Delete. Delete. Delete. All family historians and genealogists fret about what will happen to their research once they are dead. Before the digital age, they worried about their research being chucked in the garbage or, more recently, tossed into the recycling bin. Now they worry about the word DELETE.
Those of us who post our research on web sites and blogs know that once the domain no longer exists, our research will also disappear. Quebec’s national library, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) has put an extraordinary initiative in place, the Archivage Web. This is a wonderful collection of Quebec web sites. Its objective is to preserve Quebec’s digital heritage and Quebec’s presence on the web. Quebec has harvested Quebec-centric web sites since 2012 and these sites can be accessed using a specialized web archiving interface. This initiative responds to the mission of the BAnQ to gather, conserve, and disseminate Quebec’s documentary heritage.
Here is the link to this extraordinary collection:
With this collection of archived web sites, the BAnQ desires to create a representative portrait of Quebec society through its digital presence. It selects web site to archive using the following criteria:
Of interest to the general public
Is well known in its domain
Has a current and historical value
Has original content and is compatible with the content of the BAnQ’s collections
Has a quality site
Genealogy Ensemble applied to the BAnQ to become part of its archived collection and we are delighted to announce that we have been accepted. The BAnQ uses a data-collection robot to collect the sites that are part of its collection and has already been harvested twice.
Genealogy Ensemble is honoured to be chosen to be part of the BAnQ’s digital heritage collection. Members of the public can access our web site through Archivage Web. When you access this page, just type in Genealogy Ensemble and this will take you to a calendar with highlighted dates. These dates represent the dates that a “snapshot” was taken. While you cannot search with these snapshots, you will be able to browse them. The advantage is that these snapshots will be part of BAnQ’s permanent selection and will survive after our blog is no longer active.
Of course, our hope is that genealogists and historians will use this tool for years to come. Even though the snapshoots cannot be searched in the same way that the live site can be searched, it does not mean that this will not be possible in the future. After all, our ancestors would never have imagined the digitization of their important documents.
It must have been a happy wedding. For a girl from humble American roots to marry the owner of one of Lower Canada’s (Quebec) vast seigneuries, this must have seemed like a wonderful match. And the groom had recently lost his parents, so his family members were no doubt pleased to see him marry.
Unfortunately, there was no fairy-tale ending to this story.
Detail of a 19th-century painting showing Sainte Anne with local landowner C.A.M. Globensky and his wife and cousin, Virginie Lambert Dumont. JH photo.
The bride was Sophia Mary Roy Bush. She was born Sophia Mary Bush around 1815, the daughter of farmer William Bush, of West Haven, Vermont, and his wife, Polly Bagg Bush. This family struggled financially, so Sophia had come to Lower Canada to live with her aunt and uncle, Sophia Bagg and Gabriel Roy, a landowner and politician, who had no children of their own.
The groom was Charles-Louis Lambert Dumont, born in 1806, the son of Eustache Nicolas Lambert Dumont.1 Eustache Nicolas had been a judge, militia officer, politician and co-seigneur of Milles-Îles, but he had accumulated crippling debts running the seigneury and had fallen out with his sister because their father had left them unequal shares of the seigneury.
On the bride’s side, Sophia Bagg and Gabriel Roy signed the parish record book, as did the bride’s uncle Stanley Bagg, his 15-year-old son, Stanley Clark Bagg, and his mother-in-law, Mary Mitcheson Clark. Abner Bagg’s wife, Mary Ann Mittleberger, signed the register, as did her daughter Mary Ann. Among Louis Charles’ relatives who signed the book were his sister Elmire, her husband, Pierre Laviolette, and seven other members of the Laviolette family. The groom’s brother, Louis Sévère Dumont, was also present. Source: Quebec Canada Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection) 1621-1968 for BM Dush, Saint Laurent, 1830-1840, Sept. 25, 1835, p. 106, www.Ancestry,ca.
The Dumont family had been seigneurs of Milles-Îles since 1743, owning a vast area of wilderness and fertile farmland northwest of Montreal. According to traditions that went back to the time of New France, the habitants, or farmers, paid rent annually to the seigneur, cleared the land and grew crops. The seigneur was responsible for building grist mills, saw mills and roads. In 1770, the Dumont family donated land for the construction of a Catholic church, and the village of Saint-Eustache grew up next to it. They later built the seigneurial manor house near the church.2
Charles-Louis’ and Sophia’s wedding was held at the parish church in Saint-Laurent, where the Roy family lived, on September 22, 1835. The newlyweds lived in the manor house in Saint-Eustache, but their life was not easy. Charles-Louis was learning how to administer the debt-ridden seigneury, arguing over money with his brother and fighting off court challenges over the property from his aunt. Then the couple’s first-born child, a daughter, died in 1837, shortly after her first birthday.
Meanwhile, social and political tensions were increasing in Lower Canada, and when the government refused to approve reforms, an armed rebellion broke out. On December 14, 1837, 1500 government troops and loyalist volunteers attacked the Patriotes, or rebels, who had barricaded themselves inside the church at Saint-Eustache. The government forces burned the church, the convent and much of the village. Seventy Patriotes died during the battle and 120 were taken prisoner.
The Catholic parish church in Saint-Eustache. JH photo.
Charles-Louis and Sophia had anticipated trouble and left Saint-Eustache for Montreal in November. When they returned in the spring, they discovered the manor house had been destroyed so they moved into a smaller house down the road. Their second child, Marguerite Virginie Lambert Dumont, was born there on August 21, 1838.
On June 27, 1841, Sophia died suddenly, age 26. The body of Charles-Louis, 36, was discovered in his house on November 1. His brother, Louis Sévère, died eight weeks later, age 31. None of the accounts of this family’s history explains these deaths, and several historians seem to suggest that these events were suspicious.4
Three-year-old Marguerite Virginie Lambert Dumont was now an orphan and future heiress.to the seigneury of Milles-Îles.
An arranged marriage
Her father had named Gabriel Roy as the little girl’s legal guardian in case something happened to him. Virginie was sent to live with the Roy couple in Saint-Laurent, but Roy, now 71 years old, realized he was unable to raise the child. She returned to Saint-Eustache where notary Frédéric-Eugène Globensky became her new guardian. He and his wife, who had no children of their own, brought her up, and she attended school at the convent in the village.
Everyone expected that when Virginie became an adult, she would marry her cousin Charles-Auguste-Maximilien Globensky (1830-1906), known as C.A.M. But in 1854, the government announced that the seigneurial system was to be abolished. Virginie’s marriage to C.A.M. was fast-tracked, with special permission from the church, and on July 21, 1854 she married C.A.M. She was just 15 years old.
In Quebec, a married woman’s property belonged to her husband unless they had signed a marriage contract making them separate as to property. In Virginie’s case, the seigneury was the dowry she gave to C.A.M.. He now became co-seigneur.5
C.A.M. was a tall and imposing man, not always liked in the community, but respected for his honesty and known for his intellect and his many interests, especially agriculture and railways. He is still remembered for the book he wrote about the causes of the Rebellion of 1837 in Saint-Eustache. His father, Maximilien Globensky, a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, had led a company of volunteer militia at the Battle of Saint-Eustache.
The bitter fallout from the rebellion hung over Saint-Eustache for many years. But the aftermath of the battle was not the only shadow over Virginie’s life. There were disputes over the shared inheritance of the seigneury and its large debts. Virginie was in court several times, fighting family members over various property disputes.
Although the seigneurial system had been abolished, it took decades to dismantle. A committee evaluated property values and the habitants had the right to buy their farms from the seigneurs or continue to pay rent. As co-seigneurs of Milles-Îles, a territory so vast that it included the sites of the city of Saint-Jerome and the town of Saint-Sauveur, Virginie and C.A.M. were very wealthy.
Altar of Saint-Eustache parish church, with the painting of Sainte Anne, C.A.M. and Virginie behind it on the right. JH photo.
C.A.M. built a new seigneurial manor house in Saint-Eustache and the family moved into it in 1865. Every Sunday, Virginie and her growing family sat in the front pew of the church, a privilege reserved for seigneurs.
Virginie and C.A.M. had eight children. When Virginie became ill, she made out her will, leaving C.A.M. as her sole beneficiary. She died August 19, 1874, age 36, and he remarried two years later.
The year Virginie died, C.A.M. visited Rome and brought home a painting of the Adoration of Saint Anne in which Virginie, C.A.M. and the village priest were portrayed sitting at the saint’s feet. This huge painting hangs behind the altar of the parish church in Saint-Eustache to this day.6
Notes Concerning the Extended Bagg Family
Some written accounts refer to Sophia Mary Roy Bush as Gabriel Roy’s adopted daughter. The parish marriage record simply refers to her as the daughter of William Bush and Polly Bagg. Sophia’s birth parents were Protestant, so in 1827, Sophia was baptized Catholic and added Roy to her name. That church record refers to Gabriel Roy and Sophia Bagg as her sponsors. She was age 12 at the time and signed the parish record book herself. In French-speaking Quebec, people probably called her Sophie.
Polly (Bagg) Bush (1785-1856), Stanley Bagg (1788-1853), Abner Bagg (1790-1852) and Sophia (Bagg) Roy (1791-1860) were siblings. Their father was Phineas Bagg, a farmer from Pittsfield, Massachusetts who moved to the Montreal area with his family around 1795. Their mother, Pamela Stanley, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut and probably died in Pittsfield. Stanley and Abner were well-known Montreal merchants, but I had never heard of Polly or Sophia until I started researching the family.
Polly and William Bush had three other children besides Sophia. They were Pamelia Ann (1812-1880), who married Methodist Episcopal minister John W. York and lived in Benton County, Oregon; William Stanley (1816-1892), a Baptist preacher in the Lake George area of New York State; and Phineas (1820-1867) who moved to the Midwest with his parents before 1850. He is buried in Harrison Cemetery, Marion County, Illinois, along with his parents and three young daughters. (Polly’s grave in Illinois can be viewed on Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65952231/bush) After Phineas’ death, his widow, Louisa, and two surviving daughters moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Gabriel Roy (1770-1848) was born in Montreal, the son of a market gardener from France.8 His first wife was a widow 24 years older than him. She named him the guardian of her adopted daughter, Marie-Rosalie Sabrevois de Bleury, the heiress of a wealthy Montreal family, and he managed their affairs. Shortly after his first wife died in 1810, Gabriel married 19-year-old Sophia Bagg. The couple moved from the city to Saint-Laurent, now a Montreal suburb but at that time a rural area. He became a wealthy landowner, school commissioner and road commissioner, and in 1841 he was appointed to the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada,9 a position he held until his death at age 78. He was then referred to as l’Honorable Gabriel Roy. After his death, Sophia referred to herself as Sophia Bagg, veuve (widow) Gabriel Roy. In her will, she left money to the Catholic church and to many relatives. As requested in her will, and according to the church funeral record, she was buried in the Saint-Laurent parish church.
This article is a condensed version of several stories I wrote in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and posted on my personal family history blog, Writing Up the Ancestors (www.writinguptheancestors.ca). They were: The Doomed Marriage of Mary Sophia Roy Bush and Charles-Louis Lambert Dumont, posted Jan. 28, 2015; Marguerite Virginie Globensky, posted Jan. 28, 2015; Polly Bagg Bush: a Surprise Sister, posted May 23, 2014; Polly Bagg Bush and her Family, posted April 28, 2016 and William S. Bush, Baptist Preacher, posted May 19, 2016.
Sources:
1. In collaboration with W. Stanford Reid, “LAMBERT DUMONT, NICOLAS-EUSTACHE (Eustache-Nicolas),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 21, 2026, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lambert_dumont_nicolas_eustache_6E.html, accessed March 22, 2026.
2. André Giroux, Histoire du territoire de la ville de Saint-Eustache, tome 1, L’époque seigneuriale 1683-1854, Québec: Les Éditions GID, 2009, p. 49.
Mayor William Workman in his robes of office, 1870.
In 1848, Montreal hardware merchant William Workman was encouraged to run for mayor. He refused. Twenty years later, Workman was elected as the city’s mayor, bringing his extensive experience in business, banking and philanthropy to the position for three years.
A Protestant immigrant from Ireland, Workman (1807-1878) came from a middle-class family. He became a partner with the Montreal wholesale hardware company Frothingham and Workman and, after retirement in 1859, he remained active on the boards of several banks and philanthropic organizations.1
In politics, he was a liberal and, like several of his eight siblings, a member of the Unitarian Church. “All the (Workman) brothers had been instilled with a strong sense of morality, had learned skills to earn their living, possessed an ability to think through issues for themselves, and seemed to seek knowledge for its own sake,” Christine Johnston wrote in her biography of Willam’s brother Dr. Joseph Workman.2
In 1868, when Workman agreed to run, democratic institutions were relatively new. Montreal had been incorporated as a city in 1833, but its mayor was not elected by public voters until 1852, and there was no secret ballot until 1889. At first, only property owners were eligible to vote. As of 1860, renters – and in this city, most people were renters – could vote, provided they had paid their taxes. Anyone running for mayor, however, had to own property worth at least 1000 pounds.3 Thus, most of the city’s early mayors were from the business community, and about 60 percent of the people elected to city council were anglophones.
Banker and railway entrepreneur William Molson put Workman’s name forward at a nomination meeting. His opponent was Jean-Louis-Beaudry, a businessman who had already served several years as mayor. At first, there was a question as to whether Workman was eligible to run, then Beaudry claimed that Workman should be disqualified. His objections were dismissed and Workman beat Beaudry with 3134 votes to 1862.4
In 1869 and 1870, Workman was acclaimed mayor, but he did not run again in 1871.
When Workman was mayor, the municipal council met on the ground floor of the Bonsecours Market building, in what is now known as Old Montreal. In this 1870 photo, Workman was standing on the raised area at the far end of the room.
The most distressing of Montreal’s problems was the high mortality rate for young children. Some people suspected that this was linked to its water supply. Cholera epidemics had reached Montreal in 1832, 1849 and 1854, but even most physicians did not understand that cholera was caused by bacteria, spread in contaminated drinking water. Instead, they believed that disease was spread by miasma, or unpleasant vapours in the air. William Workman, however, may have had some understanding of the contagiousness of cholera because his brother Joseph had done his thesis on cholera while a medical student at McGill University.6
As president of the Montreal Sanitary Association, William realized the importance of clean water. Over the three years he served as mayor, he looked at municipal economic development and urban life as two sides of the same coin. He was the first mayor to do so.7 His administration focused on improving the city’s water system, improving sanitation and making the city more livable for residents.
Workman improved the city’s aqueduct system to ensure it could provide enough water to everyone. He ensured that the sewer system was modernized, replacing rotting wooden sewer pipes with clay ones. He also saw to it that low-lying areas, where potentially contaminated water could accumulate, were drained.7
He turned his attention to garbage collection, introducing regulations concerning the pickup of manure, dead animals, soot and ashes. People were required to store waste in boxes or barrels, and the city now picked up garbage on a daily basis. The city built public baths, since many homes did not have hot running water, and it constructed municipal slaughterhouses.
To ensure that the city benefit all residents, he advocated for the creation of large public parks, on the top of Mount Royal and on Île Sainte-Hélène, where people could breathe pure air.8 Not long after Workman left office, the city purchased the necessary land and hired famous landscape architect Frederick Olmstead to design Mount Royal Park. It was officially opened in 1876 and it is still today a much-loved feature of Montreal. Île Sainte-Hélène, in the St. Lawrence River, also remains a popular green space.
One of the most exciting events of Workman’s time as mayor may have been the clear, crisp October day in 1869 when 19-year-old Prince Arthur, Queen Victoria’s third son, arrived in Montreal as part of a Canadian tour. Workman greeted the prince in the old port and made a short welcoming speech, then he and his guest took part in a procession through the streets. People cheered as they passed by, and homes and commercial buildings were decked out with banners and flags. The following day a lacrosse tournament took place.
On the day of the 1869 lacrosse tournament, Workman, back row on the left, posed with a group of indigenous people.
Workman proved to be a very popular mayor among both English- and French-speaking Montrealers, and when he left office, citizens showed their appreciation. A public banquet was organized in his honour, and people from all classes came to thank him for his hard work and the generous hospitality he had offered to visitors. The Gazette was effusive in its description of the banquet and the expensive thank-you gifts of a diamond ring and silver dishes that Workman received.
The speech Workman gave during this dinner revealed that he had had concerns about going into politics. Addressing the crowd, and especially members of municipal council, he said, “I entered upon the duties of my office under great inexperience.… I laboured under great misgivings and suspicions as to the conduct of affairs in your corporate administration. Then, as now, the press had been sounding the alarm as to combinations, jobs and rings. I watched with great attention and anxiety in every department to discover the truth of these assertions, but I watched in vain and, after three years experience, I can truly say that, if it is one of the great blessings of a city … and of the citizens to find the corporate action of its representatives in unison with right and honest discharge of duty, then Montreal enjoys that blessing to its fullest extent.”
Kanien’kehá:ka group with William Workman, Mayor of Montreal, Montreal, QC, 1869; 1869 10 09; photo by James Inglis, McCord Stewart Museum, M6308, accessed March 4, 2026
4. Claude-V. Marsolais, Luc Desrochers, Robert Comeau, Histoire des maires de Montréal, Montreal: VLB Éditeur, 1993, p. 309
5. Paul-Andre Linteau, translated by Peter McCambridge, The History of Montreal: the story of a Great North American City, Montreal: Baraka Books, 2013. p 87.
6. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, p. 22.
7. Marsolais et al, Histoire des maires de Montreal, p. 87.
Chapter 2 of Diary of a Confirmed Spinster a story based on family letters from the 1900 era from Montreal and Richmond, Quebec. The story in pdf form is archived online at National Library of Canada. (See below)
Edith, Herb and Marion Nicholson circa 1890
But, first, let’s go back to the beginning. (But which beginning? The beginning beginning. The I AM BORN beginning, to once again invoke David Copperfield, that despite appearances is not my favourite novel. Middlemarch is.)
Easy enough. I am born in January 1884 in a green clapboard rental house in Melbourne, Quebec, 10 months after my parents’ marriage.
I know this because I have been told and also because the proof resides in shaky ink strokes in my father’s Store Book for 1884.
His household accounts that he kept from 1882, before his marriage to 1921, the year he passed away.
Fifty years of family accounts, kept in little black books.
It could be claimed that the entire story of our family is told in these pocket-size volumes, the practical side at least. The down-to-earth work-a-day side.
I was born in early January 1884 because the store book has an entry on the 7th, inserting baby’s birth 25 cents. I have survived my first challenge.
Under that breast pump 75 cents. Breast shield 25 cents. Along with one quart of milk 5 cents, a loaf of bread 10 cents, a gallon of coal oil, 25 cents. Two cords of wood 8 dollars and 35 cents. 11 pounds of oatmeal 38 cents. One dozen herring 20 cents. 1 ½ pounds of steak 15 cents. And rent 25 dollars a month. The staples of bodily existence then and today: shelter, heat, light and daily bread.
On February 19th a baby cradle is purchased 3 dollars. And some flannel and some cotton for baby. And on April 28, baby’s picture 25 cents. I have officially arrived. I have survived the precarious early days. I am safe to be sketched in silver bromide.
On June 27, 1 baby carriage 6.37. October 1884, one crib. 2.75. Some wool for baby 2.60.
A year later, baby’s first shoes, 1.20. I am now officially a financial burden on my parents. They would spend a great deal on shoes and boots – and the mending of same – for me and my three siblings in the following decades.
In June 1886, a child’s broom is purchased. 15 cents and I begin to pay for my keep. In those days they began teaching girls the womanly arts very early.
Also purchased that month: baby’s first book. We are Scots after all, who value education above all else. “An education is something they cannot take away from you,” my mother always says.
Still, it’s something of a mixed message I am being sent, as a 2 and ½ year old. But I might as well get used to it. Being a female, I will be showered with mixed messages for most of my life.
Then, the narrative in numbers continues: 1890 to 1895 school fees 25 cents a month. The occasional slate 5 cents. Bottles and bottles of cough medicine 25 cents each. (Cough medicine had kick in those days.) Later scribblers 5 -7 cents. Skating rink 10 cents. Soda at Sutherland’s drugstore 5 cents. (Soda had kick in those days, too.)
Also pocket money for Edith 5 cents. I guess I was doing a lot more than sweeping by then. Oddly, my younger brother Herb received ‘wages’ for his household chores.
And then I grow up. St. Francis Academy 50 cents a month. Latin text 1.25. Euclid’s geometry 1.00, the Jamaica Catechism, 80 cents, etc.(Students must purchase their textbooks, many published by the Renouf Company of Montreal, who, in turn, cash city teachers’ paycheques for them, as women don’t have bank accounts.) And I get stockings and gloves at Christmas, just like Mother.
We are living in our own house by 1896, built at a cost of 2,718 dollars, not including landscaping. My father is by now a well-to-do hemlock bark dealer. Hemlock is plentiful in the E.T. and used in the leather tanning process. Father sells his bark to tanneries in Montreal, New Hampshire and Maine.
The mortgage on our house is 30 dollars a month, similar to what we paid on the rental house, but “Tighsolas” or House of Light in Gaelic is ours. And it is a fine house, a brick-encased Queen-Anne Revival in the good part of Richmond, not far from St. Francis Academy on College Street. (The kind of house seen often in Ontario but fairly rare in Quebec.) Building this house my father inspected every plank, brick and tile himself, tossing aside more than he used.
By now, as I said, I have three siblings, a younger brother, Herb and two younger sisters, Marion and Flora, born 1885, 1887, and 1892.
Edith and Herb circa 1910 in front of home in elegant part of Richmond.
By 1901 I am ‘fully out’ : corset for Edith 2.35. I start wearing my hair tied up around then, but only at dances. Combs for Edith: 20 cents.
I graduate from St. Francis Academy II in 1903 and a little later take a stenography course there. Stenography is an up-and-coming profession for women. 13.50 for the course. 1.28 for a shorthand book. 5 cents for a reporter’s notebook.
I pass the course with 100 words a minute in shorthand and 45 words a minute in typing, good enough to get a job, but my parents don’t want me going to the city to work. Life in the city for young working women is a dreary business, at least according to a cousin, Jessie Beacon, in a letter to Mother.
Jessie laments that she works until six at her insurance office, goes home to her boarding house for a “lousy hash complete with garnish of housefly” and then dresses for a predictably boring evening.
My parents are intent on saving me from such a degrading existence and seek a job for me in Richmond, but jobs for young people in country towns are few and far between.
Money is plentiful at home despite the fact my father has had to change lines of work. He now sells pulpwood instead of the bark. At Christmas, over and above the usual stockings and gloves, there are gifts of watches, rings and perfume.
In 1905 my younger sister, Marion, leaves for McGill Normal School and adventures in the Big City. My determined little sister has managed to convince my wary parents that the City is safe, as long as she rooms at the YWCA on Dorchester.
And, as Herb works in Montreal, at the E.T. Bank, she is not alone, so my parents permit her to go despite the great cost: 16.50 a month.
Everything in life is timing!
And I am left alone at home with my little sister, born nine years after me. My parents shower me with ‘pity gifts’ at Easter: 5.00 for a plaid “Montreal” dress. (Plaid voile is all the rage this year, I read it in the Delineator.) 2.35 for a ticket to see the Madame Albani concert in Sherbrooke. Opera singer Emma Lajeunesse, now in her middle age, is a ‘local’ girl from Chambly made good. She is world-famous, a long-time favourite at London’s Covent Garden. So, this is a huge event. All of the. E. T. seems to want to attend.
At 22, I feel like a debutante about to make her grand appearance under the patronage of a local legend. But nothing comes of it. No eligible young men come out to the home-coming concert.
But late 1906 the pulp contracts dry up. To add fuel to this fire, we are disinherited by a wealthy Maiden Aunt on her deathbed.
My brother takes this especially hard.
“Well, now that my house is being given to someone else, I will have to give up all hope of being rich and look at it as a fortune lost,” he writes in a letter home.
“My house? MY house?” exclaims Marion at Christmas. She is now working at Sherbrooke High School and boarding at a Mrs. Wyatt’s who has a daughter, Ruth, Marion’s age. “What has Father been telling him?”
I don’t tell my sister that Herb believes we were disinherited because Old Aunt Maggie did not approve of ‘working women.’
In June 1907 my father is desperate for work with a meagre 33 dollars left in his bank account. He applies to our local Member of Parliament, E.W. Tobin, to work as inspector on the crew building the Canadian Transcontinental Railway.
He receives a polite letter from the TCR offices in Ottawa. They say they have their full complement of inspectors. They acknowledge that Tobin has been in to see them on his behalf.
Then in August a great bridge, half built, collapses, the Quebec Bridge. It was to be the world’s longest suspension bridge. 78 men die, mostly Mohawks from Cawgnawaga near Montreal.
The bridge was a component of the TCR. Magically, there is a need for inspectors at end of steel and father gets the call to La Tuque, to be Timber Inspector at 100 dollars a month.
My parents take out a 1,000 dollar insurance policy on my father’s life. It is well known that jobs on the railway are dangerous.
My mother exchanges one worry for another.
“What is a timber inspector? Is it safe? It doesn’t sound safe.”
And I am still at home, no income, no prospects.
Then arrives a letter from Reverend J. R. McLeod, my mother’s cousin living in a town half way between Montreal and Quebec City.
Three Rivers, Sept. 1907
My dear Friend,
I have but a few minutes to write as prayer meeting is starting. I was asked yesterday by the Manager of Works in a village 15 miles from here if I could find a suitable girl to teach a small school, about 10 children. My thoughts went to you. They will take you without a diploma. They offer $20.00 a month. I know you are fit for the position.
Edith as a school marm, likely 1911-1914 ish in a classic working girl shirtwaist blouse. Neckties were often worn with them.
Regards, Reverend J. R. Macleod
“Should I accept now, I mean that Father is away?” I ask my mother.
“It is your decision to make,” my mother replies. She does not seem surprised at all by the letter from her cousin.
Mother hands me another letter, just arrived in the mail, from a young friend of the family’s, Mary Carlyle. The correspondent omits the obligatory opening pleasantries and gets straight to the irksome point:
“Dear Maggie,
I am writing you with such good news. I am to be married! He is a George White and he is from Kingsey. He is a sweet, kind man, with a good position and very good looking, in my opinion. It is such a relief. I was worried I was destined to be a burden on Father.”
“Kingsey. So, that’s where all the perfect men are,” I say to Mother in a tired voice but my mind is suddenly made up. I climb the stairs to my room to scratch off a note to J.R. McLeod saying I will take the job as offered.
END
(This is Chapter 2 of a novellette I wrote, Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, part of School Marms and Suffragettes that can be found at the National Archives of Canada. The story is based on the letters and other memorabilia of the Nicholson family of Richmond, Quebec).
The Workman family plot in Montreal’s Mount Royal Cemetery is a large one, including six large tombstones engraved with the names of almost 30 people. But William Workman (1807-1878), a successful businessman who served as mayor of Montreal for three years, is not buried there. He was laid to rest alone, in a large mausoleum some distance from the family plot.
Before I started researching the Workmans, a cemetery staff member told me that William had wanted family members to be buried in the mausoleum with him, but they refused. Neither of us knew why, but now I have an idea.
William Workman, 1866, Montreal, QC, William Notman Studio, McCord Stewart Museum online collection, I-22186.1, accessed Jan. 6, 2026.
Born in 1807, William was the fifth of nine children. The family lived near Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland, where his father was a teacher and estate manager. In 1819, William’s oldest brother, Benjamin, immigrated to Montreal. Three brothers followed soon after and, in 1829, the rest of the family moved to what was then Lower Canada.1
Before emigrating, William worked as a surveyor for the Royal Engineers, mapping Ireland for the Ordnance Survey project. In Montreal, his first job was as assistant editor of the Canadian Courant and Montreal Advertiser, a weekly newspaper owned by brother Benjamin. Soon, however, William found his true calling: as a businessman.
He found employment with a hardware firm, Frothingham & Co., and within a few years he became a partner. As of 1836, the company was known as Frothingham and Workman, and it became the largest wholesale hardware company in Canada, selling scythes, shovels, augers and nails. When William retired from the hardware business in 1859, his brother Thomas took over running the company.2
Frothingham and Workman, Iron Mongers, Montreal, John Henry Walker, McCord Stewart Museum online collection, M930.50.7309, accessed Jan. 6, 2026.
Montreal was growing rapidly, and William found opportunities to invest in fields such as banking, transportation and real estate. William was elected president of the City Bank in 1849 and served in that capacity until 1874.3 In 1846 he was one of a group of prominent Montrealers who founded the City and District Savings Bank, established to help ordinary people save their money, and he was president of that institution for several years.
William invested in Canada’s first railway, the Champlain and St Lawrence, completed in 1836 to connect Montreal to Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River.4 He was also a shareholder in the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, and he collaborated with several other individuals to found the Canadian Ocean Steam Navigation Company in 1854.
Around 1850, he and a business partner became real estate developers. They bought a piece of land south-west of Montreal’s city limits, near the Lachine Canal. The canal attracted industries such as brass foundries and rolling mills, and nearby manufacturing facilities belonging to Frothingham and Workman employed hundreds of people. The partners laid out streets, built sewers and divided the property into housing lots. The area, known as Sainte-Cunégonde, became a village in 1876 and a tiny independent city in 1890, but eventually it became part of the City of Montreal.5 Workman Street, named after William, still exists in the area.
William was also a generous philanthropist. He was president of the St. Patrick’s Society at a time when that organization was involved with both the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. Later, he supported the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society. In 1864, he helped create the Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge, serving as president from 1874 to 1877. He was also president of the Montreal Dispensary and Hospital for Sick Children.
He was not deeply involved in politics, but he was elected mayor of Montreal from 1868 to 1872 and proved to be very popular. This aspect of his life will be the topic of another story.
Around this time, wealthy merchants began building large homes on the slopes of Mount Royal, an area that became known as the Golden Square Mile. William bought a full block on the north side of Sherbrooke Street, between Drummond and Stanley, and built a mansion he called Mount Prospect.
William Workman and Elizabeth (Eliza) Bethell were married at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on February 10, 1831. Eliza came from the same part of Ireland where William had grown up, so perhaps they had known each other there. They had seven children, so the house should have been full of activity, but it didn’t turn out that way.
It was all too common for children to die young in 19th century Montreal, and William and Eliza lost three little ones. Their firstborn, Elizabeth, was born in December 1831 and died the following summer. Their third child, Emma, was born in August 1837 and died in April 1839. Another girl, Malvina, was born in July 1845 and died in April 1847. Two daughters, Louise (or Louisa) and Elizabeth (Eliza), grew to adulthood, but Eliza, who married Robert Moat, died in 1871. Louisa married Joel C. Baker, a lawyer who went into the hardware business with Louise’s uncle Henry Mulholland.
But William found the death of his only son, also named William (1840-1865), the most devastating blow of all. By then, he and his wife may have already been living apart.
An image of the 1861 census suggests that Eliza was not living at Mount Prospect house, but with her married daughter Louisa Baker and her husband,6 so perhaps William and Eliza had unofficially separated by then. In the 1871 census, seven people were listed as living at Mount Prospect, including a cook, a coachman and a horseman. William was the only family member listed.
In a book about William’s brother, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry, Joseph Workman, author Christine Johnston remarked that Joseph did not have a high opinion of William, commenting in his diary that he thought Wiliam had damage in his head, as well as bumps outside it.7 Perhaps William was also concerned about his own mental health: Johnson wrote that William visited a phrenologist in the United States to examine those external bumps. Johnston also noted that family records suggested William was an alcoholic. If true, that might explain the difficulties in the Workman household.
Nevertheless, many people admired him. When he died, Montreal’s English-language newspapers published extensive obituaries, describing William’s many accomplishments as well as the long and painful illness that led to his death.8 According to one newspaper account, some 400 people attended his funeral at St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, and many followed the hearse to Mount Royal Cemetery.
Wiliam Workman seemed to have everything, but without his family surrounding and supporting him, his life appears to have been a sad one, and those problems followed him to the grave.
The article is also posted on my personal family history blog Writing Up the Ancestors.
Notes
William’s sister Ann (1809-1882), who married hardware merchant Henry Mulholland, was my great-great-grandmother.
Some photos of brother Thomas Workman’s house on Sherbrooke Street are erroneously identified as William’s house. I have not found a photo of Mount Prospect.
There are several photographs of a young man identified as William Workman in the McCord Stewart Museum’s online photo collection. This must the son who died in 1865.
Phrenology was a popular pseudoscience in the 19th century. Its proponents believed that the measurements of the skull were indicative of mental faculties and character traits.
Sources:
1. Christine Johnston. “The Irish Connection: Benjamin and Joseph and Their Brothers and their Coats of Many Colours,” CUUHS Meeting, May 1982, Paper #4, p. 2.
2. John Frothingham, Obituary. The Portland Daily Press, May 24, 1870, p. 3. Newspapers.com, accessed Jan. 5, 2026.
6. Ancestry.ca, 1861 Census of Canada. entry for Joel C. Baker, Canada East, Montreal. Library and Archives Canada, Canada East Census, 1861, p. 4210. accessed Jan. 6, 2026.
7. Christine I. M. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, Victoria: The Ogden Press, 2000, p. 122.
8. “Late William Workman”, The Gazette, Feb. 25, 1878, p. 2. Newspapers.com, accessed Dec. 30, 2015.
As Christmas approaches, there aren’t visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, but flashes of my childhood Christmases in Montreal in the 1950s and 60s. There were a few green Christmases but mostly there was snow on the ground.
On my second Christmas, I got a baby brother for a present. He was born on December 19th, and in those days, mothers typically stayed in the hospital for a week. The doctor let my mother out a day early, so she came home with Donnie on Christmas Eve. One had to pay for the stay beforehand, so she received a refund!
Christmas Brother
Excitement mounted as Christmas approached. There was the Santa Claus parade, followed by visits to Santa at Eaton’s Department Store, a ride on the little train with a gift, and then lunch in the 9th-floor restaurant. I still remember the sandwich plate, chicken and egg and clown ice cream (a scoop of ice cream decorated as a face with a little ice cream cone upside down as a hat.) My mother would take the children two by two. First, the older ones and then the younger ones. We knew that the real Santa was at Eaton’s because he climbed down a chimney there at the end of the parade.
Visiting Santa at Eaton’s
We didn’t have a television but listened to a show on the radio where a list of good girls and boys was read from the North Pole. Mary was usually mentioned being a common name but not my friend Dilys’s name. One year we watched Amal and the Night Visitors, an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti on TV at my Grandmother’s. Listening to the record every Christmas became a tradition.
As my mother bought presents, she put them in the linen cupboard and locked the door. We knew that the key was on the moulding above. So, a curious child could climb on a chair, unlock the door and check on the presents. As I got older, the anticipation and surprises were better than sneaking a peek.
The tree was only decorated a day or two before Christmas. Dad would set up the tree and add the lights. My mother would always put on the tinsel, not throwing on handfuls but putting pieces on one by one, as her father had done. We could put on some ornaments. We had some large fragile balls and lights that had bubbling red liquid and everyone’s favourite Sack Santa.
Sack Santa
We could ask Santa for only one thing, as he needed to have presents for all the good boys and girls. That present came unwrapped. Mrs Claus didn’t have time to wrap all the toys. We could play with our Santa present while Mom made breakfast.
We made and bought presents for aunts and uncles. One Christmas I made sachets embroidered with branches and filled with spruce needles for the aunts. My brother once gave everyone a comb from the big package he bought. One uncle was a teacher and he always got a red pencil.
My father didn’t cook but every Christmas he would make chocolate fudge for his Aunt in Toronto.
The years we were in the Junior Choir, we sang at the midnight service. Snowy Flakes are Falling Softly, was a favourite carol. This was a special event as we got to stay up really late. My parents probably didn’t mind tired children, as perhaps we slept in a little on Christmas morning.
What did Mom want for Christmas? Maybe a paring knife or a new wooden spoon. Now I understand her not wanting more stuff.
This Christmas my mother received three wooden spoons.
We didn’t rip into the presents because Mom saved the larger pieces of wrapping paper and ribbons for the next year. We tried to make the opening of presents last but no matter how large the pile of presents was, it was soon demolished.
We were usually six plus Grandma on Christmas day. We had dinner at 1:00 pm. For a few years we went to Chateauguay in the evening, to my mother’s sister’s house because Grannie and Grandfather were there. They preferred a quieter Christmas with fewer children! In later years we often had friends or colleagues who were alone over for dinner.
One Christmas, we were going to spend it at our cottage in the Laurentians, north of Montreal. Dad went up and turned on the heat, then a huge snowstorm prevented us from going. A long, unplowed road led to the house. Later, he had to go back and turn off the heat. We never attempted this again and continued with our traditional Christmases.
Eaton’s department store on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal was a destination. It was one of three department stores, the others being Morgan’s, which became The Bay and Simpson’s. The restaurant on the 9th floor was opened in 1931. It was in Art Deco style, inspired by the dining rooms of luxury ocean liners. After Eaton’s went bankrupt in 1999, the restaurant remained locked up for a quarter-century. It reopened in 2024, restored to its original style. The dining room has been converted into an event space, with a restaurant located in the outer corridor.
What made my ancestor think of using a black cross to mark homes of temperance?
Edouard Quertier (Cartier) launched Quebec’s first official temperance society in 1842 by placing a giant black cross on the top of the escarpment in Saint-Denis-de-Kamouraska. So began an organization that would encompass 400,000 of 900,000 Canadian Catholics eight years later.(1)
The symbol created a tradition that continues in Quebec to this day. If you ever go into a home with a bare black cross hanging in the middle of the living room wall, you’ll know you’re in the house of people who do not drink alcohol.
But what gave him the idea?
1842 Arrival in St Denis
Quertier certainly wasn’t feeling inspired when he first arrived in the tiny hamlet or between 10 and 15 families at the edge of a cliff on the Saint Lawrence’s south shore.
How did I accept this arid rock?,” he wrote. “When I arrived [in October], there was not even a piece of board on which to place a bed or a table. I had to go down the slope and rent a small house, or rather a cabin. No matter! I waited there, until my lodging was acceptable.”(2)
Still, Quertier was no youngster when he arrived in Saint-Denis-de-Kamouraska. At 43 years old, he had had four previous jobs before his priesthood and 12 years of experience serving communities.
Both of his previous roles as parish priest were stressful.
As curate and then parish priest of Saint-Antoine in Montmagmy, he argued frequently with his patron, Father Charles Francois Painchaud.
His bishop got him out of that situation by appointing him parish priest of Sainte-Georges of Cacouna. There, a new church and presbytery were required, but building them was difficult due to arguments between residents who wanted religious leadership and those who believed in the strong separation of Church and State. Despite the conflict, Quertier was able to build a new church and presbytery within the village. He oversaw the presbytery stonemasons and carpenters and got the church walls well underway before resigning the post. His departure halted the building of the church for a time, but it resumed in 1845 and opened for worship in 1848. The belfry didn’t get added until 1892 and full consecration delayed until 1897, but that’s another story.(3)
The experience simply makes clear that Quertier knew he had to do something important quickly to make an impact on his new neighbourhood.
He decided to promote temperance as a movement.
Temperance in Quebec
The issue already had some momentum in Quebec. Popular people like Bishop Charles-August-Marie-Joseph de Forbin-Janson and Charels-Paschal-Télesphore Chiniquy had been telling stories about the evils of alcoholism in weekly masses since 1839. Community residents saw that frequent imbibing often led to fighting, lethargy, poverty, spousal abuse, theft and neighbourhood violence.
Unlike his predecessors, however, Quertier decided to formalize the movement with an official association he called “The Society of the Black Cross.” He created statutes, oaths for members and procedures for joining the society, including the requirement that each member display a plain black cross on the wall of the family living room.
For the next 15 years, Quertier’s campaign for temperance spread. So many French Canadian families displayed the black cross, it became a decor tradition. The Quebecois de Souche society includes a photo that shows the once prevalent look.(4)
Growth and Departure as Leader
In the meantime, Quertier continued building his parish. The wooden chapel that originally opened on December 24, 1841 got replaced by a stone gothic church in 1850.
Seven years after that, Quertier retired. By then, the Society of the Black Cross included believers in almost every parish in Quebec and Quertier’s own parish had grown to encompass 100 families containing “625 souls.”(5)
Temperance continued to be a key issue, not only in Quebec but across Canada. In Quebec, however, the secularism movement also had great strength in many communities. To avoid angering these groups, the Province of Canada passed the Canada Temperance Act that allowed any county or city to hold referendums to consider whether or not to forbid the sale of liquor. This would ensure that communities who wanted to stay dry could do so without forcing prohibition on the entire country.
Life after Death
Quertier spent the rest of his life in Saint-Denis-de-Kamouraska, which became Saint-Denis-de-la Bouteillerie in 2013. After his death in 1879 at 73 years old, the church entombed his body under the crypt of the church. A tombstone says in French:
Here lies lord Edouard Quertier, first parish priest of St. Denis, one of the first apostles of temperance. Died July 17, 1873, aged 73 years, 10 months, 12 days. For 15 years, he lived for you. Pray for him.”(6)
Quertier’s remains continued to draw enough visitors that the church got entirely rebuilt after a fire damaged it on March 9, 1886. Initially, they built a belfry to hold a 2027-pound bell that cost $425,000 the following spring, and new walls on those of the former church by October. Later, they’d add two more bells to the tower.
Quertiers’ campaign for temperance didn’t end when he died. Members of his Black Cross Society were among 20% of Quebec’s population that supported a federal referendum on prohibition in 1898.
The movement grew substantially during World War I.
Temperance, not Prohibition
The Quebec Government declared prohibition in 1919. Then it made several exceptions by legalizing the sale of light beer, cider, and wine in hotels, taverns, cafes, clubs and corner stores.
The prohibition law got repealed entirely to enable liquor sales through a government-run commission in 1921.
In many ways, by choosing control over strict adherence to abstinence, the government duplicated the practicality Quertier included within the original functioning of the Society of the Black Cross.
Any household that became a member of the temperance organization could get a special dispensation to serve alcohol during celebrations, such as baptisms, birthdays and weddings. If the parish priest agreed that a special occasion merited an exception, he would temporarily replace the plain black cross in a home with a white one. The white cross hung on the wall during the celebration. After the celebration ended, the priest would visit to exchange the white cross with a black one and return the home to a liquor-free location.(7)
This kind of flexibility enabled temperance to continue growing within Catholic communities in Quebec even after 1921. Some of its proponents resurrected Quertier in the form of a statue in front of his former church in 1925. The statue remains in place today.
(2) Julienne Barnard, “QUERTIER, ÉDOUARD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–,written in 1972, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/quertier_edouard_10E.html, accessed on July 18, 2020.
I recently discovered that I am related to my kindergarten teacher’s husband! There are certainly tangled webs of relationships all through our family histories. Following direct ancestor lines often leads you to people you might know about. Exploring other branches of siblings, aunts, and uncles can uncover connections you never knew you had. This is how this one was untangled.
The online death notice for Shirley Harris (1927-2025) in the Montreal Gazette caught my eye. Her name sounded familiar so I started reading her obituary. It mentioned she was 98, had a brother, John and sister, Ann. These names didn’t ring a bell, so I closed it just as my eyes caught the name Paul von Colditz. I remembered that there was a connection with a Shirley von Colditz and our family.
Ida Bruneau, one of my mother’s cousins, wrote a family history, “The Short History of the Bruneaus and Girods”. In it, Ida mentions Shirley von Colditz as a very dear friend of hers. They discovered they were distant cousins. Shirley descended from Medard Bruneau (1811-1892) and Ida and I from his brother Barnabé. They were the sons of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie Robidoux (1775-1847). This meant that Shirley and Ida were third cousins once removed.
My husband and I used to be members of the Montreal Badminton Squash Club. An Eric von Colditz also played badminton there. Years ago, I read Ida’s book. After that, I asked Eric if he thought we were very distant cousins. He said no. Shirley was his stepmother.
I carefully reread the obituary. “Shirley was the devoted wife of the late Paul von Colditz and the loving sister of the late John Harris ( the late Patricia Reynolds).” Patricia Harris was the name of my kindergarten teacher. I knew her maiden name was Reynolds, as my mother knew her sister Moyra Reynolds. Pat’s obituary confirmed she had sisters-in-laws Shirley and Ann. So I was related to her husband John.
Mrs. Harris and Miss Gael were my two kindergarten teachers at Somerled School in Notre Dame de Grace, Montreal. I started there in the fall of 1957. This school just opened in January 1957. I was in the first class to go through all the grades at Somerled School. I enjoyed kindergarten and remembered my teachers fondly.
John and Pat Harris had two children, Kathy and John. At one time, their son John lived on Percival Ave. in Montreal West, where I also lived. During a street-wide garage sale, my husband returned from down the street. He said, “One of your teachers is selling tea cups in front of a house.” I went and had a chat with Mrs Harris. Her son was someone I recognized but never talked to. He had a wife, three daughters and a dog. I figure John and I are fourth cousins once removed. Unfortunately, he no longer lives on Percival. I can’t tell him of our connection. Not even six degrees of separation.
Notes:
A Short History of the Bruneau Girod Families by Ida Bruneau. Ste. Agathe des Monts, Quebec, May 1993. Page 8. A copy in the hands of the author.
Shirley Harris was the daughter of Irene Bruneau (1901-1987) and Herbert Harris.
Irene was the daughter of Eugene Albert Bruneau (1875-1939) and Eliza W. Thompson
Albert was the son of Ophir Bruneau (1848-1920) and Hermaline Piche (1949-1901)
Ophir was the son of Medard Bruneau (1811-1892) and Marie S. Megrette (1822-1853)
Medard was the son of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie J. Robidoux 1775-1847)
Barnabé and Medard were brothers:
Barnabé was the son of Antoine Bruneau (1773-1847) and Marie J. Robidoux 1775-1847).
Ismael was the son of Barnabe (1807-1880) and Sophie Marie Louise Prud’homme (1812-1892).
Sydney was the son of Ismael Bruneau (1852-1918) and Ida Girod ( 1862-1927).
Sydney was my grandmother Beatrice’s brother
Ida Bruneau was the daughter of Sydney Bruneau ( 1893-1979) and Ruth Dawson ( 1894-1971).
This makes Ida and Shirley 3rd cousins once removed!
Moyra Reynolds was on the women’s executive at the Catherine Booth Hospital. She worked alongside my mother, who was also a cousin of John Harris. Moyra and her friend Eileen glued my mother’s little tatted flowers onto hasty notes. These cards were sold for the benefit of the Catherine Booth Hospital. Moyra was living in the Montclair Residence when my mother moved in. They lived on the same floor. Moyra was excited that my mother was coming and hoped to make more hasty notes. Unfortunately, she soon suffered a stroke and was in hospital for a while. She came back to the Montclair. However, her needs were too great for them to handle and she moved to another residence.
One time when I was visiting my mother, a young woman was clearing out Moyra’s room. I thought afterwards that she might have been Moyra’s niece and my kindergarten teacher’s daughter. I am sorry I didn’t speak to her.
There was a family connection with Somerled School and another connection to Percival Avenue. Percival Ave is a street of just three blocks in the town of Montreal West. Ida’s sister Mary Bruneau and her husband George Davidson once lived on Percival. Their home was just across the street from where John Harris later lived. Ed Hawkes married my mother’s cousin Ephese Jousse, also related to John Harris. His parents lived a block south on Percival. I live on Percival now!
When I say that my grandfather, Thomas McHugh, worked as a cipher, Bletchley Park, MI5, Russian spies immediately come to mind. He was neither a Russian spy nor did he work as a cipher during the war. His employer was the Bank of Montreal, and it was his first job when he came to Canada in 1912.
The decision to immigrate to Canada was not easy for Thomas. He was in his mid-30s and already had seven children, between the ages of one and fifteen. For over 40 years, the jute manufacturers of Dundee, Scotland, had been providing employment for his parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, wife, and for him. However, by the early 1900s, he was facing a precarious future for his children.
By that time, Dundee had suffered a serious decline in the textile industry and more significantly, the jute industry. Jute was imported from India; however, the mill owners realized that it would lower production costs to open mills in India to prepare the jute and import the finished product to Scotland. Once mills were established in India, the jute production in the mills in Dundee decreased substantially.1
So when Thomas arrived in Canada, a little ahead of his wife and his children, he was eager and prepared to do any job that he could. The Bank of Montreal had its headquarters in Montreal, Quebec. At the beginning of the 20th century, the bank had significant dealings with Great Britain and there were correspondence and banking instructions back and forth between Canada and Great Britain daily. These instructions were mainly sent by telegraph overnight. Some of these instructions were confidential, and it was preferred that they remain so. Overnight instructions reduced the number of people who would have access to them. And the time difference between Montreal and the United Kingdom meant that the banks in London and Edinburgh were open for business while Montreal was still asleep.
Thomas with Pal in Verdun
Even in those days, the banks were concerned about security, privacy and confidentiality. The banking instructions and transactions that were transmitted by telegraph were encrypted. It was the job of the cipher clerk to decipher them so that the bank staff could then ensure that the instructions were carried out as required.
To be a cipher clerk, one had to be reliable, meticulous and honest, and maintain the confidentiality of the bank’s business above all else. To decipher the information, the clerk used a cipher handbook and worked overnight, making it a difficult job for a man with a family.
So while my grandfather, the cipher, did not work in espionage, I still think that his first job in Canada was rather interesting.2
The black-leather-lined plasticized bilingual identity card wacked my arm as it fell from the shelf. Until then, I had never really noticed the card among the many items my grandmother left me.
Luckily, its heavy construction protected the words on the card, which remain as legible as they were when my grandfather received it on January 4, 1936.
The Canadian federal “Department of Marine” issued the card to give my grandfather credibility as a radio inspector. It says:
“The bearer G. Arial is hereby authorized to issue and inspect private radio receiving licences in Edmonton East. He is further authorized to require the production of private radio receiving licences for inspection.”
Turns out that this little artifact hints at a short-lived controversy in Canadian history. The card expired on March 31, 1937, but it would be defunct before then.
The Department of Marine seems like an odd overseer of radio licences until you realize that early broadcasting began in the 1890s when Morse Code was used to enable ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication. The idea of a public broadcaster begin in May, 1907, when the Marconi station in Camperdown, Nova Scotia began broadcasting regular time signals to the public.
The “wireless telegraphy” industry continued to develop with private individuals investing in ham radios with no regulation. By June 1913, the federal government decided to regulate the industry to protect military communication.
When World War I began in August 1914, private licenses were banned altogether. Only the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, Ltd. kept operating during the war years, in part because it became a research arm of the military.i
After the war, the private industry blossomed, particularly in Western Canada. Many of the new broadcasters came from multiple religious communities, a situation the federal government tried to prevent by setting up a public broadcasting system through the Radio Broadcasting Act of 1932.
That act led to the establishment of a licensing commission called the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission under the leadership of Hector Charlesworth. Charlesworth’s group censored many religious groups and political groups, but none more than the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Norman James Fennema described the controversy in his 2003 dissertation, Remote Control.
…in Canada we find a situation in which the original impetus for regulating radio broadcasting began with the specific aim of putting a rein on religious broadcasting. Originally directed at the radio activities of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, this expanded in the early 1930’s into a policy against the licensing of religious broadcasters, a policy initially justified on the basis of the scarcity of the broadcasting spectrum, but that survived the expansion of the system.ii
By 1935, Clarence Decateur Howe became both the Minister of Railways and Canals and the Minister of Marine,iii the ministry under which my grandfather’s job was created.
Howe favoured private broadcasting, and encouraged new private entities to flourish.
Prime Minister Mackenzie King preferred a public broadcast system however. In February, 1936, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) came into being, and my grandfather’s job ended.
Genealogy Ensemble 
