Allan MacNab
Canadian politician (1798–1862)
Sir Allan Napier MacNab, 1st Baronet (19 February 1798 – 8 August 1862) was a Canadian political leader, land speculator and property investor, lawyer, soldier, and militia commander who served in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada twice (representing a different county – Wentworth and Hamilton – each time), the Legislative Assembly for the Province of Canada once, and served as joint Premier of the Province of Canada from 1854 to 1856. MacNab was "likely the largest land speculator in Upper Canada during his time" as mentioned both in his official biography in retrospect and in 1842 by Sir Charles Bagot.
MacNab was a member of the Family Compact in Upper Canada. He briefly shared a military regiment (the 49th Regiment of Foot) with another member (James FitzGibbon) in the War of 1812. MacNab was left out of the regiment following regimental cuts after the War of 1812, and found employment in the law office of another Family Compact member's grandfather – George D'Arcy Boulton (aka D'Arcy Boulton Sr.)
Early life
He was born in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) to Allan MacNab and Anne Napier (daughter of Captain Peter William Napier, R.N., the commissioner of the port and harbour of Quebec). When MacNab was a one year old, he was baptized in the Anglican church in St. Mark's Parish of Newark. His father was a lieutenant in the 71st Regiment and the Queen's Rangers under Lt-Col. John Graves Simcoe. After the Queen's Rangers were disbanded, the family moved around the country in search of work and eventually settled in York (now Toronto), where MacNab was educated at the Home District Grammar School.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2837746. VIAF identifies the subject as 47558943. The Library of Congress control number is n85095099. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1798, 1862, 1854 and 1856.
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This entry incorporates text from “Allan MacNab” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.