Darby Bergin

Who was Darby Bergin?

Darby Bergin was an Ontario physician and political figure. He represented Cornwall from 1872 to 1874 and from 1878 to 1882 and then Cornwall and Stormont from 1882 to 1896 in the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal-Conservative member.

He was born in York, Upper Canada in 1826, the son of William Bergin, a York merchant who had immigrated from Ireland. He studied at Upper Canada College and McGill College, receiving his MD in 1847. Bergin set up practice at Cornwall. He was founder and president of the Eastern District Medical Association, president of the St. Lawrence and Eastern District Medical Association and examiner for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, also serving president of the council for the College from 1881 to 1882 and from 1885 to 1886. With his brother John, he also raised horses and cattle. He was defeated by Alexander Francis Macdonald, the brother of Donald Alexander Macdonald, in 1874. He opposed the Canada Temperance Act of 1878, feeling that, in the end, it increased rather than prevented the consumption of alcohol.