Sir Dominick Daly was born on the 11th of August, 1799, and was the third son of Mr. Dominick Daly, a descendant of an old Roman Catholic family in the county of Galway, Ireland. He was educated at the Roman Catholic College of St. Mary's, near Birmingham, and after completing his studies spent some time with an uncle who was a banker in Paris. He subsequently returned to Ireland. In 1825 the Earl of Dalhousie visited England, and Sir Francis M. Burton, who acted as Lieutenant-Governor during his absence, brought with him as his private secretary, Mr. Dominick Daly, then about twenty-six years of age. Lord Dalhousie returned to Canada early in 1826, and Mr. Daly returned with Sir Francis Burton to England.
In 1827 he returned to Quebec, bearing with him instructions to the Governor-General to confer upon him the office of Provincial Secretary. The appointment had been procured in England by the influence of Sir Francis Burton, and other friends of Mr. Daly. During the interval which elapsed between his appointment as Provincial Secretary and the rebellion of 1837, a period of about ten years, Mr. Daly carefully abstained from engaging in the political conflict, and seems to have enjoyed a larger share of public confidence than any other official. When Lord Durham was appointed Governor-General after the rebellion, Mr. Daly was the only public official who was sworn of the Executive Council, and there is no doubt that he was the only one of the British officials who was looked on with favour by the leaders of the popular party. And yet, viewing his conduct by the light of subsequent events, it is probable that the popular leaders overestimated Mr. Daly's sympathy with their cause. Unconnected with politics, he considered it his duty to support the policy of the Governor of the day; and he doubtless was of opinion that having been for many years incumbent of an office which had always been admitted to be held as a permanent tenure, he was justified in retaining it as long as he had the sanction of the Governor for doing so. When the Union of the old Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada took place in 1841, the Governor-General called on the principal departmental officers to find seats in the House of Assembly, although it is very improbable that he had any intention of strictly carrying into practice what has since been understood as Responsible Government. It had been the practice under the old system for the law officers of the Crown to find seats in the Legislature, but the offices of Provincial Secretary and Registrar, Receiver-General, Commissioner of Crown Lands, and Inspector-General, had always been considered non-political. Lord Sydenham, as far as can be judged from what occurred, had no definite policy on the subject. He induced Mr. Daly to enter Parliament, and the latter seems to have had no difficulty in procuring a seat for the county of Megantic. The Provincial Secretary in Upper Canada was allowed to retain his office without entering public life. The Commissioner of Crown Lands in Lower Canada declined becoming a candidate, and retained his office, while in Upper Canada the Commissioner of Crown Lands was a member both of the Legislative and Executive Councils. Mr. Daly seems to have been considered as unobjectionable by the leaders of the majority in Lower Canada, as he was by their opponents, which, taking into account the excited state of feeling at the period of the Union, is conclusive proof that he had acted with great discretion during the stormy period which preceded the suspension of the Constitution. When Mr. Baldwin, on accepting office at the time of the Union, deemed it his duty to acquaint those who were appointed members of Council prior to the meeting of the first Parliament of United Canada, that there were some in whom he had no political confidence, Mr. Daly was one of the exceptions; and as Mr. Baldwin's avowed object was the introduction of French Canadians into the Government, he must have been satisfied that they had not the objection to Mr. Daly that they had to Mr. Ogden and Mr. Day. Mr. Baldwin's attempt to procure a reconstruction of the Ministry was unsuccessful, and he resigned, not having been supported by those with whom he had avowed his readiness to act. Mr. Daly went through the session of 1841 as a member of the Government, and visited England during the recess. On the meeting of the Legislature in 1842, Sir Charles Bagot having, during the interval, succeeded Lord Sydenham, overtures were made, with the concurrence of Mr. Daly, to Messrs. Lafontaine and Baldwin, which led to a reconstruction of the Cabinet. Mr. Daly retained his office of Provincial Secretary, and acted in perfect harmony with his colleagues, not only during the short term of Sir Charles Bagot's Government, but during the critical period of 1843, after Sir Charles Metcalfe's assumption of the Government, and up to the very moment when, in the opinion of all his colleagues, resignation became absolutely necessary. During the whole of this period Mr. Daly appeared to concur with his colleagues on every point on which a difference of opinion arose, and it was only when resignation became absolutely necessary that he declined to act any longer in concert with them. At an early period of the session of 1843 a vacancy occurred in the Speakership of the Legislative Council—an office of considerable political importance, and one which it was clearly impossible that the Ministry could consent to have conferred on a political opponent. The choice of the Administration fell on the Hon. Denis B. Viger, one of the oldest Liberal politicians in the Province. On submitting their advice to Sir Charles Metcalfe, he not only objected most strongly to Mr. Viger's appointment, but stated that he had offered the post, without consulting his Ministers, to Mr. Sherwood, a retired Judge, and father of Mr. Henry Sherwood, one of the leading opponents of the Administration. Had Mr. Sherwood accepted the offer, the crisis would have occurred a few weeks sooner than it did, and on a question on which there could have been no misapprehension. Mr. Sherwood declined the offer, probably to avoid the impending difficulty, and after some negotiation, the Ministry consented to withdraw Mr. Viger's name, and to substitute that of the late Lieutenant-Governor Caron. During all this difficulty, Mr. Daly was apparently in accord with his colleagues, although it subsequently appeared that he was acting in concert with Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who took an active part in supporting Sir Charles, and whose letters published in England threw a good deal of light on the transactions previous to the crisis. Mr. Daly retained his office of Secretary in the new Ministry formed by Metcalfe, and was subjected to much censure for what was considered a desertion of his colleagues. So bitter was the personal feeling that on one occasion language was used in the House by one of his old colleagues, Mr. Aylwin, which he deemed so offensive as to lead him to retort in terms that provoked a hostile message and a subsequent meeting, when, after an exchange of shots, the dispute was amicably settled.
The Ministry formed under Metcalfe in 1843 was changed repeatedly, Mr. Daly having been the only member of it who retained office until the resignation in March, 1848, in consequence of a vote of want of confidence having been carried in the Assembly at the opening of the third Parliament. There were during that period two Attorneys-General and two Solicitors-General in each of the Provinces, two Presidents of the Council, two Receivers-General, two Ministers of Finance, two Commissioners of Crown Lands, but only one Secretary, whose adhesion to office was the subject of a good deal of remark. When at last resignation became indispensably necessary, Mr. Daly withdrew almost immediately from public life. It had clearly never been his intention to continue in Parliament as a member of the Opposition; and it could scarcely have been expected by the Party with which circumstances had forced him into alliance that he would adhere to it after its downfall. It may truly be said of Mr. Daly that he was never a member of any Canadian Party, and that he had no sympathy with the political views of any of his numerous colleagues. A most amiable man in private life, and much esteemed by a large circle of private friends, he was wholly unsuited for public life. He had never been in the habit of speaking in public prior to his first election, and he never attempted to acquire the talent. Having no private fortune, he found himself after the age of forty suddenly called upon to take a prominent part in the organization of a new system of government, which involved his probable retirement, and as an almost necessary consequence, his subsequent exclusion from office.
In estimating Sir Dominick Daly's political character, it would be unfair to judge him by the same standard as those who subsequently accepted office with a full knowledge of the responsibilities which they incurred by doing so. Sir Dominick Daly was the last of the old Canadian bureaucracy, and it is not a little singular that he should have been able to retain his old office of Secretary under the new system for a period of fully seven years. On his return to England his claim on the Imperial Government, which without doubt had been strongly urged by Metcalfe, was promptly recognized, and he was almost immediately appointed a Commissioner of Enquiry into the claims of the New and Waltham Forests, which he held until the close of the Commission in 1850-51. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Island of Tobago, in the Windward Island group, in 1851, and transferred to the government of Prince Edward Island in 1854, which he held until 1857. In November, 1861, he was appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of South Australia, where he died in the year 1868, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He had received the honour of knighthood on the termination of his service in Prince Edward Island.
Sir Dominick Daly married, in 1826, a daughter of Colonel Gore, of Barrowmount, in the County Kilkenny, Ireland, by whom he had several children. One of his sons is the present representative of the city of Halifax in the Dominion Parliament.