page_title: William Pittman Lett
section_title: City clerk
hierarchical_section_title: William Pittman Lett / City clerk
caption_attribution_description: English: William Pittman Lett, First Clerk, City of Ottawa, Ontario Canada, from 1855 to 1891, in Clerk regalia
context_page_description: William Pittman Lett was an Irish Canadian journalist, bureaucrat and poet. He arrived in Upper Canada as a 10-month-old baby in the family of Captain Andrews Lett, a veteran of the 28th Cameronian Regiment of Foot and a pioneer of the settlement of Richmond.
  A journalist for the Orange Order, a Tory and loyal to the British Crown, William Pittman was a founding father and chronicler of Bytown, subsequently the City of Ottawa, and its first and longest-serving civic clerk. He promoted theatre in Ottawa and its learned societies and was a prolific commentator and poet of public affairs throughout the second half of the 19th century.
context_section_description: In January 1855, Tory Mayor, John Bower Lewis (1817–1874), appointed Lett as Clerk to the newly incorporated City of Ottawa. Lett learned quickly the arts of neutrality, circumspection and diplomatic persuasion necessary to be a successful Clerk for the next thirty-six years.
  As Clerk, he had to ensure administrative unity between the various city departments and maintain custody of all records, by-laws, deeds and leases of property, contracts and agreements and minutes of council and committee meetings. He co-signed with the Mayor on all deeds, agreements and contracts. He posted notices of Council meetings in the newspapers. He was guardian of the corporate seal and applied the oath of corporate office. As electoral officer, he managed voter registrations and elections. He prepared the tax ledgers and adjudicated tax claims. He was registrar of births, marriages and deaths. He managed the initial selector of jurors to be referred to the Crown Attorney.
  City Clerks in 19th century colonial Canada controlled small, but powerful bureaucracies and were a well-networked community. In his poem Exchanging Compliments and in a letter to the Kingston Daily News, Lett paid tribute to "my friend, Michael Flanagan, City Clerk of Kingston, Ontario on completion of his thirty-eighth year of official life" ... "the patriarch of our band".
  Lett held the power of the civic pen and had the ear of nineteen Mayors of Ottawa. According to his obituary in the Ottawa Evening Journal, he proved an indispensable civic speechwriter, "To speak of Mr. Lett's merits without mentioning his usefulness outside of his mere routine duties, and of his large-hearted liberality, where his sympathy was enlisted, would be regrettable. Many a Mayor, in the earlier days of the City, had reason to rejoice that one better educated and better qualified for literary work than the occupant of the Chair was at hand when the address, motion or memorial had to be penned. The City Clerk had read extensively and was possessed of a memory reliable to the last degree. Give him the subject to be spoken of and in half an hour the document would be produced that would stand the test of the refined and the educated. So well was this understood, that no anxiety was manifested as to the words to be used on any public occasion for the parchment was ready when required and met the occasion acceptably".
  Lett co-signed with Mayor J. B Lewis, the address to Queen Victoria of 4 May 1857, prepared by R. W. Scott, petitioning for Ottawa to become the capital of the Province of Canada.
  He likely wrote and he co-signed the address by Mayor Francis McDougal (1826 –1910) on the return to Ottawa on 24 July 1885 of Captain Todd and the Ottawa Sharpshooters from their campaign during the North-West Rebellion.
  He drafted and co-signed all the documents of transmittal and subsequent resolutions to the Governor General and to both Houses of Parliament. These requested compensation for the tax-exempt status of Government facilities and activities in Ottawa and financial aid to expand City infrastructure to accommodate the newly located Legislature and the Offices of the Government and pay for the construction of permanent office buildings. On 10 August 1877, Lett moved a motion to constitute a Committee, which included the Mayor of Ottawa, Members of Parliament, Aldermen and businessmen, to draft a constitution and new bylaws for the government of the "new society" of the City of Ottawa.
  On 28 June 1867, he issued on behalf of the Celebration Committee of Council, the public announcement of the Inauguration of the Dominion of Canada to be held on Monday, 1 July 1867 and personally organised the commemorative lacrosse games and boat and canoe races. Fireworks and bonfires rounded out the evening in a tinder-box of a wood-framed City. Lett regulated these incendiaries with great caution and was Secretary of the Reliance Fire Engine Company.
  He assumed the additional duty of acting Clerk to the Police Court of the new City until his son William Pittman junior took over in 1881. On occasion, he unde
caption: William Pittman Lett, First Clerk, City of Ottawa. 1855–1891  (Royal Studio / City of Ottawa Archives)
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