Sir Adams George Archibald KCMG PC QC (May 3, 1814 – December 14, 1892)[1] was a Canadian lawyer and politician, and a Father of Confederation.

Sir Adams Archibald studied science and medicine for a few years, subsequently articled in law, and was called to the Nova Scotia bar in January 1839.

[4] Archibald was elected to the Nova Scotia legislature in 1851 as a supporter of Joseph Howe's governing Reformers, topping the poll in the two-member riding of Colchester County.

He supported elected municipal governments, for instance, and was a vociferous proponent of taxation for a state-run school system (regarded by many Nova Scotia Liberals as an unnecessary expense).

His term in office was cut short by a sectarian quarrel in the legislature, which occurred after the President of the Charitable Irish Society was dismissed from his government job and charged with treason.

Despite serving as leader of the opposition from 1863 to 1867, Archibald frequently sided with the Conservative ministry against his own caucus on important legislative initiatives.

Archibald was later the Nova Scotia Liberal Party's representative to the first conference on Canadian Confederation, held at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1864.

When Nova Scotia joined the new nation of Canada on July 1, 1867, Archibald was appointed Secretary of State for the Provinces in the cabinet of John A. Macdonald.

Popular opinion in Nova Scotia subsequently shifted in favour of Confederation, particularly after one-time anti-confederate Joseph Howe joined Macdonald's government in 1869.

Although he had little interest in the region, he agreed on condition that he be appointed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia after serving a single term.

There was considerable antagonism between the province's Métis population and recently arrived soldiers from Ontario, and Archibald had difficulties finding suitable candidates to work with him.

Until January 1871, the only members of his cabinet were local merchant Alfred Boyd and Marc-Amable Girard, a recent arrival from Quebec.

Archibald himself was the leader of the government side in the election which followed; the francophone population was mostly united in support of him, while John Christian Schultz led a group of ultra-loyalist Anglophones who opposed the conciliation policy.

Archibald put together a five-member cabinet in January 1871, which included Boyd, Girard, Henry Joseph Clarke, James Mackay and Thomas Howard — a group which balanced the province's ethnic, religious and linguistic divisions.

Archibald was not immediately appointed to the Nova Scotia court, and was instead made a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in February 1873.

Sir Adams George Archibald, K.C.M.G., Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia married Elizabeth A. Burnyeat, daughter of Rev.