John Higgins

John Gilbert "Jack" Higgins (May 7, 1891 - July 1, 1963) was a member of the Oxford Canadians at the 1910 European Championship.Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada in 1910 but the Canadians opened their membership to players from there.

Jack had an older sister, May. He was a child when his father died. Jack was educated from the age of five at Saint Bonaventure's College and was selected one of Newfoundland's Rhodes Scholars in 1909. He studied law at Merton College, Oxford. In 1913 he was called to the bar of Newfoundland and England and began practicing law in St. John's, Newfoundland. In 1916, he joined the Canadian Corps's St. Francis Xavier Hospital Unit and served for the remainder of World War I in England and France. After the war, Higgins returned to Newfoundland and established a law partnership with Harry Winter in 1919.

During the Newfoundland National Convention, Higgins opposed Joey Smallwood's resolution that Newfoundland join Canadian Confederation. He became a leading member of the Responsible Government League and campaigned against joining Canada in the 1948 Newfoundland referendums. When Newfoundland joined Canada on March 31, 1949, Higgins hung black crepe on his door as a symbol of mourning.

In Newfoundland's first provincial election on May 27, 1949, Higgins was elected to the Newfoundland House of Assembly as a Progressive Conservative from St. John's East. As party leader Harry Mews failed to win his seat, Higgins became the province's first Leader of the Opposition. Preferring his legal practice to politics, Higgins did not run for re-election in 1951.

On January 15, 1959, Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker appointed Higgins as Newfoundland's first Progressive Conservative member of the Canadian Senate, where he served until his death in 1963