The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Perley, Sir George Halsey
1857–1938, Canadian statesman, b. Lebanon, N.H. As a child, he moved with his parents to Ottawa. In 1904 he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Conservative, serving there almost continuously until his death. In 1911 he was made minister without portfolio in the cabinet of Robert Borden; from 1914 to 1922 he was high commissioner for Canada in London. In the second brief government of Arthur Meighen (1926) he was secretary of state, and in Richard B. Bennett’s administration (1930–35) he was minister without portfolio and, on occasion, acting prime minister. Out of his personal fortune derived from business, Perley contributed to philanthropic causes. He was knighted in 1915.
