Robert Irwin (January 17, 1865 – May 16, 1941) was a merchant and political figure in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, Canada, and father of Robert Grandy and Prescott St. Clair. He represented

Shelburne County Shelburne County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. History Shelburne County was founded in 1784 shortly following the influx of Loyalist settlers evacuated from the newly independent United States. It was originally named Port ...

in the

Nova Scotia House of Assembly The Nova Scotia House of Assembly (; ), or Legislative Assembly, is the deliberative assembly of the General Assembly of Nova Scotia, and together with the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia makes up the Nova Scotia Legislature. The assembly is ...

from 1906 to 1925 as a Liberal member. Irwin was the 17th

Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia The lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia () is the representative in Nova Scotia of the monarch, who Monarchy in Nova Scotia, operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the Canadian federalism, ten other jurisdictions of ...

from 1937 to 1940.

Life and career

He was born in

Shelburne, Nova Scotia Shelburne is a town located in southwestern Nova Scotia, Canada. History Shelburne lies at the southwest corner of Nova Scotia, at roughly the same latitude as Portland, Maine, in the United States. The Mi'kmaq people, Mi'kmaq call the large an ...

, the son of Robert Gore Irwin and Isabel Archer, and was educated there. Irwin worked for fifteen years as a travelling salesman before establishing a lumber and dry goods business at Shelburne. In 1894, he married Mary Prescott McGill. Irwin was speaker for the provincial assembly from 1917 to 1925. He died in Shelburne. His brother Harry Irwin was Hawaii Attorney General and a judge in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. His brother Fred was a physician and surgeon in Hawaii. They also had a brother named Archer.

References

* * 1865 births 1941 deaths Nova Scotia Liberal Party MLAs Speakers of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly Lieutenant governors of Nova Scotia 20th-century members of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly {{Canada-viceroy-stub