Harold Connolly | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Harold Connolly

Harold Joseph Connolly, newspaperman, politician, premier of NS (b at Sydney, NS 8 Sept 1901; d at Halifax 17 May 1980). Connolly worked with the Halifax Chronicle and was editor of the Daily Star when elected a Liberal MLA in 1936.

Connolly, Harold Joseph

Harold Joseph Connolly, newspaperman, politician, premier of NS (b at Sydney, NS 8 Sept 1901; d at Halifax 17 May 1980). Connolly worked with the Halifax Chronicle and was editor of the Daily Star when elected a Liberal MLA in 1936. He sat 20 years, first as an assemblyman and after 1941 as a Cabinet minister. Senior minister when Premier Angus L. MACDONALD died in 1954, he became interim Liberal leader and premier. He lost a leadership convention in 1954 when the Protestant delegates apparently united against the only Catholic candidate, the result being a disastrous religious rift within the party. He retired from provincial politics in 1955 to become a member of the Senate, from which he retired in 1979.