William Duncan Herridge

Who was William Duncan Herridge?

William Duncan Herridge, PC, KC, MC, DSO was a Canadian politician and diplomat.

He was the son of Reverend William T. Herridge, a former moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, and served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I in which he received a field promotion to the rank of Major and was awarded the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order.

Herridge was educated at Ottawa Collegiate Institute, the University of Toronto, where he was a member of The Kappa Alpha Society, and Osgoode Hall Law School.

Herridge was a patent attorney by profession and had been a Liberal supporter but, being a personal friend of Governor General Byng, he broke with the Liberals in 1926 over the King-Byng Affair. He joined R.B. Bennett's 1930 federal election campaign acing as speechwriter and policy advisor to the Conservative leader and, when the Tories took power, he was appointed Canada's envoy to the United States with the title Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for Canada in the United States of America, from 1931 to 1935, succeeding his personal friend, Vincent Massey. In 1931, he also married Bennett's sister, Mildred.