 1871.
Apr 1, 2024 · As adjutant of the Royal Artillery at Kingston for four years, French was described as “a fine officer, but on occasion his sound military knowledge and attributes were prone to clash with...
We know the original buffalo head badge first appeared on an officer's pouch (sabretache) in 1877. This means the badge was likely selected while Commissioner George Arthur French was in command (1873 to 1876). Did you know
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Under the direction of the newly appointed first Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, George Arthur French, a force of 275 officers and men began their famous 'March West' on July 8, 1874 and arrived in present-day southern Alberta, in October 1874.
