Revised and Condensed

In this article, I refer to Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) as SCB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Bagg (1788-1853,) and from his son, Robert Stanley Bagg (1844-1912).

Many young people spend a long time deciding what they want to be when they grow up. The career of Stanley Clark Bagg, however, was determined long before he was born.

SCB was destined to become a large landowner on the Island in Montreal, thanks to the foresight of his grandfather. John Clark, a butcher who had immigrated to Canada in the late 1790s and purchased several adjoining farms along the west side of Saint Lawrence Street. This was the road that led out of the old city gates and past the eastern slope of Mount Royal, to the north shore of the Island of Montreal.  

When Clark died in 1827, he left some of this property to his daughter, Mary Ann (Clark) Bagg, but he left most of his estate to SCB, his only grandchild.¹ SCB was just seven years old then, and he spent much of his youth preparing for his future responsibilities as a landlord and a gentleman. For many people whose ancestors had settled in Canada, or who had themselves immigrated to North America in the 19^th century, owning land was their greatest dream, so property brought social status, as well as having monetary value. SCB was set for life.

Unfortunately, being a landowner wasn’t what he really wanted to do. According to grandson Stanley Bagg Lindsay, SCB wanted to be an Anglican minister. “He was a very religious man and I understand would have entered the ministry, but for the fact that would have entailed leaving Montreal, where there was no theological college, and going to Lennoxville (in Quebec’s Eastern Townships), where theology could be studied at the University of Bishops College. With all his property interests in Montreal and getting married in 1844, it was not possible for SCB to be away from Montreal for so long.”² Fortunately, SCB had the means and the time to read, write (including articles, poetry and hymns), travel and support philanthropic organizations, such as the English Workingman’s Benefit Society of Montreal, which he founded.

Stanley Clark Bagg was born on Dec. 23, 1820, the son of American-born merchant Stanley Bagg and his English-born wife, Mary Ann Clark (1795-1835.)³ He grew up at his parents’ home, Durham House, on St. Lawrence Street, just outside what was then the small city of Montreal.

SCB probably grew up playing in his father’s orchard and learning to ride a horse – a necessary skill in those days. He was educated by an Anglican minister and studied at McGill, then just a small college. A hired farm hand would have looked after the cows, chickens and other animals at Durham House, but perhaps SCB was also required to do some farm chores.

On Feb 10, 1835, when SCB was 14, his mother died. His father never remarried, although he probably hired a housekeeper to cook and help look after young Stanley. Soon after Mary Ann’s death, Stanley senior met with a group of friends and relatives in front of a judge to choose a tutor, or guardian, for the boy. Stanley was named his son’s tutor and Gabriel Roy, husband of Stanley’s sister Sophia, became sub-tutor.⁴ Stanley also acted as executor of both John Clark’s and Mary Ann’s wills, so he managed the properties and SCB’s funds until his son turned 21.

Two years after Mary Ann’s death, Lower Canada faced a crisis as some moderate nationalists and members of a more radical group known as the Patriotes took up arms in a rebellion, demanding responsible government. Troops from the regular British army, joined by members of the local volunteer militia, prepared to defend the status quo.

Stanley Bagg was a major in the 1^st Batallion Loyal Montreal Volunteers⁵ and SCB served as a standard-bearer at the Battle of Saint-Eustache.⁶ About two weeks before his 17^th birthday, he witnessed the bloodiest battle of the rebellion in the village of Saint-Eustache, northwest of Montreal. Fought in December 1837, this event resulted in the deaths of 100 rebels, and many buildings in the area were destroyed by fire.

SCB continued to participate in the volunteer militia for more than 20 years, going on inactive status in 1859 with the rank of captain.⁷

At about age 16, he started to train to be a notary. Notaries played an important role in Quebec society, recording people’s wills, marriage contracts, business agreements, disputes (especially when money was owed) and, most importantly for SCB, property deeds and rentals. As a notary, SCB would be familiar with the laws pertaining to property transfers.

He served a four-year apprenticeship with notary W.S. Hunter and, in August 1841, his father indentured him for a final eight months to N.B. Doucet, a well-known Montreal notary.⁸ Doucet undertook to instruct him, give him access to books and render him fit to serve as a notary, while SCB undertook to apply himself.

The Custom of Paris

In 1840, many English-speaking citizens of Quebec could not read the civil laws that governed their everyday activities. Although Quebec had been a British colony for almost 80 years, the collection of civil laws called the Coutume de Paris (Custom of Paris) had not been translated from French into English. So in 1841, SCB translated excerpts of the Coutume de Paris, completing the project shortly before he finished his apprenticeship. 

Today this manuscript — the earliest recorded translation of the Coutume de Paris into English — is housed in the library of York University’s Osgood Hall Law School in Toronto, and it can be found online at https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/library_digital/1/

SCB’s translation consists of about 200 pages, neatly handwritten in a small, hardcover notebook.⁹ He focused on definitions of French legal terms in English, and English translations of laws governing rights of property ownership, marriage and inheritance. On the final page he noted, “The laws of every nation are more or less mixed with the laws of nations that have passed away, but none more than the laws of Canada, which have for their basis the jurisprudence of France and England.”

By the spring of 1842, a few months after he turned 21, he had finished his apprenticeship. As a legal adult, he could now manage his inheritance, collect the rent for the farms he owned and buy and sell properties. Perhaps he also started to think about marriage and opening an office as a notary. First, though, he and his father travelled to England to explore County Durham, in the northeast, where his mother had been born.

A Trip to England in 1842

The trip was a combination of business and pleasure. The business involved selling property that SCB’s maternal grandfather had owned in Durham, and the pleasure involved a whirlwind tour of London, Scotland, Ireland and France, as well as visits with various great-aunts and great-uncles who still lived in England.

A few months after his return to Montreal, SCB wrote to his cousin in Philadelphia, describing the trip. Unfortunately, he did not include any details or impressions of their adventures, but he listed the places they visited.

Their trip across the Atlantic was fast. The age of the trans-Atlantic steamship had arrived in the 1830s, and SCB wrote, “We made the passage to Liverpool from Halifax in the incredible short space of nine days and six hours, which was I believe the shortest passage ever made across the Atlantic. From Liverpool we went to London, thence to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, York, Darlington, Durham, Stockton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Shields, Tynemouth, Otterburn …. ”¹⁰

In Scotland, they explored both Glasgow and Edinburgh. After a few days in London, they crossed the Channel to France, visiting Paris and several other cities before returning to London. SCB wrote, “We left London shortly afterwards for Ireland, and having visited Kingstown, Dublin and Kilmainham, returned to Liverpool, where … we embarked on board a steamship and after a boisterous passage of 14 days arrived at Boston exceedingly gratified with our tour.”¹¹

Anchor-maker William Mitcheson, brother of SCB’s grandmother Mary Mitcheson Clark, lived in London, and the Baggs visited him there. While in County Durham, they visited more Mitcheson relations, including Mrs. Dodd (Mary Mitcheson’s sister Margaret) near Ryton, and Mrs. Maugham (Mary’s sister Elizabeth) at Sunderland. 

It is clear that the visit to Durham was the highlight of the trip, but not because of the business they finalized there. In fact, SCB did not mention it at all in his letter. When he turned 21, he gained control over an inheritance of property in Durham from his grandfather, John Clark (1767-1827). The property generated rental income, but SCB wanted to sell. In a notarized document dated after their return to Montreal, Stanley Bagg listed the sales of three properties in Durham.¹²

Meanwhile, SCB’s real interest was in ancient legends, old coins, Norman castles and the like, and he was enthralled with the ancient city of Durham. More than 20 years later, he presented a lecture to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal on “The Antiquities and Legends of Durham.”

He described the legend surrounding the founding of Durham city by 9^th century monks. When Danes attacked England’s northeast coast, the monks fled their monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne with the miraculously well-preserved body of their former bishop. Eventually they built an abbey at the future site of the city and buried him there. Today, that bishop is remembered as Saint Cuthbert, and pilgrims still visit the huge abbey church, Durham Cathedral.

In his 1866 lecture to the Numismatic Society, SCB described his feelings on that trip. He recalled, “The first time I had the privilege of attending a divine service in Durham Abbey, I was enraptured with the sweet and masterly chanting, unsurpassed in the empire. My father and I obtained seats in the choir. The service was exceedingly impressive, so much so, that …. whenever the portion of the Psalter chanted upon that occasion recurs in the services of the church, it carries me back in imagination to the first service I attended in the venerable abbey of my mother’s native city.”¹³

This article is condensed from a series of articles about Stanley Clark Bagg (my two-times great-grandfather) posted in 2020 on my personal family history blog Writing Up the Ancestors (www.writinguptheancestors.ca). Part 2 will follow on July 1, 2026.

Notes  

King Louis XIV made the Coutume de Paris the civil law of New France in 1664. It did not include criminal law or cover commercial law. Some of its provisions dated from feudal times and were based on concepts such as moveable property (objects that can be moved) and immovable property (such as land and buildings), as well as community of property between married couples, provisions to protect widows and inheritances for daughters.

After the British Conquest of New France, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 introduced British Common Law to the colony, however, French Canadians resisted this new way of doing things. In 1774, the government passed the Quebec Act, bringing back the property and family laws of the Coutume de Paris, while British Common Law applied to criminal matters. Some reforms were made in 1840, but legislators realized that the laws had to be updated to meet the needs of a changing society. The old seigneurial system of land ownership was being phased out, and new laws were needed to make it easier for commerce, investment and industrialization to expand.

The new Civil Code of Lower Canada, which came into force in 1866, clearly had some roots in the Custom of Paris, making Quebec’s legal traditions unique in Canada. Today, Quebecers still rely on notaries to prepare their wills, property deeds and marriage contracts.

Sources

1. Henry Griffin, notarial act #5989, “Last Will and Testament of Mr. John Clark of Montreal,” 29 August 1825, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ); also, George Dorland Arnoldi, notarial act # 3842,  “Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Mary Ann Clark, wife of Stanley Bagg,” 10 December 1834, BAnQ

2. Unsigned, undated (probably Stanley Bagg Lindsay), “Stanley Clark Bagg,” Lindsay family collection.

3. Stanley Clark Bagg, born Dec. 22, 1820; baptized Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, July 2, 1822. Institut Généalogique Drouin; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Drouin Collection; Author: Gabriel Drouin, comp.,Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database, Ancestry.ca:  on-line]. (Accessed 23 Dec. 2019) entry for Stanley Clark Bagg, citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.

4. Although Lower Canada was a British colony at the time, it retained many legal traditions, including this one, stemming from the French Regime. “Tutorship: minor Stanley Bagg” BAnQ microfilm #1857, Tutelles, 5 Decembre 1834 au 20 Mars 1835, Document 174 – 27 Feb. 1835.

5. Elinor Kyte Senior, Redcoats and Patriots: The Rebellions in Lower Canada. 1837-38, p 214, Stittsville, ON: Canada’s Wings, Inc., 1985.

6. Pierre B. Landry, “BAGG, STANLEY CLARK,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed December 24, 2019, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bagg_stanley_clark_10E.html.

7. “List of Officers of the Sedentary militia of Lower Canada, 1862,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.ca: accessed Dec. 23, 2019), entry for Stanley C. Bagg, citing List of Officers of the Sedentary militia of Lower Canada, 1862, Quebec: S. Derbyshire and G. Desbarats, 1863.

8. Joseph-Hilarion Jobin, notarial act #2977 23 Aug 1841, “Indenture of Stanley C. Bagg to N.B. Doucet,” Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec; abstract by Sherry Olson.

9. Bagg, Stanley Clark, “A Collection of Extracts from the Coutume de Paris: Translated from the French,” 1841. https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/library_digital/1/

10. Letter from Stanley Clark Bagg to Rev. R. M. Mitcheson, Dec. 6, 1842, probably transcribed by Stanley Bagg Lindsay; Lindsay family collection.

11. Record in a passenger list of Stanley Bagg and S.C. Bagg travelling from Liverpool to Boston aboard the Acadia. Boston Courier (Boston, Massachusetts, Monday, Sept. 19, 1842, issue 1921;) 19th Century Newspapers Collection, special interest databases, www.americanancestors.org (accessed April 18, 2019.)

12. Joseph-Hilarion Jobin, “Account and mortgages from Stanley Bagg Esq to Stanley Clark Bagg,” 8 October 1842, notarial act #3537, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

13. Stanley Clark Bagg, “The Antiquities and Legends of Durham: a Lecture before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal,” p. 21, Montreal, 1866. https://archive.org/details/cihm_48731/page/n4 (accessed Dec. 27, 2019) This article can also be found here: http://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.48731/1?r=0&s=1