Leonidas Burwell was a businessman and political figure in Canada West. He represented East Elgin in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada

Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada

The Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada was the lower house of the legislature for the Province of Canada, which consisted of the former provinces of Lower Canada, then known as Canada East and later the province of Quebec, and Upper Canada, then known as Canada West and later the...

 from 1857 to 1866.

He was born in Port Talbot

Port Talbot, Ontario

Port Talbot was the name of a community located west of Port Stanley in Ontario, Canada where Talbot Creek flows into Lake Erie. The village was the original commercial nucleus for the settlement which developed on 5,000 acres of land granted to Thomas Talbot in 1800 by the Crown along the...

, 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...

, the son of Mahlon Burwell

Mahlon Burwell

Mahlon Burwell was a surveyor and political figure in Upper Canada.He was born in New Jersey in 1783 and came to Upper Canada with his family in 1796. He was largely self-schooled and was employed by the government of the province to survey the Talbot settlement and the Talbot Road in 1809 and...

. He served as deputy registrar of lands for Middlesex County

Middlesex County, Ontario

Middlesex County is a primarily rural county in Southwestern Ontario. Landlocked, the county is bordered by Huron and Perth counties on the north, Oxford County on the east, Elgin County on the south, and Chatham-Kent and Lambton County on the west.The seat is the city of London, although the city...

. Burwell took over his father's business at Port Burwell

Port Burwell, Ontario

Port Burwell is a community on the north shore of Lake Erie, in the municipality of Bayham in Elgin County, Ontario, Canada.It is situated at the mouth of Big Otter Creek.-History:...

 in 1842. Burwell was also a justice of the peace

Justice of the Peace

A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

. In 1843, he married Phoebe Jane Wrong.