Margaret Trudeau
| Margaret Trudeau | |
|---|---|
Trudeau in 2015
|
|
| Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada | |
|
In office March 4, 1971 – May 27, 1977 (separated) |
|
| Preceded by | Maryon Pearson |
| Succeeded by | Maureen McTeer |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Margaret Joan Sinclair September 10, 1948 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Spouse(s) |
Pierre Trudeau (1971–1984) Fried Kemper (1984–1999) |
| Children | 5, including |
| Parents |
James Sinclair Kathleen Bernard |
| Known for | Former spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada, mother of the Prime Minister of Canada |
Margaret Joan Trudeau (née Sinclair; born September 10, 1948), is a Canadian author, actress, photographer, former television talk show hostess, and social advocate for people with bipolar disorder. She is the former wife of Pierre Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada; and is the mother of Justin Trudeau, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, and his brothers Alexandre and Michel. In 2013, Trudeau was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario in recognition of her work to combat mental illness.
She was born in Vancouver, daughter of Scottish-born James "Jimmy" Sinclair, a former Liberal member of the Parliament of Canada and Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Doris Kathleen (Bernard) Sinclair. Her grandmother, Rose Edith (Ivens) Bernard, with whom Trudeau had an especially close relationship, lived in Roberts Creek, British Columbia in later life and was originally from Virden, Manitoba. Her grandfather Thomas Kirkpatrick Bernard was born in Makassar and immigrated in 1906 at age 15 with his family to Penticton, British Columbia eventually working as a payroll clerk for Canadian Pacific Railway. The Bernards were the descendants of colonists in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, including Francis James Bernard, a London-born Anglo-Irishman whose own great-grandfather, Arthur Bernard, was a member of the Irish House of Commons for Bandonbridge and brother of Francis Bernard, Solicitor-General for Ireland and ancestor of the Earls of Bandon. Francis James Bernard was the founder of the first Singapore Police Force in 1819, The Singapore Chronicle, the first newspaper in Singapore, was established with Bernard as owner, publisher and editor in 1824 and he opened up Katong, now a densely populated residential enclave, by being the first to cultivate a coconut estate there in 1823. Bernard had married in 1818 Margaret Trudeau's 3rd great-grandmother Esther Farquhar, eldest daughter of Scotsman William Farquhar, a colonial leader in the founding of modern Singapore, by Farquhar's first wife, Antoinette "Nonio" Clement, daughter of a French father and an ethnic Malaccan mother. Another of her 3rd-great grandmothers Cornelia Louisa Intveld, married in 1822 to Royal Navy officer and merchant William Purvis from Dalgety Bay, Scotland and a first cousin of American abolitionist Robert Purvis, was a noted fine soprano and beauty of her era. Upon glimpsing her across the auditorium at the opera in London, British King William IV sent his equerry to invite her to his box. When she refused, the King sent the equerry back just to ask her name. Intveld was born in Padang where her father, who came from humble beginnings in Hellevoetsluis, South Holland, rose up through the Dutch East India Company to become the Dutch Resident of Padang. Her maternal grandmother was an Ono Niha ranee (a term that covered every rank from chieftain's daughter to princess) who married a prominent Dutch colonial official and merchant. Acclaimed British harpsichordist Violet Gordon-Woodhouse and Hawaiian settler Edward William Purvis, who according to popular belief was the namesake of the ukulele, are Margaret Trudeau's first cousins, three times removed. Trudeau explored her mother's family's roots in Singapore during an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?.
...
Wikipedia