James Norris was an Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 businessman and political figure. He represented Lincoln

Lincoln (electoral district)

Lincoln was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1883 and from 1904 to 1997. It was on the Niagara Peninsula in the Canadian province of Ontario...

 in the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 as a Liberal

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...

 member from 1874 to 1878.

He was born in Argyleshire, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 in 1820 and came to Peel County

Peel County, Ontario

Peel County is a historic county in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1851 from a portion of York County. In 1973, Peel County became the Regional Municipality of Peel, as a result of the Ontario provincial government's regionalization of the rapidly developing counties...

, Upper Canada

Upper Canada

The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...

 with his parents around 1834. He moved to St. Catharines

St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...

, where he formed a partnership with Sylvester Neelon

Sylvester Neelon

Sylvester Neelon was an Ontario businessman and political figure. He represented Lincoln in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a Liberal member in 1875 and from 1879 to 1886....

 in shipping, milling and the timber trade. After the partnership dissolved, Norris continued to be involved in transporting goods to foreign markets, primarily England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He served on the town council, serving a term as mayor. In 1847, he married Sophronia Neelon, his partner's sister; in 1863, he married Elizabeth Wand, after his first wife's death. He was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1874 federal election

Canadian federal election, 1874

The Canadian federal election of 1874 was held on January 22, 1874, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 3rd Parliament of Canada. Sir John A...

but was unseated after an appeal. He won the by-election that followed later that year. Norris resigned his seat in April 1877 and then was reelected in a May 1877 by-election. He ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1878 and 1882. Norris died in St. Catharines at the age of 82.