Davidson, Hon. Justice Charles Peers, Montreal, was born at Huntingdon, province of Quebec, where his family had long been prominent in the development of the county, and defence of the frontier. His grandfather, Colonel Davidson, came from Scotland, and was in command of the Huntingdon volunteers, in which his father held a captaincy, and which formed part of the brigade under the command of the late Major-General Campbell. Colonel Davidson, at the commencement of the troubles of 1837 and the following year, was sent for by the commander-in-chief of the British forces in Canada, Sir John Colborne, who requested him to raise a regiment. He accepted, and soon after his return to Huntingdon, succeeded in enrolling about six hundred stalwart men from among the farmers, most of whom were immigrants from the old country. The regiment, which was called “The Huntingdon Frontier Volunteers,” numbered in its ranks many men who afterwards became prominent in political and social life. One company was stationed at Russelltown, a second at Covey Hill, and the third as far as Hemmingford. Colonel Davidson, for the first year, was in command, not only of the regiment, but of the whole district; in the second year, Colonel Campbell, subsequently major-general, assumed command of the district, and the volunteers were enrolled in the brigade which was afterwards under the gallant Sir George Cathcart, then only colonel, who fell at the battle of Inkerman at the head of the 1st Dragoon Guards, which he commanded. One company of this regiment was commanded by Captain Reid, a veteran of Waterloo. In this company also was Sir John Rose, the eminent statesman and financier, now of London, England. The Huntington volunteers did good service, but were only in one action, that of St. Regis. From the foregoing it will be seen that Justice Davidson comes of a military family, his mother, Marion Peers, being the daughter of the late Lieutenant Peers, of Her Majesty’s Dragoon Guards. He went to the Huntington Academy, subsequently attended at Victoria College, Cobourg, and thence passed to McGill University, from which he received the degree of B.A. and M.A. in arts, and B.C.L. and D.C.L. in law, and was for a number of years one of its fellows. Even while a student he studied the public questions of the day, being a welcome contributor to the press, and for a time was assistant editor on the Daily News. Had he followed the profession of journalism, he would have achieved marked success. The press proved a good training school, and those who listened to Justice Davidson’s eloquent speeches gave him a high place among public speakers. He studied with the present Justice Cross, and subsequently entered that gentleman’s law firm as junior partner. Several years ago he was created Queen’s counsel by the Provincial government, but the Supreme Court holding that the provinces were without authority to confer this title, he subsequently received a new patent from the Dominion authorities. He has been a life-long supporter of athletic exercises, having been for sometime president of the Beaver Lacrosse Club, of the Montreal Snow-Shoe Club, and of the Victoria Skating Club. During the Trent affair in 1862, which threatened to involve Great Britain in hostilities with the United States, he was one of the first to enrol himself in the ranks of the newly formed Victoria Rifles, and rose by successive promotions until he became its commanding officer. His bonhommie and dash render him very popular in his regiment, while his pre-eminence in athletic sports and engaging social qualities, make him as popular in society as his legal attainments, quick perceptive faculties, convincing oratory, devoid of florid ornamentation, did among the shrewd practical plutocrats of Montreal. In politics Mr. Davidson was a Conservative, having been president of the Junior Conservative Club for several years. In 1881 he was a candidate for the Quebec parliament for Montreal Centre, but was defeated by George Washington Stephens, a powerful opponent, by ninety-eight votes. He married Alice, daughter of the late Wm. Mattice, of Cornwall, who for a number of years represented Stormont in the parliament of the united Canadas. Mr. Justice Davidson was called to the bench of the Superior Court in June, 1887, upon the death of the late Justice Torrance.
Coursol, Captain Charles Joseph Quesnel, St. John’s, Quebec, was born 17th August, 1856, at Montreal. His parents are Charles J. Coursol, Q.C., M.P., and Helen Taché. The subject of this sketch was educated at the Jesuits’ College, Montreal, taking a full classical course. He received a commission as lieutenant in the Victoria Rifles of Canada in October, 1877; was transferred to the 65th Batt. in November, 1880, and promoted to a captaincy in April, 1881. He served for eighteen months with A Battery, R.C.A., and also several months with H.M. 19th or Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment, then stationed at Halifax. On the 21st December, 1883, he received a commission in the Infantry School Corps, now stationed at St. John’s, Quebec. In religion he is a Roman Catholic. He was married on the 18th October, 1882, to E. F. Pearce Serecold, daughter of the late Captain Pearce Serecold, of H.M. 66th regiment, and Miss Duval, daughter of the Hon. Justice Duval. Captain Coursol is also a grand nephew of the late Hon. F. A. Quesnel of the Legislative Council.
Pim, Richard, Toronto. This gentleman, who was a resident of Toronto for over fifty years, died on the morning of the 14th February, 1888, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was a native of Herefordshire, England, and spent part of his early life in Russia, whither his father had gone to erect paper mills of the then most improved description for the Russian government. Upon the death of his father, at Helsingfors, near St. Petersburg, he returned to England, and married Mary Hargrave, grand-daughter of William Lane, a poet of considerable local distinction in Buckinghamshire. He emigrated to Canada in 1834, and during the stirring political events of 1837, served in the militia called out to repress the rebellion of that year, and was on guard below the Falls of Niagara when the American steamer Caroline was cut loose by a British attacking party, and sent burning over the Falls. Mr. Pim led a quiet life, and was well-known in Toronto.
Irvine, Hon. George, Q.C., D.C.L., one of the best known and most eminent members of the Quebec bar, is the eldest son of the late Lieut.-Colonel Irvine, principal A.D.C. to the Governor-General of Canada, and grandson of the Hon. James Irvine, for many years a member of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Lower Canada, and of the Hon. Matthew Bell, of Three Rivers, P.Q., at one time member for St. Maurice in the Legislature of Lower Canada, and afterwards a member of the Legislative Council of that province. He was born at Quebec on the 16th November, 1826, and was educated at Dr. Lundy’s school in that city. Having chosen the law as his profession, he was called to the bar in 1848, after the usual course of study, and rapidly rose to distinction, his services being retained in nearly every important case, especially of a commercial nature. In partnership with the late C. G. Holt, Q.C., afterwards judge of the sessions of the peace for the Quebec district, and subsequently with E. H. Pemberton, he practised his profession with steady success and honor, and in 1867 was created a Q.C. in recognition of his leading position at the Quebec bar. Some years previously to this, in 1863, the electors of Megantic county, P.Q., had marked their appreciation of his abilities and exalted character, by returning him at the general election of that year to represent them in the Canadian House of Assembly, in which he continued to sit until confederation, when he was returned for Megantic to the Commons, and represented that county at Ottawa until the abolition of dual representation and the general election of 1872, when he declined re-election. He also represented the county in the Legislative Assembly of the province of Quebec from confederation until January, 1876, and during this period successively held the important Cabinet offices of solicitor-general and attorney-general of that province in the Chauveau and Ouimet administrations, being regarded as the leader of the English element in those governments, and the special champion of the English-speaking and Protestant minority in Lower Canada. In January, 1876, he resigned his seat in the Legislature, on being appointed one of the railway commissioners for the province, which office he also resigned in 1878, in order to present himself for re-election as a supporter of Mr. Joly’s administration, in which he was offered, but declined, a seat. At the general election of that year, he was again returned to represent Megantic in the Legislative Assembly, and once more at the general election of 1880, when he went with his leader, Mr. Joly, into opposition to the Chapleau and Mousseau governments, until June, 1884, when he resigned his seat on accepting the appointment of judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Quebec. Throughout his public career, Mr. Irvine was one of the most conspicuous men in the house and before the country, and the organization and legislation of the province of Quebec, under confederation, still bear the impress of his powerful mind. A gentleman of wonderful tact and suavity of manner, a skilful parliamentarian, and a man of rare executive ability, he wielded an immense influence in the councils of that province, and on public opinion. As a speaker and debater, he was not only remarkable for his ready eloquence, but above all for his clearness, precision and logical force. He was a host in himself, and the side which received his support seldom failed to score a victory. As the representative of the English-speaking minority, he retained the public confidence to the last, as much by the independence and personal purity of his character as by his commanding talents. A Conservative by tradition and instinct, he nevertheless did not hesitate to separate himself from the party in provincial politics when the acts of some of his colleagues in the “Tanneries Land Swap” and other matters brought disgrace upon its escutcheon, and his conduct was not only ratified by his own immediate constituents of Megantic, but warmly approved by his fellow-countrymen generally. During the Joly administration he was the “power-behind the throne,” and afterwards, until his resignation of his seat in the house for good, the most conspicuous figure in the Provincial Opposition, next to the leader himself. Although actually the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Quebec, an Imperial appointment, the subject of this sketch still practises his profession in the other courts, and is generally found engaged in all the more important cases, both civil and criminal. He was formerly professor of commercial law in Morrin College, Quebec, and was also chancellor of the University of Lennoxville, P.Q., from which he received the honorary degree of D.C.L., in 1875. He has also been bâtonnier of the Quebec bar and a vice-president of the Union Bank of Canada, at Quebec, which he helped to found. In religion he is a member of the Church of England, and has always taken a keen and active interest in its affairs. He has travelled a good deal on public and professional business, and has repeatedly crossed to England to plead before the Privy Council in appeals of great importance. Has two brothers living, the elder, Commissary-General Matthew Bell Irvine, C.B., C.M.G., and the younger, Lieut.-Col. Acheson Gosford Irvine, a member of the Council of the North-West Territories, and late Commissioner North-West Mounted Police. He married, in August, 1856, the third daughter of the late Henry Le Mesurier, a well-known merchant of Quebec, and formerly an officer in H.M. 48th regiment, and by her has had issue ten children.
Cadman, James, Civil and Mining Engineer, Quebec, is a good type of the men to whose professional skill and energy the eastern section of the Dominion is indebted for so much of its development by railways within the last twenty years. An Englishman, by birth, he has all the Englishman’s well known doggedness of character, and all the trained engineer’s abiding faith in the invincibility of science and the power of mind over matter. The word “impossible” has long since been erased from his lexicon, as illustrated especially by the great undertaking with which his name has been more prominently connected of late, the construction of the railway from Quebec to Lake St. John through a region of unparalleled difficulty from the engineering point of view. Mr. Cadman was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England, on the 31st January, 1832, his father’s name being also James Cadman, and his mother’s originally, Sarah Forrest Brown. He received a good plain English education at the Blue Coat School, Dudley, and studied civil and mining engineering under S. H. Blackwell, of Russell’s Hall Colliery, Dudley, of which he was afterwards appointed resident engineer. He subsequently distinguished himself in the same capacity in a number of the other great English collieries and iron works until 1862, when he came to New Brunswick as mining engineer for the New Brunswick Charcoal and Pig Iron Company. In 1867, he became connected as resident engineer with the European and North-American Railway, and in 1868 was appointed assistant engineer of the Intercolonial Railway, in the location and construction of which he took an active part until 1875, when he was retained for the survey of the Newfoundland Railway. On his return from Newfoundland, he was named locating engineer of the North Shore Railway, in which position he continued to act until 1879, when he was raised to the still more prominent and responsible post of chief engineer of the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway, which he still holds with great advantage to the success of that arduous and important enterprise. Mr. Cadman is a member of the Church of England, and a Freemason. He has never taken any part in politics in England or Canada, not even to vote. In his early manhood, he was for three years a member of the South Staffordshire Rifle Volunteers. In 1860, he married Margaret Doughty, a niece of the celebrated mining engineer, John Yardley, of East Worcestershire, by whom he has had a family of five children, three of whom are still living.