THE LATE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR WILFRID LAURIER
Laurier, the late Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid, P.C., G.C.M.G., K.C., D.C.L. (Oxon.), LL.D. (Ottawa, Ont.), son of the late Carolus Laurier, P.L.S., and his wife, Marcelle Martineau; born at St. Lin, Quebec, on November 20, 1841, and educated at mixed schools in his native parish and at L’Assomption College. As a law student he entered the office of the late Hon. R. Laflamme in 1860, and studied at McGill University; received B.C.L. in 1864 and was called to the Bar in the same year; was appointed a Q.C. in 1880, and became head of the law firm of Laurier & Lavergne. In the earlier years of his professional career he edited and contributed to several newspapers. In May 13, 1868, he married Miss Zoe Lafontaine. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Drummond and Arthabaska in 1871, and resigned to contest the same riding for the House of Commons at the general elections in 1874, and was elected; was sworn in a Privy Councillor and appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in the Mackenzie administration, on October 8, 1877, and on going back for re-election, was defeated by D. O. Bourbeau, who obtained a majority of forty. Later he was elected for Quebec East, a seat vacated by I. Thibaudeau, and was re-elected for the same Riding at the general elections of 1878, 1882, 1887, 1891, 1896 and 1900, and also elected for Saskatchewan, N.W.T., at the general elections of 1896; was re-elected to the House of Commons at general elections of 1904 for Quebec East and Wright, and elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1908 was re-elected for Quebec East, and was also returned for the City of Ottawa, and again elected to sit for Quebec East; in 1911 he was elected for both Quebec East and Soulanges; and in 1918 for Quebec East. In October, 1878, he resigned with the Mackenzie Government, and was elected leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons in 1887. He issued a call for a Dominion Liberal Convention in 1893, which was held at Ottawa. Upon the defeat of the Tupper Government at the general elections, June 23, 1896, he was called on by Lord Aberdeen, Governor-General, to form a ministry on July 8, 1896, on which date Sir Charles Tupper resigned office; was sworn in as President of the Privy Council, July 11, 1896, and formed his Ministry, July 13, 1896. He was appointed by a sub-committee of the Privy Council to arrange for the settlement of the Manitoba School Question and an agreement was reached in November of the same year. On the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee at London, Eng., June, 1897, he represented Canada, and was created a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George; was received in audience by the Sovereign and accorded the leading place in the great Jubilee State Procession of all the Colonial dignitaries. Oxford and Cambridge Universities conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. (hon.) during this visit. He was sworn in an Imperial Privy Councillor July 6, 1897; was made an honorary member of the Cobden Club, and received from it a gold medal in recognition of his services in the cause of international free exchange; was presented by the President of France with the Star of a Grand Officer of the legion of Honour, at Havre, July 29, 1897, being the highest but one of that order; was received in audience by His Holiness the Pope, August 12, 1897. While in England he succeeded in securing Her Majesty’s Government’s assent to the denunciation of the commercial treaties with Germany and Belgium, which stood in the way of Canada’s new tariff, extending a preference to the United Kingdom. On his return to Canada he was accorded public receptions at Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, and received from Toronto and Queen’s Universities the honorary degrees of LL.D. In November, 1897, he went to Washington in the interest of better relations between the two countries, and was a member of the Joint Commission which met at Quebec, August 23, 1898, to discuss questions affecting jointly Great Britain, Canada and the United States. He welcomed the present King, then Duke of Cornwall and York, to Canada in September, 1901, and accompanied the Royal Party through the Dominion; was invited, and attended, the Coronation of King Edward VII, in 1902, sailing June 14, arriving in Liverpool June 21, and in London, June 22. The Coronation, fixed for June 26, was postponed on June 24, but took place on August 9. On June 30 he attended a Colonial Conference at London, and on July 26 received the freedom of the City of Edinburgh, and was honored with the degree of LL.D. by the Edinburgh University. He was entertained by the City of Glasgow, July 28, visited the continent, and sailed for Canada on October 7, arriving at Quebec, October 17, and at Ottawa, October 18, receiving a great civic welcome at the City Hall. On New Year’s Day, 1904, he was presented by His Excellency the Governor-General, with the Fenian Raid medal for services as a volunteer in 1866. In 1907 he attended the Imperial Conference at London, Eng., as a representative of Canada, and was accorded the freedom of London, Bristol, Liverpool and other cities; and in 1911 he attended the Imperial Conference in England and represented Canada at the coronation of King George and Queen Mary. Following the defeat of his Party at the polls on September 21, 1911, on October 6 he tendered the resignation of himself and Cabinet to Earl Grey, and advised His Excellency to call upon Mr. R. L. Borden, to form a Cabinet. From that date until his death on Feb. 17, 1919, he continued to lead the Liberal Party, and in 1917 celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday. He again led his party in the general election of December, 1917, but was defeated owing to the fact that many followers had parted company with him on the issue of Conscription. Sir Wilfrid’s end came suddenly as a result of an effusion of blood to the brain. He was stricken while preparing to go to church on Sunday, Feb. 16, and passed away the following afternoon. The death of no Canadian had previously evoked such tributes as were printed and uttered, not only in Canada, but throughout the British Empire and the United States. His remains were accorded the honor of a State funeral in Ottawa on Saturday, Feb. 22, 1919, which was the most impressive function of its kind known on any continent since the death of Lincoln.
Ames, Sir Herbert B., K.B., LL.D., M.P. (Montreal, Que.), born June 27, 1863, at Montreal, of which city he has been a life-long resident. He is the only son of the late Evan Fisher Ames (who founded the shoe manufacturing concern of Ames, Holden & Company in 1856), and of Caroline Matilda Brown, his wife, who was a native of New York City. Mr. E. F. Ames came to Canada from Conway, Mass., which district he represented in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1852. He established himself in Montreal, and became one of the leading Canadian manufacturers. Sir Herbert Ames was educated in the schools of Montreal, subsequently entering Amherst College at Amherst, Mass., graduating from there with the degree of B.A. in 1885, and having had conferred on him the further title of LL.D. in 1915. When in college he was a member of the Alpha Phi Fraternity. In August, 1885, after leaving Amherst, he entered the firm of Ames, Holden & Company, at Montreal, remaining in that business until 1893. He next interested himself in municipal reform and became President of an organization of young men known as the Volunteer Electoral League, which body was largely instrumental in bringing about the reformation of the City Council. In 1898 Mr. Ames was elected a member of the Montreal City Council for St. Antoine Ward, and served his constituency for eight years. During that period he was a member of the Police Commission, of the Road Commission and for four years served as Chairman of the Board of Health. In 1895 Mr. Ames was named a member of the Council of Public Instruction of the Province of Quebec, which body supervises the entire school system of the province. Mr. Ames was first elected a member of the House of Commons, Canada, in 1904, having a majority of 650. In 1908 he was again elected by 850 of a majority, and in 1911 elected for the third time by a majority of over 2,000; again re-elected in December, 1917. On the formation of the Borden Government, in 1911, Mr. Ames was appointed to the important position of chairman of the Select Standing Committee on Banking and Commerce, to which all bills pertaining to Banks, Trust and Loan and Insurance Companies are referred for examination and report. In 1903 he was a member of the National Committee to entertain the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, and with them travelled throughout the Dominion. In 1909, as representative of the Montreal Board of Trade, Mr. Ames attended the meeting of the Chambers of Commerce at Sydney, Australia. He has travelled extensively throughout Australia, Japan, Egypt, India, Europe, the United States and West Indies, and has given much time and attention to the discussion of trade questions, tariff and treaties with other countries. In 1896 he wrote and published a monograph entitled “The City Below the Hill,” being a sociological study of the District of the City of Montreal, in which such questions as wages, rents, health conditions, etc., were carefully received. At the request of the Department of Commerce and Labor of the United States Government, Mr. Ames prepared an article on the same subject which appeared in the journals of this department. At the present time Sir Herbert Ames is a Director and Vice-President of the Ames, Holden, McCready Company. He is also one of the three gentlemen composing the Canadian Board of the Gresham Life Insurance Company, and also a Director of the Dominion Guarantee Company. He is a member of the Mount Royal Club, the Montreal Club, the Montreal Curling Club, the University Club of Montreal, the Rideau Club, Ottawa. On May 19, 1890, Mr. Ames was married to Louise Marion Kennedy, daughter of Sir John Kennedy, C.E., of Montreal, and they occupy a residence on the slopes of Mount Royal. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, a Director in the Y.M.C.A., a governor in several benevolent institutions. At the outbreak of the great War, Mr. Ames was asked by His Royal Highness, the Governor-General of Canada, to assume the position of Honorary Secretary of the National Canadian Patriotic Fund, which provides for the wives and dependent relatives of soldiers serving in the armies of the Allies. On behalf of the Fund he has visited all parts of Canada, speaking and organizing, and the marked success to his initiative and effort. Through this great national benefaction there will have been raised and expended during the war period no less a sum than $45,000,000. On June 3, 1915, Mr. Ames had conferred upon him the Honor of Knighthood by His Majesty the King, and in 1916 was made a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England. On December 1, 1918, the Government of Canada created by Order-in-Council a National War Savings Committee for the encouragement of thrift and the promotion of investment of small savings in government securities. Of this Committee Sir Herbert Ames has been appointed Chairman.
Robertson, John Ross, journalist. The direct descendant of Duncan R., chief of the clan of Robertson of Strowan, 1347; eldest son of the late John Robertson, wholesale dry goods merchant, Toronto, and Margaret R., daughter of Hector Sinclair, Stornoway, Island of Lewis, Scotland. He was born in Toronto, Dec. 28, 1841, and educated at Upper Canada College; married, 1st, in 1871, Maria Louisa (d. Aug., 1886), daughter of Edward Earle Matthew Gillbee, Northamptonshire, Eng., grandson of the late Rev. Dr. Edward Gillbee, Vicar of Barby, near Rugby, descendant of the noted Anthony Gilby, one of the translators of the first edition of the Geneva or “Breeches” Bible, 1560; 2ndly, 1888, Jessie Elizabeth, daughter of George B. Holland, a prominent insurance man of Toronto. While still at college he occupied his spare hours in acquiring a knowledge of the printer’s craft, and was a fairly rapid compositor; commenced a small office which he established in his father’s residence, John St., Toronto, and with a few fonts of type he issued to the boys at Upper Canada College a paper under the name of the “College Times,” which later took the name of the “Boys’ Times,” a monthly publication that existed 1857-60. He also published in succession to the “Boys’ Times,” during a year at the Model Grammar School, a newsy paper for boys called “Young Canada.” Picking up a general knowledge of setting type and small job work in city offices, his face was a familiar one in the old “Christian Guardian” office, where occasionally he used to work off odd jobs, the composition of which he did in his own office; in the “Globe” Office, where in 1859, when opportunity offered, he sometimes used to feed one of the Hoe single cylinder presses when printing the inner pages of the four-page “Globe,” for the inside was always printed the afternoon before the morning issue; in the “Leader,” where he at times worked off on a small job cylinder Hoe press, the “Grumbler,” the weekly that he issued in 1860; the following year he equipped a newspaper and job office, and issued “Sporting Life,” the first paper in Canada to be devoted to athletic sports, and subsequently continued the publication of the “Grumbler,” a weekly satirical paper, at one time edited by W. J. Rattray, W. A. Foster, and the late Chief Justice Thomas Moss. He worked on the reportorial and advertising staff of the “Leader,” when Charles Lindsey and Charles Belford were editors and Ephraim Roden, City Editor, continuing at the same time the management of his printing office. He also issued for a year, Robertson’s Canadian Railway Guide, the first of its kind in Canada, and early in 1865 joined the Toronto “Globe” staff as city Editor, in May, 1866, becoming one of the founders of the “Daily Telegraph,” a journal that had a high reputation among the newspapers of Canada. Owing to political complications it ceased publication in 1872. Prior to this, in December, 1869, Mr. Robertson, then of the “Daily Telegraph,” made a trip to the North-West, accompanied by Mr. Robert Cunningham of the “Globe.” They travelled by rail from Toronto to the end of steel at St. Cloud, Minn., and there with a French half-breed guide and a two-horse farmer’s sleigh, fully equipped, began a journey of about 400 miles over the prairie. Snow storms raged and the thermometer ran from zero to 20 below. The travellers camped every night in the woods along the Red River, and arrived in Fort Garry after a perilous journey of ten days, to be locked up by the so-called “President” Riel, in Fort Garry for a week, and only allowed out to see their friends in the town, under a guard. They both secured interesting information, but were ordered out of the territory, as Riel thought they were “dangerous characters,” so they left Fort Garry for Pembina, U.S., the boundary post, one day when the thermometer was about 40 below zero. They declared they would not do the trip again for the whole North-West. Mr. Robertson, after the “Daily Telegraph” ceased publication, proceeded to London, Eng., where for three years he acted as resident correspondent and business representative of the Toronto “Daily Globe.” On his return to Canada, 1875, he assumed the business management of the “Nation,” edited by the late Prof. Goldwin Smith. It is said that during his managership of the “Nation,” his friend, Mr. Goldwin Smith asked his opinion as to the opportunities offered for an independent daily evening paper in Toronto, and that this conversation led up to the establishment of the “Evening Telegram,” which first saw light in April, 1876. It is said to be the only daily paper in Canada that has paid its way from the start. Mr. Robertson continued to conduct it until his death, May 31, 1918. “The immediate success of this paper,” said the “Globe,” in a sketch of his career published during his lifetime, “is ample evidence that he has graduated from a good school of journalism. Neither accident or luck had aught to do with his success. He launched out in new and original lines, and the good fortune that attended his efforts was the outcome of his energy, enthusiasm and experience, reinforced by a persistence and resource that would admit of no failure; it is these qualities that he brings to his every undertaking, and on the “Globe” he left behind him a reputation that is worthy of his later achievements.” This was publicly demonstrated by his Masonic career and his management of that great charity—the Hospital for Sick Children. From the first he has held high rank in the Masonic order. He entered the Craft in 1867, and was W.M. of his Mother Lodge, King Solomon’s, in 1880-1, and of Mimico, No. 359, in 1879-80. After having served successively as Grand Senior Warden, as District Grand Master of the Toronto District in 1886, he became in 1890 Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Canada, and was subsequently chosen Grand First Principal of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Canada, 1894-5, and Provincial Grand Prior, Ontario Centre, Sovereign Great Priory of Canadian Knights Templar, 1882; was Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of England in Canada, having been appointed to succeed Sir John A. Macdonald in that office on the latter’s death, 1891; indeed, every honor at the disposal of his fellow-craftsmen had been accorded him. In September, 1902, in commemoration of the coronation of His Majesty King Edward, the Duke of Connaught (q.v.) then and now Grand Master, was pleased to confer the honorary rank of Past Grand Warden of England upon several eminent personages, including the subject of this sketch. For many years Mr. Robertson was president of the Canadian Copyright Association and rendered important services in that regard, and also Vice-President and President of the Canadian Associated Press, and Hon. President of the Toronto Press Club. He was present, with his wife, by invitation, in Westminster Abbey, at the coronation of King Edward and Queen Alexandra. As an author of Masonic works, Mr. Robertson is well known, having written the “History of the Degree of the Cryptic Rite in Canada,” etc. (1888); “History of the Knights Templar of Canada, from the Foundation of the Order to the Present Time” (1890); “Talks with Craftsmen” (1893); “Freemasonry in Canada,” 2 vols., 1,000 pages each (1899). He was a contributor to the U.C. College Memorial Volume, 1893, edited the “Diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe, wife of the First Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, 1792-6” (1911), as a press notice said, “The book of the year, a superb work,” and the author and compiler of “Robertson’s Landmarks of Toronto” (7 vols.). In 1888 the ambulance system in Toronto was unsatisfactory, and with a view to making it efficient, he imported from London, Eng., a modern ambulance, fully equipped, and presented it to the city. There are about sixty ambulances in Canada made from this model. The presentation marked a new era in this branch of humane work. He later gave a collection of 4,000 Canadian historical pictures to the Toronto Public Library, the largest collection of its kind in the world, valued at $150,000. In January, 1917, he acquired and presented to the Public Library a magnificent ornithological collection of birds and game of Canada, done in water-color by William Pope, an English sportsman and artist, who resided for forty years at Port Ryerse, Ont. This collection of water-colors is pronounced by eminent Canadian biologists to be equal of and in some respects superior to, the work of Audubon. Mr. Robertson later added to this another collection of Canadian birds, exquisite reproductions in color of hundreds of birds that are not in the Pope Collection, so that the entire collection is unparalleled in Canada. He founded and gave three magnificent silver cups, made by eminent British silversmiths, from special patterns, for the promotion of cricket, hockey and bowling; but it was as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, that he will be most gratefully remembered. For thirty-five years he carried the chief burden of this important charitable institution, bringing to its needs not only much money of his own, but aiding it with the full force of his powers as a financier and organizer. He took an active part in the management and visited the Hospital every day. His gifts to the Hospital amounted to about half a million dollars during his lifetime, for he completely equipped the Hospital buildings on College St. and on Elizabeth St., and built and founded, in connection with the Hospital, the Lakeside Home for Little Children, at Lighthouse Point, Toronto Island, with an accommodation for 250 patients and an entire hospital equipment; here, during the summer months, the suffering little ones are won back to health and strength with the aid of the cool breezes which sweep across Lake Ontario. Included in his benefactions to the Hospital he erected, equipped and presented to the Hospital (as a memorial of his first wife) a five-storey nurses’ brick residence, containing 125 rooms, which has been declared to be the most perfect building of its kind ever erected; in July, 1911, he presented to the Heather Club an extension to the pavilion for tubercular children in connection with the Lakeside Home. He built and established a complete plant for the pasteurization of milk, on the Hospital grounds, College St., Toronto, the only one of its kind in the Dominion. By his will the whole of his estate will ultimately go to this philanthropy. He was an all-round amateur athlete, and has been sometimes called “The Father of Amateur Hockey in Ontario”; was President of the Ontario Hockey Association, 1899-1905. He sat for East Toronto in 1896-1900 in the House of Commons as an Independent Conservative, pledged to oppose any Government which would attempt to establish separate schools in Manitoba, to support the “National Policy,” and to vote for the general good of the country. According to Sir Charles Tupper (q.v.) he was in all respects “a model member,” and a devoted Imperialist. In religion he was a Presbyterian. In February, 1917, Mr. Robertson was offered in the New Year’s honors a knighthood and a senatorship, both of which honors he gratefully declined. A well-known politician said, “It is the first time in the history of Canada that anyone declined a knighthood and a senatorship in the same day.” He was a member of the National, Victoria and Arts and Letters Clubs; Constitutional (Conservative) Club, London, Eng. “A born journalist”—“Canada,” of London, Eng.; “A truly independent man”—D. McCarthy, Q.C., M.P.; “Possesses a heart as big as that of an ox”—Hamilton “Spectator”; “The good angel of many of Toronto’s charitable institutions”—Hamilton “Times”; “No man need desire a more noble monument than these Hospital buildings, which would keep Mr. Robertson’s memory green if all other achievements were forgotten”—Toronto “Globe”; “He has risen step by step until he is to-day recognized as one of the keenest, most practical and successful publishers of the Dominion. The blind goddess had nothing to do with his success”—Ottawa “Citizen.”
Hearst, Hon. Sir William Howard, K.C.M.G., K.C., M.P.P., Prime Minister of the Province of Ontario, was born on February 15, 1864, in the township of Arran, Bruce County, Ontario, the son of William and Margaret (McFadden) Hearst. His father was a farmer, and the subject of this sketch was educated at the public schools of Arran Township and later at Collingwood Collegiate Institute. Subsequently he studied for the legal profession at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1888. He commenced the practice of law in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where he became prominent in municipal affairs and active as a speaker in the Conservative interest. He was an unsuccessful candidate in Algoma East in 1894, but in the Ontario Legislative elections in 1902 he helped to organize a group of newly defined constituencies in Northern Ontario for Mr. (afterward Sir) James P. Whitney, and by his effective methods largely assisted in placing them in the Conservative column. When the Whitney Government was formed in 1905 Mr. Hearst was appointed Government agent in connection with the guarantee loan furnished to the Lake Superior Corporation, under the provisions of which the Government had a voice in the management of the corporation until the loan should be liquidated. In this capacity Mr. Hearst proved a business success but resigned the office in 1908 to contest the riding of Sault Ste. Marie for the Ontario Legislature. He was successful and in September, 1911, when Hon. Frank Cochrane resigned the Portfolio of Forests and Mines to become Minister of Railways and Canals in the first Borden cabinet, Sir James Whitney tendered the vacancy in his cabinet to Mr. Hearst. The latter accepted and was re-elected by acclamation by his constituents, whom he has ever since continued to represent. On the death of Sir James Whitney in 1914, he was asked to form a Government, all his former colleagues accepting office under him. He was sworn in as Prime Minister and President of the Council on October 2, 1914, this being practically the last official act of Sir John Gibson, as Lieutenant-Governor. Following the death of Hon. James Duff in December, 1916, he also assumed the post of Minister of Agriculture, retaining it for two years until the elevation of Hon. George Henry to the cabinet in 1918. In connection with his profession as a lawyer he was created a K.C. in 1908 and was elected a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1912. On February 13, 1917, he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. The Premiership of Sir William Hearst has been marked by energetic administration and progressive legislation. He took office at a time of peculiar difficulty in Canadian affairs, when the great war had been in progress for two months and when it was becoming evident that it would be necessary for a vast and united effort if it was to be successfully prosecuted. Perhaps his most radical step was his act of 1916, to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors throughout the province of Ontario. Subsequent orders-in-Council by the Federal government gave this act the effect of absolute prohibition. In 1917 he introduced and carried an act to confer the Parliamentary franchise on women. Under his leadership a comprehensive measure previously enacted providing for compensation to workmen for injuries was put into successful operation and extended. An important measure of his provides for loans to settlers, and he has also taken practical steps to deal with the housing problem. The policy of Sir James Whitney and Sir Adam Beck of government control and operation of the water powers of the province, known as the Hydro-Electric system has been amplified under Sir William Hearst. In connection with the war he visited the battlefront to personally ascertain the needs of the situation. Under his administration the Orpington Military Hospital in England was built as the gift of the people of Ontario. As Minister of Agriculture he organized measures for increased food production to meet the needs of soldiers and civilians overseas; and is taking active measures to assist in reconstruction, by helping returned soldiers to settle on the land. In religion Sir William is a Methodist. On July 21, 1891, he married Isabella Jane Dunkin of Sault Ste. Marie by whom he has four children, Lieutenant Howard Vernon Hearst and Lieutenant Irving Hearst, both of whom are on active war service; and Misses Isabel and Evelyn Hearst. Sir William resides at Toronto.