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The Family Compact developed after the War of 1812 and lasted until Upper and Lower Canada were united in 1841. In Lower Canada, its equivalent was the Château Clique. Members of the Family Compact were described as adherents of "rabid Toryism" by Charles Dickens during his visit to North America.

The Family Compact controlled the government through the Executive Council, the advisors to the Lieutenant Governor, leaving the popularly elected Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly with little real power. Members of the Family Compact ensured their conservative friends held the important positions in the colony through political patronage.

The Family Compact was centred in Toronto, then called York. Its most important member was Bishop John Strachan; in fact, many of the other members were his former students, or people who were in some way related to him. The rest of the members were mostly descendants of United Empire Loyalists or recent upper-class BritishThe word Britain is used to refer to the United Kingdom (UK): i. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (from 1927), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1801- 1927) or the United Kingdom of Great Britain ( 1707- 1801). settlers. With this Loyalist background and under the leadership of Strachan, they were strong royalists, and supported the Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and is the mother branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. Christianity was planted in Britain in the first or second c over not only CatholicismThis article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. See Catholicism (disambiguation) for alternative meanings Catholicism has two main ecclesiastical meanings, described in Webster's Dictionary as: a) "the whole orthodox Christian chu but other Protestant churches. They especially interpreted the Constitutional Act of 1791The Constitutional Act of 1791 was a British law which changed the government of the province of Quebec to accommodate the many English-speaking settlers, known as the United Empire Loyalists, who had arrived from the United States following the American, which gave land grants to build Protestant churches, to refer to Anglican churches alone. This was opposed by the large numbers of Presbyterian ScottishScotland or in Scottish Gaelic, Alba is a country and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. Scotland occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Scotland took part in a p settlers, as well as smaller groups of MethodistsThe Methodist movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity. The Wesleyan revival The Methodist revival originated in England. It was started by John Wesley, his younger brother Charles and George Whitefield as a movement within the Chur.

The influence of the Family Compact was one of the chief concerns of radical reformer William Lyon Mackenzie. Mackenzie's frustration with their control of the government was one of the catalysts for the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Their hold on the government was eliminated with the creation of the united Province of Canada under Lord Durham, who replaced Sir Francis Bond Head (a supporter of the Family Compact) as Lieutenant-Governor in 1838.