Philip Michael Matthew Scott VanKoughnet

Philip Michael Matthew Scott VanKoughnet, QC (January 21, 1822 – November 7, 1869), was a Canadian politician, lawyer and judge who held the positions of President of the Executive Council of the Province of Canada; Commissioner of Agriculture; Commissioner of Crown Lands and Chancellor of Upper Canada.

His mother had planned for him to become a minister in the Church of England, but after serving in his father's battalion during the Upper Canada Rebellion, he went on to study law with George Stephen Benjamin Jarvis at Cornwall and then with another firm at Toronto.

During his campaign, he expressed the belief that the ownership of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory should be transferred from the Hudson's Bay Company and that they should become part of the Province of Canada.

Following the resignation of Sir Allan Napier MacNab he was named President of the Executive Council of the Province of Canada and Minister of Agriculture in the administration of Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché; he was elected to the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada for the Rideau district later that same year.

VanKoughnet efficiently reorganised the department of Agriculture, and in particular took effective measures to check the ravages of the Hessian fly and weevil.

During his time as Commissioner of Crown Lands he established the system of selling townships en bloc, and opened up some of the best colonization roads.

1829), daughter of Colonel Charles Barker Turner (1787–1853), Knight of Hanover (Royal Guelphic Order); veteran of the Battle of Waterloo and the Peninsular War, who settled in Canada in 1845.