Frederick Coate Wade (1860 – 1924)
	
Frederick Wade was born in Bowmanville, Upper Canada to William and Harriet Coate Wade. Frederick went to public schools in Ottawa and Owen Sound, and graduated with a BA from the University of Toronto in 1882. In 1883, he began legal studies with David Breakenridge Read and continued in Winnipeg after he moved there. He became a founding member of the Winnipeg Legal Club in 1884 and in 1886 was the first president of the Young Liberal Association of Winnipeg. He was called to the bar in 1886 but worked as an editor for the //Manitoba Free Press// during an election where the Liberals won. Wade started practicing law in 1887 and spent time developing English Language public education in Manitoba.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html)) 

Frederick Wade and Justice McGuire were appointed in the summer of 1897 to establish the Court of the Yukon District in Dawson. They travelled north in the fall of 1897 with an administration expedition headed by Major J.M. Walsh, newly appointed Commissioner of the Yukon.((Hamar Foster and John McLaren, ed., "The Yukon Legal Profession" in //The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Vol. VI British Columbia and the Yukon.// Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1995: 460-465.))
	
Commissioner James Walsh's party left Ottawa on 23 September 1898. The party included Frederick Wade, Judge McGuire, several other officials and James Walsh's brother Philip Walsh. McGuire and the court officials were escorted into the territory from Skagway by Inspector Cortlandt Starnes in September 1897. The party made it to Little Salmon before the weather caught up to them. Inspector Starnes then escorted McGuire and the rest of the court party to Dawson by dog team. The journey was made without serious difficulty although the temperature dropped to -72 F on two nights. Wade reached Dawson while Walsh was still at Big Salmon and he wrote to Clifford Sifton to undermine Walsh, saying there was no reason he could not have made it to Dawson. He also described Constantine as being petty and mean and suggested he be removed from office.((Jim Wallace, //Forty Mile to Bonanza: The North-West Mounted Police in the Klondike Gold Rush.// Calgary: Bunker to Bunker Publishing, 2000: 61, 69-70, 163, 184-6.))
	
Wade was initially appointed land registrar and clerk of the Court. When Walsh arrived later in the spring of 1898, Wade was a member of the commissioner's advisory board meeting weekly. When the Territorial Council was created in July, he was appointed the Yukon's first legal advisor and later in the year became the Dominion lands agent. He also maintained a private law practice and prospected for gold.((Hamar Foster and John McLaren, ed., "The Yukon Legal Profession" in //The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Vol. VI British Columbia and the Yukon.// Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1995: 460-465.))	

Wade had a pugnacious nature that did not endear him to fellow officials or the mining public. In August 1898, he took a leave to travel across Canada and promote the Yukon with a show of lantern slides. Back in the Yukon, a miner's meeting initiated an inquiry into the behaviour of territorial officials. The charges against Wade were that he used his government position to advantage as a private lawyer and a miner. Ogilvie found no grounds for the charges. When Wade returned to the Yukon, changes in the legislation did not allow him to mine but he did continue his private practice.((Hamar Foster and John McLaren, ed., "The Yukon Legal Profession" in //The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Vol. VI British Columbia and the Yukon.// Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1995: 460-465.))	
	
In February 1899, Wade became Yukon’s first crown prosecutor. He had a private practice with Orange H. Clark and Herbert G. Wilson that dissolved in May 1899, then a partnership with James Allan Aikman.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html)) Aikman was once  arrested for obstructing a police office when his dog was impounded and Aikman cut it loose. Aikman hired his partner, the Crown Prosecutor as his lawyer and James Pattullo represented the police in the case.((Jim Wallace, //Forty Mile to Bonanza: The North-West Mounted Police in the Klondike Gold Rush.// Calgary: Bunker to Bunker Publishing, 2000: 61, 69-70, 163, 184-6.))
	
In 1899, Wade served as defense counsel for miners he was prosecuting as the crown’s lawyer.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html)) William Jealouse reported that he represented both sides in the court case. The federal administration responded by forbidding government officials to have private practices.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html))
	
Wade acted as Crown prosecutor until September 1902. In that year, he was appointed as one of the British Counsel before the 1903 Alaska Boundary Tribunal and was in London for most of the year.  He had a heavy load preparing the British case but was compelled to reject the outcome as not in the best interest of the Yukon. Wade viewed this as a diplomatic failure and did not return north. Up to that point he had viewed the territory’s future as very bright. He settled in Vancouver and was admitted to the British Columbia bar in 1904.((Hamar Foster and John McLaren, ed., "The Yukon Legal Profession" in //The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History Essays in the History of Canadian Law: Vol. VI British Columbia and the Yukon.// Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1995: 460-465.)) He practiced law in two firms he established with partners in 1904 and 1909.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html))

Wade quit the law in 1912 and became a founder of the //Vancouver Sun,// which became a voice for the Liberal party when he was editor and president.  In 1918, he was appointed the agent general of British Columbia in London, England and became an effective advocate for the province and Canada. He considered one of his most important accomplishments to be the erection of a monument to Major-General James Wolfe in Greenwich Park, London. The statue was unveiled in 1930 after his death.((Brad R. Morrison and Christopher J. P. Hanna, “Frederick Coate Wade.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// 2019 website, www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wade_frederick_coate_15E.html))