John Galt (; 2 May 1779 – 11 April 1839) was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator. Galt has been called the first political novelist in the English language, due to being the first novelist to deal with issues of the Industrial Revolution.
Galt was the first superintendent of the Canada Company (1826–1829). The company was formed to populate a part of what is now Southern Ontario (then known as Upper Canada) in the first half of the 19th century; it was later called "the most important single attempt at settlement in Canadian history".
In 1829, Galt was recalled to Great Britain for mismanagement of the Canada Company (particularly incompetent bookkeeping), and was later jailed for failing to pay his son's tuition. Galt's Autobiography, published in London in 1833, includes a discussion of his life and work in Upper Canada.
He was the father of Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt of Montreal, Quebec.
Life
Born in Irvine, in Ayrshire, Galt was the son of a naval captain involved in the West Indies trade. He was a first cousin of Captain Alexander Allan. His father moved to Greenock in 1780. The family visited regularly but did not permanently rejoin him until 1789. John was educated at Irvine Grammar School alongside Henry Eckford, who was a lifetime friend, and William Spence.
Galt spent a few months with the Greenock Custom House, at age 17. He then became an apprentice and junior clerk under his uncle, Mr. Ewing, also writing essays and stories for local journals in his spare time. He moved to London in 1804 to join his father and seek his fortune. In 1809 he began studying law at Lincoln's Inn.
During a subsequent trip to Europe, where he was commissioned by a merchant firm to establish trade agreements, Galt met and befriended Lord Byron in Gibraltar. He traveled with Byron and his companion, John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton, to Malta. He met them again in Greece. Parting company, Galt continued alone to Constantinople, Adrianople and then Sofia. He returned to Greenock via Ireland. He then embarked to London to pursue business plans, but these did not come to fruition and he took to writing. Galt wrote an account of his travels, which met with moderate success. Decades later, he would also publish the first full biography of Lord Byron. He also published the first biography of the painter Benjamin West, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (1816, expanded 1820).
In 1813, Galt attempted to establish a Gibraltarian trading company, in order to circumvent Napoleon's embargo on British trade; however, Wellington's victory in Spain made this no longer necessary. Galt then returned to London and married Elizabeth Tilloch, daughter of Alexander Tilloch. They had three boys. In 1815, he became Secretary of the Royal Caledonian Asylum in London. He also privately consulted in several business ventures.
Galt started to submit articles to Blackwood's Magazine in late 1819, and in March 1829 he sent Blackwood the publishers the plan for "The Ayrshire legatees".
Concentrating on his writing for the next several years, Galt lived at times in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere, writing fiction and a number of school texts under the pseudonym Reverend T. Clark. Around 1821 he moved his family from Greenock to Eskgrove near Musselburgh. In addition to moving his residence frequently during this period, Galt also switched publishers several times, moving from Blackwood's Magazine to Oliver and Boyd and then back again. In 1821 Annals of the parish was published as were two instalments of The steam boat and he started work on the novel Sir André Wylie. Annals of the parish established Galt's reputation overnight. Sir Andrew Wylie was published in 1822.
In 1824, Galt was appointed secretary of the Canada Company, a charter company established to aid in the colonization of the Huron Tract in Upper Canada along the eastern shore of Lake Huron. After the company was incorporated by royal charter on 19 August 1826, Galt traveled across the Atlantic on the man-of-war HMS Romney, arriving at New York City and then traveling by road. Sadly, soon after arriving, word was sent that his mother had suffered a stroke. He returned to her (in Musselburgh) in 1826 and she died a few months later. He returned to Canada in 1826. While in Canada, Galt lived in York in Upper Canada (now Ontario), but located the headquarters of the Canada Company at Guelph, a town he also founded in 1827. Later that year, he co-founded the town of Goderich with Tiger Dunlop. The community of Galt, Ontario, was named after him.
His son Alexander became one of the fathers of Confederation and Canada's first minister of finance.