James Langstaff Bowman
Canadian politician and curler (1879–1951)
James Langstaff Bowman, (October 6, 1879 – September 14, 1951) was the first Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada from Manitoba.
Biography
Bowman had been a teacher and lawyer in Dauphin, Manitoba. In 1917, he became the town's mayor. He ran unsuccessfully in the 1925 and 1926 general elections for the Conservative Party. He finally winning a seat in the 1930 election that brought R.B. Bennett to power.
He became Speaker after his predecessor, George Black, suffered a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1934, and was unfit to preside when the House of Commons of Canada reconvened in January 1935.
As the Deputy Speaker was ill, Bennett approached Bowman, a backbencher, hours before the House was to convene, about becoming Speaker for the rest of the Parliamentary term.
Bowman had little experience as Speaker and had to deal with a tense, pre-election session. Members of Parliament on all sides of the House felt that Bowman did well in the job. But when the 1935 general election was held in the fall, Bowman lost his seat by a large margin.
The public source identifies “James Langstaff Bowman” as canadian politician and curler (1879–1951). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around James, Langstaff and Bowman.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6137765. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1951, 1917 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Langstaff Bowman” 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.