The Honourable David Mills, P.C.

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David Mills was born in the township of Orford, Upper Canada (Ontario), on March 18, 1831. He was the son of Nathaniel Mills and Mary Guggerty. He was educated at the local common school and became a teacher. In 1856 he was promoted to Superintendent of Schools in Kent County. He began studying law at the University of Michigan in 1865 and graduated two years later with an LL.B., but he was not called to the Ontario bar until 1883. Turning to politics instead, he was elected to the House of Commons in the Dominion's first elections in 1867 and was a member of Parliament for a total of 27 years. He was Minister of the Interior from 1876 to 1878 and Minister of Justice from 1897 to 1902, a position he held in the Senate, to which he had been appointed in 1896. For five years he was editor-in-chief for the London Advertiser, and in 1888 he became a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Toronto. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on February 8, 1902, and served on the Court for one year. Justice Mills died on May 8, 1903, at the age of 72.