William Earl Rowe
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The Honourable William Earl Rowe, PC (May 13, 1894 - February 9, 1984), was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1963 to 1968.
Rowe was born in Hull, Iowa of Canadian parents in 1894. He later moved to Ontario, and was a farmer and cattle breeder. He was reeve of the township of West Gwillimbury from 1919 to 1923. Rowe served as a Member of Provincial Parliament from 1923 to 1925, and was then elected to the House of Commons, where he served until 1935.
From 1936 to 1938, he was leader of Conservative Party of Ontario. In the public mind, the cause of labour was identified with the American Congress of Industrial Organizations and communism. During the 1937 provincial election when Liberal premier Mitchell Hepburn was railing against the C.I.O. and the supposed threat posed by organized labour, Rowe refused to take a stand against the C.I.O. and repeatedly asserted that: "the issue was not law and order but the right of free association." At the time the Conservatives were strongly associated with the Orange Order which had long held a pro-labour position.
In 1937, Rowe returned to the House of Commons and served until 1962. On two occasions (1954-1955 and 1956) when PC party leader George Drew was unable to perform his duties due to ill health, Rowe served as acting leader of the official opposition.
From 1958 to 1962, he and his daughter, Jean Casselman Wadds, were the only father and daughter to ever sit together in Parliament.
Rowe was lieutenant governor of Ontario from 1963 to 1968. A champion and supporter of agriculture and rural affairs, he died in 1984 at Newton Robinson, Ontario.
The Honourable Earl Rowe Public School in Bradford, Ontario is named in his honour.
| Preceded by: George Stewart Henry | Leader of the Conservative Party of Ontario 1936–1938 | Succeeded by: George Drew |
| Preceded by: John Keiller MacKay | Lieutenant Governor of Ontario 1963–1968 | Succeeded by: William Ross Macdonald |