Sir William Mulock (19 January 1843[1][2] – 1 October 1944) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, educator, farmer, politician, judge, and philanthropist.

In 1900, Mulock established the Department of Labour, bringing William Lyon Mackenzie King into public life as his Deputy Minister.

[citation needed] Mulock's older brother, John, died in 1852; he had two sisters, Marian and Rosamund (later married to George W. Monk).

At the time of the Fenian Raids in 1866, Mulock received training at the Royal Military School and served in the regiment for three weeks, but he never saw action.

The defence of the university culminated in a large meeting at the St. Lawrence Hall on 5 March 1863, where Mulock moved the concluding motion.

[8] After graduating in 1863 with the Gold Medal for Modern Languages, Mulock became a law student, first articled to Alfred Boultbee in Newmarket, and then in Toronto, eventually in the firm of Senator John Ross.

[9] After graduating, Mulock, Edward Blake, Thomas Moss, and James Loudon led the struggle to broaden the University of Toronto Senate to include elected members.

As a result, Ontario Minister of Education Adam Crooks passed legislation in 1873 that added 15 new senators elected by the alumni.

After the school closed in 1878, the Osgoode Literary and Legal Society attempted to provide replacement instruction, with Mulock lecturing on partnership.

Mulock believed that a single federated university would be more efficient, less expensive, and provide better educational opportunities to students, especially in sciences and the professions.

In opposition to followers of John Rolph who believed medical education should be paid for by students since they would soon have a good income treating patients, Mulock thought it better to reduce disease by spending public money to train doctors.

Martin was so badly treated by her fellow male students that she eventually switched to another firm, but in 1897 she became the first female lawyer in the British Empire.

Mulock entered politics in 1881, unsuccessfully seeking the Liberal nomination in the then strongly Conservative federal riding of York North.

[28] He inherited an inefficient bureaucracy that was losing almost a million dollars a year, but he believed that improved service and lower prices would increase revenue and better connect Canada and the British Empire.

Mulock also took advantage of this meeting to negotiate the final financial agreement for the transpacific cable first proposed by Sir Sandford Fleming to link Canada to Australia and New Zealand.

[29] To mark the start of the Imperial Penny Post, Mulock personally designed and issued a new stamp with a map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire.

[31] On 1 April 1898, Mulock introduced an amendment to the Post Office Act that made Canada the first country in the world to give franking privileges, i.e. free postage, for Braille materials and books for the blind.

[34] Mulock was knighted in 1902 for his services, in particular for the Penny Post, Transpacific Cable, and wireless telegraphy between Canada and Great Britain.

[29] In order to protect the public against quackery Mulock amended the Post Office Act in 1904 to curtail advertising of "marvellous, extravagant or grossly improbable cures".

[37] The committee shed much light on the operations and finances of Bell, but Mulock was replaced when it became apparent that he was likely to recommend the telephone service be a government owned utility.

The committee's work nevertheless led in 1906 to the first federal regulation of telephone and telegram service by the Board of Railway Commissioners, the ancestor of the current Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

[43] As Chief Justice of Ontario, Mulock participated in many widely publicized cases, such as quashing the rape conviction from Louis-Mathias Auger's first trial in 1929.

[44] On 28 February 1930, a Ku Klux Klan mob invaded the home of a mixed race couple in Oakville, Ontario.

[45] In 1931, Tim Buck and seven other members of the Communist Party of Canada were convicted of seditious conspiracy and membership in an unlawful organization.

On almost 400 acres Mulock established a manorial estate and model farm, known for its flowers, black walnut grove, apple orchard, and prize shorthorn cattle and Shetland ponies.

[52] Mulock's (and later his son's) firm represented many commercial interests, including Consumers Gas (Enbridge), the American Bank Note Company, and Sun Life.

[58] Throughout his life, Mulock's strong interest in "plain people (and) public practical problems"[59] involved him in leadership in innumerable community organizations.

These included the CNIB,[32] the Federation for Community Service[60] (an ancestor of the United Way), St. John Ambulance, the Working Boys Home,[34] and the Soldiers Rehabilitation Fund.

[68] At age 99 during World War II, he served as Chair of the Canadian Committee of the International YMCA, responsible for supervising enemy prisoners in Canada.

[73] At a luncheon in his honour shortly after his 87th birthday, Mulock described his attitude on growing old:[74] I'm still at work with my hand to the plough and my face to the future.