Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC (Can), QC (11 January 1815 – 6 June 1891), was the first Prime Minister of Canada.

The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he has a political career that spans almost half a century.

Macdonald serves 19 years as Canadian Prime Minister; only William Lyon Mackenzie King serves longer.

Macdonald was born in Scotland; when he was a boy his family had emigrated to Kingston, Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario).

He had articled with a local lawyer, who died before Macdonald qualified, and Macdonald had opened his own practice, although not yet entitled to do so.

He had been involved in several high-profile cases and had quickly become prominent in Kingston, which enables him to seek and obtain a legislative seat in 1844.

He serves in the legislature of the colonial Province of Canada and by 1857 has become premier under the colony's unstable political system.

When, in 1864, no party proves capable of governing for long, Macdonald agrees to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown, that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and political reform.

Macdonald is the leading figure in the subsequent discussions and conferences, which result in the British North America Act and the birth of Canada as a nation on 1 July 1867.

Macdonald is designated as the first Prime Minister of the new nation, and serves in that capacity for most of the remainder of his life, losing office for five years in the 1870s over the Pacific Scandal (corruption in the financing of the Canadian Pacific Railway).

After regaining his position, he sees the railroad through to completion in 1885, a means of transportation and freight conveyance that helps unite Canada as one nation.

Macdonald is credited with creating a Canadian Confederation despite many obstacles, and expanding what was a relatively small colony to cover the northern half of North America.

By the time of his death in 1891, Canada has secured most of the territory it occupies today.