Researching Charles Cannon

Cannon was born in Southport, Lancashire, England, the son of Reverend J. D. Cannon and Catherine Sakeyne. His grandfather and uncle were mayors of Bolton, Lancashire, and were pioneers in cotton spinning manufacture during the 1850s and 1860s. Cannon was educated at Liverpool College and Harstporpoins College in Sussex, and passed Oxford and Cambridge first-class extension examinations in 1884. He moved to Canada in 1885. In 1888, he married Adah Wigham.

Cannon worked as a farmer and served as director of the Belmont Creamery Corporation. He was also a police magistrate, and served as reeve of Strathcona for nine and a half years. He was an active community member, and was for many years closely associated with the Liberal Party. In the early 1920s, he endorsed the decision of the United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM) to field candidates in provincial elections.

Cannon ran for the UFM in the 1922 provincial election, and defeated Liberal incumbent James Baird in the constituency of Mountain. The UFM won the election, and formed government as the Progressive Party of Manitoba. Cannon initially served as a government backbencher, and was promoted to cabinet on December 3, 1923 as Minister of Education.

During this period, newly selected cabinet ministers were required to resign their constituency seats to seek re-election as provincial office holders. These elections were usually pro forma affairs in the 1920s, as ministers were not generally opposed by candidates of other parties. Cannon, however, faced a challenge from Conservative candidate George Fraser, whom he defeated without difficulty on December 24, 1923.

On November 12, 1924, Cannon was given the additional position of Minister of Public Welfare. He resigned the Education portfolio on April 21, 1927, and was named Provincial Secretary and Provincial Lands Commissioner.

Cannon was defeated by Liberal candidate Irving Cleghorn in the 1927 provincial election, losing by eighty-four votes. He formally resigned from cabinet on September 9, 1927.

Cannon died in Belmont and was buried there.

Cannon was the last of nine children born to Charles Ira Cannon (1871–1920) and the former Mattie Cordial Snodgrass (1870–1956) on a working ranch in Afton in Dickens County in West Texas. He was given his unusual nickname as a child by his father. As a teenager, he learned boot and saddlemaking techniques to help the cowboys obtain a proper fit on their horses. He also worked on other ranches in Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, as well as Texas.

He broke horses for the U.S. government during World War II at El Reno in Canadian County, Oklahoma. After the war, he operated two leather goods businesses in Tulsa, where his clients included the city police. In 1949, he returned to Dickens County and settled in the Spur community. He relocated his shop to Dickens in 1968. After 1970, he concentrated exclusively on saddle making until his death. His Tooter Cannon Saddles were prized by ranchers and rodeo riders because they were designed to fit the contour of the horse's back. A Tooter Cannon saddle or a pair of his boots is usually passed down within families. Anything made by Cannon rarely is for sale on the open market. His work is found in a number of private collections. Customers often waited for Cannon to fill their orders, rather than finding other available saddlemakers.

Cannon, who outlived all of his siblings, died in a Lubbock hospital at the age of 82. He was a former two-term member of the Dickens Town Council. He was Methodist. Survivors included his second wife, the former Grace Adeline Roberts, then Grace Wheeler (July 11, 1908—February 14, 2000), whom he married on April 22, 1957, in Santa Fe, New Mexico; a daughter, Leanora Cannon Houwen, then of Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County, California, but who later returned to Dickens; two stepsons, Kenneth Wheeler of Hobbs, and Bill Wheeler of San Antonio, 11 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild. Cannon also had an older sister named "Grace". Charles and Grace Cannon are interred at Dickens Cemetery.

Over the years, Cannon was cited in newspaper articles, books, magazines, and even a television special. He is permanently honored in the saddlemaking exhibit at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock.

He was first elected at the Îles-de-la-Madeleine riding in the 1949 general election. Cannon was re-elected for successive terms there in 1953 and 1957. After completing his final term, the 23rd Canadian Parliament, Cannon was defeated by James Russell Keays of the Progressive Conservative party.

Some of Cannon's relatives have also been Members of Parliament, namely his grandfather Charles Fitzpatrick, his uncle Lucien Cannon and his nephew Lawrence Cannon.

He was apprenticed to his father, Tom Cannon, Sr., as a jockey at 14. He won the last race at Stockbridge in 1898 on Moon Wave. Charles enlisted in the 19th Hussars Glocstershire regiment and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the first World War. He saw action in Ypres, the Somme and other campaigns. Cannon was shot in the head, buried alive, and received shell shock and mustard gas injuries, which he recovered in Netley in 1919. Before the war, Cannon was an accomplished pianist playing at the Royal Albert Hall for King Edward.

Charles married Dorothy Thrush in 1916 and moved to West Wellow. They went had nine children named Tom, Peter, Margeret, Nina, Mornington, Joan, Sheila, Terence, and Patricia.

Category:British jockeys

Category:1884 birthsCategory:1963 deaths