was the late David Burke, who passed away on December 5, 1913.
He was born in Charlottetown, P. E. I., in 1850, being the
youngest son of Edward and Mary (Acorn) Burke, both of whom were
natives of Prince Edward Island. He received his early education
in the schools of that province. In early manhood he turned his
attention to the insurance business, being but sixteen years of
age when he entered upon the field of labor in which he was to
attain to importance, making his name one well known in insurance
circles not only in Canada but also in the United States. In
1869 he came to Montreal, where he was associated in business
with his brother, the late Walter Burke, then general manager
for Canada of the New York Life Insurance Company. On the death
of the latter in 1879 the company retired from Canada owing to
differences with the insurance department at Ottawa. In 1883,
being willing to conform to the regulations set down by this
department, the company reentered Canada, and Mr. David Burke was
appointed general manager. In 1897 he retired from his connection
with this firm to organize an insurance company of his own, the
Royal Victoria Life Insurance Company, which was absorbed by the
Sun Life in 1911. He thus bent his energies to administrative
direction and executive control and his opinions were largely
accepted as authority upon matters connected with the complex
problems of insurance and the control of the business. In 1882 he
was elected an associate of the British Institute of Actuaries,
being one of its oldest members, and in 1897 was made a fellow of
the Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain. In 1904 he was
honored with election to the vice presidency of the Economic and
Statistical Society of Montreal and in 1906 was chosen president
of the Canadian Life Insurance Officers Association. For two
years he held the presidency of the Life Managers Association of
Canada, a body formed solely of the executive heads of insurance
companies in Canada, each company being represented in the
association by only one member. He studied every phase of the
insurance business with a thoroughness that made his opinions
standard, and he was the author of a valuable paper published in
1908 entitled “Insurance as a National Economy.” The Montreal
Witness spoke of him as one “recognized as a most capable
insurance administrator,” and his contemporaries and colleagues
speak of his business ability and resourcefulness in terms of
high admiration.
Mr. Burke was married in 1875 to Miss Rose Maclear, the youngest
daughter of the late Thomas Maclear, founder of the Maclear
Publishing Company of Toronto, and they were parents of four sons
and two daughters, as follows: Edmund A., the noted vocalist;
Louis, of New York; Alan, of Boston; Maurice N., of Montreal;
Mrs. Fred C. Budden, of Montreal; and Miss Marjorie Burke, of
Montreal.
Mr. Burke was a member of the St. James Club and in religious
faith an Anglican, while his political belief placed him in the
position of an imperial protectionist. His views of life were
those of a broad-minded man who delved deep into the questions
of vital importance and who proved himself the master of those
forces which made up his life’s experience.
JAMES JOHN EDMUND GUERIN, M. D., LL. D., T. C. D., K. C. S. G.
Dr. James John Edmund Guerin, medical practitioner and educator,
and an influential figure in the political history of the
province, having served with distinction as a member of the
Marchand and Parent cabinets and later as mayor of Montreal,
was born July 4, 1856, in the city which is still his place
of residence, a son of the late Thomas Guerin, C. E., chief
hydraulic engineer of the department of public works, Ottawa,
and a brother of the Hon. Edmund Guerin, one of the judges of
the superior court, Montreal. Dr. Guerin made his studies at the
Montreal College, and later entered McGill University for the
purpose of pursuing a course in medicine. He was graduated M. D.,
C. M. in 1878, and has since engaged in active practice in his
native city where he has also done important hospital work. He is
the president of the medical board of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital and
one of the governors of the Notre Dame Hospital; in educational
circles he is well known as professor of clinical medicine in
Laval University. He holds to the highest professional standards
of ethics and enjoys the warmest regard of fellow practitioners.
He is a director of the Royal Edward Institute and a governor of
the Victorian Order of Nurses, and in 1909 he was appointed a
member of the royal commission to prevent the further spread of
tuberculosis.
Capable and prominent as is Dr. Guerin in his chosen profession,
he has also become equally widely known in connection with
political activity and has done much important work. In 1895
he was elected president of the St. Patrick’s Society and was
reelected in 1896 and 1897. In the former year he was a delegate
to the Irish National Convention at Dublin. In October, 1895,
he was returned to the legislature for Montreal in the liberal
interests by a majority of twelve hundred and fifty-four. In
1897 he was reelected in the general election and was called to
the Marchand cabinet without portfolio on the 25th of May of
that year. He was a minister without portfolio in the Marchand
and Parent administrations from 1897 to 1904, and in 1901 was
appointed member of the council of public instruction of the
province of Quebec. His opinions carried weight in provincial
councils and a discussion of any vital question with him at once
indicated how widely and thoroughly he was informed concerning
the points at issue. In February, 1910, as the candidate of the
citizens’ party, he was elected mayor of Montreal by a majority
of twelve thousand nine hundred and eighty-three and in his
administration sought at all times to further the best interests
of the city. He conducted its civic affairs along economical
lines and yet never fettered municipal progress by a narrow
conservatism. He represented the city of Montreal at the funeral
of King Edward in London in 1910 and at the coronation of King
George and Queen Mary in 1911. In 1911 he was created a Knight
Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and in 1912 he
received the degree of LL. D. from Trinity College, Dublin.
In 1883 Dr. Guerin was married to Miss Mary Carroll O’Brien,
daughter of the late Hon. James O’Brien; she died in 1886. Dr.
Guerin resides at No. 4 Edgehill Avenue. His religious faith
is that of the Roman Catholic church. Aside from serving as
president of St. Patrick’s Society he has been president of the
Shamrock Lacrosse Club and of many other organizations. He is
a member of the Mount Royal Club, the University Club and the
Montreal Jockey Club. His activity along various important lines
indicates his worth and value as a citizen, and his indorsement
at the polls testifies to the confidence reposed in him by his
fellow citizens. His ideals of citizenship are high, while in his
professional career he manifests the keenest appreciation for the
responsibilities and obligations which devolve upon him.
ANDREW STUART EWING.
Andrew Stuart Ewing, for almost half a century one of the best
known business men of Montreal, was born in 1838 at Lisdillon
House, Londonderry, Ireland, and was a representative of an old
family of Irish origin, his parents being Samuel and Margaret
(Hamilton) Ewing, who crossed the Atlantic to Canada with their
family when their son, Andrew, was seven years of age. He was
educated in the public schools of Montreal and in 1860 entered
into partnership with his brother, Samuel H. Ewing, in the
ownership and management of the extensive coffee and spice mills
formerly owned by his father, who founded the business in 1845.
In 1860 the firm style of Samuel Ewing & Sons was assumed and in
1892, after the retirement of Samuel H. Ewing, Andrew S. Ewing
became sole proprietor of the business which was conducted at No.
55 Cote Street. The enterprise was one of extensive proportions
and yielded a substantial profit as a result of careful
management and wise direction.
During the last fifteen years of his life Mr. Ewing was a
prominent member of the Montreal Board of Trade and was
interested in its various projects for promoting the material
progress of the city and advancing affairs of municipal and
civic interest. In politics he was a conservative and a strong
supporter of the national policy.
Mr. Ewing died at his home in Montreal, January 8, 1902, and was
survived by his widow until June, 1913. The surviving children
are Andrew Stuart and Royal L. H. Ewing and two daughters, Mrs.
Robert Starke and Miss Adelaide Ewing. The sons are members of
the firm of Ewing & Ewing, real estate and insurance, which was
established in September, 1906, by the brothers in connection
with A. F. Gault, but the last named retired from the firm May
1, 1912. A. Stuart Ewing is a member of the Art Association
of Montreal, the Canadian Club, the Montreal Amateur Athletic
Association, the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club, the St. James
Club, the Manitou Club and the Park Toboganning Club, of which he
is vice president.
Mr. Royal L. H. Ewing is a member of the Art Association of
Montreal, the Montreal and Canadian Clubs, the Montreal Amateur
Athletic Association, the Mount Royal Lawn Tennis Club, the Royal
St. Lawrence Yacht Club, the St. James Club, the Manitou Club
and the Park Toboganning Club. The sons are worthy successors
to their father, not only in business activity but also in that
business integrity for which the family name has always stood.
FRANK RICHARDSON ENGLAND, M. D., C. M.
Dr. Frank Richardson England, an alumnus of Bishop’s College
of Montreal and now well known as a practical educator as well
as a successful practitioner, was born August 21, 1862, at
Cowansville, province of Quebec, and is the eldest son of Francis
and Jane (Ruiter) England, of Dunham, Quebec. The family comes of
United Empire Loyalist stock and the parents are now deceased.
While Dr. England acquired his early education at Waterloo, he
pursued his medical course at Bishop’s College in Montreal, from
which he was graduated with the class of 1885, the degrees of M.
D. and C. M. being then conferred upon him, and obtaining the
Wood and Nelson gold medals. He was professor of diseases of
children at Bishop’s College in 1887 and professor of surgery
in the same institution in 1894. In 1905 he was graduated at
McGill College (ad eund). The profession has honored him with
official distinction, for in 1906 he was chosen president of
the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society and the following year
was vice president of the Canadian Medical Association. He is a
governor and fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is
now, 1914, surgeon of the Western Hospital at Montreal and in his
surgical practice displays comprehensive knowledge of anatomy, of
the component parts of the human body and of the onslaughts made
upon it by disease or left to it as a legacy by progenitors. He
is cool and collected at critical moments and combines strength
with tenderness, seeking ever the ultimate good of patient and of
profession.
Dr. England was married twice. In 1887 he wedded Carrie Ann,
youngest daughter of the late R. L. Galer, of Dunham. Following
her death Dr. England married Octavia Grace Ritchie, B. A., M.
D., of Montreal, the youngest daughter of the late Thomas W.
Ritchie, Q. C. She was born in Montreal and became a student
in McGill University, winning the degree of Bachelor of Arts,
together with first class honors in natural science in 1883.
She was afterward graduated from Bishop’s College, Lennoxville,
Quebec, with the degree of M. D. and C. M. in 1891. She was
one of the first class of ladies to graduate from McGill and
the first woman to receive a medical degree in the province of
Quebec. Mrs. England took a scholarship at Kingston and later
pursued a post-graduate course at Vienna, Austria. She has done
much to arouse public feeling in favor of the medical education
of women in Quebec and was secretary of the organization called
the Donalda Students to procure this concession. She is now a
governor of the Western Hospital and was assistant gynecologist
there from 1894 until 1896. She has lectured on medical subjects
before the Women’s Club and the Young Women’s Christian
Association. She is a member of the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical
Society and was a delegate to the Quinquennial Congress of the
National Council of Women at Toronto in 1909. She is president of
the local council of the National Council of Women. In 1897 she
became the wife of Dr. Frank Richardson England of Montreal. Both
continue actively in the practice of the profession, and each has
a large clientage, indicating the prominence to which they have
attained.
WILLIAM JOHN WHITE.
William John White, whose authorship no less than his practice
has gained him eminence and success, is regarded as one of the
foremost representatives of the Montreal bar. Contemporaneous
writers pronounce upon him high encomiums for his contributions
to legal as well as to general literature. A native of Peterboro,
Ontario, he was born January 29, 1861, a son of the late Richard
White, D. C. L., and Jean (Riddel) White. After completing his
studies in the Montreal high school he entered McGill University,
where he pursued a classical and legal course, winning the B.
A. degree in 1881, the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law in 1882,
while in 1885 the Master of Arts degree was conferred upon him
and in 1902 that of Doctor of Civil Law. He completed his legal
studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and in 1883 entered upon the
active work of the profession as an advocate. He has since
successfully practiced and was created king’s counsel in 1899. He
is now senior partner of the law firm of White & Buchanan and is
recognized as one of the leaders of the Montreal bar. In 1901 he
was made batonnier. His law practice has been of an important as
well as of an extensive character. He was retained as counsel by
the Mexican government in the boundary dispute between the United
States and Mexico in 1911. His high standing in his profession
and his thorough understanding of vital and significant
governmental problems have brought him into prominence in various
international affairs. He served as a member of the board of
investigation appointed by the minister of labor in the United
Shoe Machinery case, and his opinions have been sought on various
questions of far-reaching importance. He represented the Montreal
bar at the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association
at Albany in 1902 and at the Illinois State Bar Association in
1906, and on the latter occasion read a paper on The Law of
Quebec. He is the author of a treatise on Canadian Company Law
which was published in 1901.
Aside from his profession Mr. White has been connected with
several business enterprises and public projects of importance.
In 1911 he became one of the directors of the Sherwin-Williams
Company of Canada, and from 1906 to 1908 he served as alderman
of the city. He is a director and was elected the vice president
of the new Technical School of Montreal. He was one of the
founders of the Society of Historical Studies and was chosen to
the presidency of that organization for 1891-2. He was likewise
one of the organizers of the Society of Canadian Literature
and of the Canadian branch of the American Folk Lore Society.
From 1889 until 1891 he published a monthly magazine known as
Canadiana and Dr. John Reade termed him “A writer of taste and
force,” while the Montreal Witness spoke of him as “A thoroughly
capable man.” Mr. White belongs to a number of the leading clubs,
including the St. James, University, Outremont Golf and the
Montreal Jockey Clubs of Montreal; the Rideau Club of Ottawa;
the Quebec Garrison Club; and the Constitutional Club of London,
England. It is in his law practice, however, that he has won the
recognition that has placed him in the present enviable position
which he occupies. He has ever in his practice been faithful to
his clients, fair to his adversaries and candid to the court. In
many cases with which he has been connected he has exhibited the
possession of every faculty of which a lawyer may be proud--skill
in presentation of his own evidence, extraordinary ability in
cross examination, strong grasp of every feature of the case,
power to secure favorable rulings from the judge, unusual
familiarity with human nature and untiring industry. These
qualities have gained him notable success in law practice.
ROBERT REFORD.
At the time of his death half a century was drawing to its
close since the subject of this sketch, the late Robert Reford,
first established a commercial connection with Montreal. The
outstanding position which Mr. Reford occupied in the life of the
city was the natural outcome of qualities which quickly bring
men to be recognized as a source of strength to whatever spheres
in which they may move. He was a man of very pronounced ability,
tenaciousness of purpose, firmness of decision and of forceful
character but by those who knew him best he will be remembered,
chiefly for those high standards of honor which were his for the
straightforwardness and uprightness of all his dealings with his
fellowmen and for the strong sense of justice which throughout
his long career he was so often called upon to exercise.
Robert Reford was born at Moylena, which for generations had been
the family seat near Antrim, Ireland, in 1831 and was a lad of
fourteen when in 1845 he came with his mother, three brothers
and one sister to make his home in Canada. The family arrived at
Quebec the night of the great fire when the lower town was almost
completely destroyed. After a very brief stay in Montreal they
settled in Toronto, where Mr. Reford completed his education. He
was, however, still but a boy when he became engaged in business
and, though he was indentured to work for his first employer
for two years at a fixed salary, it is indicative of the great
natural capacity which he possessed and of his steadiness and
alertness in business, that at the end of the first year his
salary was increased fivefold and again at the end of the second
year that amount was doubled. In three years time, still
barely on the threshold of manhood, Robert Reford had proved his
ability to such an extent as to be offered a partnership with
William Strachan in a wholesale and retail grocery business which
the latter was about to open. This offer was accepted but the
firm dissolved after a few years duration and Mr. Reford started
a business on his own account, which he continued to conduct
alone for several years, only taking Richard Dunbar as a partner
when he acquired, by purchase, from William Ross, another large
wholesale business of the same nature. The two businesses were
run separately, one as Reford & Dunbar, the other in partnership
with the late John Dillon, as Reford & Dillon, wholesale grocers
and merchants. It would indeed have been strange if a man, imbued
with the spirit of enterprise and courage, as was Mr. Reford to
a very remarkable degree, had been content to remain without
some wider scope for his abilities than that offered, even by a
successful wholesale business. It was not long before he took the
initial step which was to lead him so far along the path of that
vast question of transportation.
[Illustration: ROBERT REFORD]
Mr. Reford was one of the pioneer workers in this direction,
entering the carrying trade, in the early ’60s. He amassed a
considerable fortune during the forty odd years he was engaged in
shipping pursuits but never did he lose sight of the fact that
Canada’s interests as a whole are intimately and indivisibly
bound up in every phase of the shipping industry, nor did he ever
fail to consider and work towards the benefit of those wider
interests of his adopted country.
The operation of vessels on the Great Lakes was the beginning
of Mr. Reford’s shipping enterprises. In 1860 he equipped the
schooner “Seagull” and sent her with a general cargo of Canadian
produce to Port Natal, South Africa, thus being the first man to
undertake direct shipping connection between Canada and that part
of the world.
In 1865, associated with his old friend William Ross, the firm
opened a branch in Montreal. This was the commencement of the
present Montreal firm. The business was now assuming large
trading proportions with Great Britain, the United States,
China, Japan, the West Indies and other foreign countries;
nevertheless it soon began to confine itself more strictly to
ocean shipping. The firm became agents and part owners of the
Thomson and Donaldson lines. When the story of the growth of
Canada’s shipping comes to be written the name of Robert Reford
will loom up largely on its pages. Mr. Dillon severed his
connection with Mr. Reford in the shipping business in 1897 and
it was then that the present company, the Robert Reford Co.,
Ltd., was incorporated, with very extensive steamship services of
six different lines to many of the world’s principal ports and
with branch offices established in Quebec, Toronto, St. John,
New Brunswick, and Portland, Maine. Canada owes not a little
to Mr. Reford for contributing so materially to the opening up
of new markets for her produce along the east coast of Great
Britain, and also for the building up of further valuable
trade connections by giving direct shipping communication
between Canada and the Mediterranean ports. Every aspect of the
carrying trade had been studied by him with that thoroughness
and regard for detail which characterized the man in everything
he undertook. His opinions and advice on shipping and on
transportation generally were appreciated as those of an expert,
and sought after by people from all over the Dominion.
Apart from his shipping enterprises, which remained the main
issue of his commercial life, the most important of his other
business activities was his interest in the Mount Royal Milling
and Manufacturing Company. Mr. Reford founded the company
in 1882 for the milling of rice, with mills in Montreal and
Victoria, British Columbia, and acted as its president up to the
time of his death. He was also president for many years of the
Charlemagne & Lac Ouareau Lumber Company, president of the York
Lumber Company, president of the Crown Trust Company and vice
president of the Labrador Company; and a director of the Bank
of Toronto, of the Lake of the Woods Milling Company and of the
Paton Manufacturing Company.
From 1901 to 1905 Mr. Reford was a member of the Montreal Board
of Harbour Commissioners and in 1903 was a delegate to the fifth
congress of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, but no
doubt his chief public service was rendered first as a member
and then as chairman of the Royal Commission on Transportation,
1904-1905. The work involved in this important commission
necessitated its members visiting every Canadian port, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, with a view to recommending all possible
desirable improvements for the increase of and facilitating the
transportation trade appertaining to the Dominion, both ocean
and inland. The commission sent in an exhaustive report to the
government in December, 1905, based on very thorough personal
observations and study, together with the result of carefully
gathered evidence of those residents in the different sections
of Canada who were best fitted to judge. It strongly advocated
the building of the Georgian Bay canal and the formation of
national ports on the Atlantic and Pacific, the St. Lawrence
and the Great Lakes. Further, it was urged that there should
be a fast all-round-the-world British steamship service which
would bind together more closely all portions of the empire,
by taking advantage of the shorter ocean route which services
between Canada and Europe, via Great Britain on the east, and
Asia and the Orient on the west, could offer, if Halifax and
Galway were used as the termini for the Atlantic coasts. Mr.
Reford’s work on this commission was stupendous, but none of it
was done in the light of the public eye. Few knew of the great
personal sacrifices which it demanded and which were willingly
made by this man of then seventy-four years. In fact all his life
Mr. Reford avoided rather than sought any kind of prominence or
recognition.
Many of Montreal’s educational and charitable institutions looked
to him for guidance and help and whether the requests came to
him for his advice, or for financial support, provided he was
in sympathy with the object, to either his response was equally
ready and generous. He was a governor of McGill University and
was the first to respond to an appeal for aid by donating fifty
thousand dollars towards a fund for the increase of salaries of
the professional staff. In 1911 when the campaign for the general
funds of the university was made, it found in him one of its
leading spirits and most ardent supporters. Again he gave proof
of his faith in the higher education of men’s minds as being
an asset of immeasurable national value and set the inspiring
example of a one hundred thousand dollars contribution.