It is now thirty-three years since the first volume of biographies
bearing the title “Representative Canadians” was issued by the present
firm of publishers. In 1886 the scope of the work was unique, so far as
this country was concerned, for previous volumes of the kind had
confined themselves to the careers of Canadians who have won fame in
either a political or military capacity. The aim of the editors of the
first volume of “Representative Canadians” was to give recognition of
the emergence of Canada from a colonial to something like a national
status by recording something of the achievements of those who had
contributed to the intellectual, industrial and commercial growth of the
country, as well as of its political leaders. The purpose remained the
same in the second volume published in 1888, and is once more the
impulse of the present book.
The vast majority of those whose careers were recorded in 1886 have
passed away; and the same is true of those who figured in the second
volume of the series. Consequently, the earlier issues of
“Representative Canadians” grow every day more precious, for, in many
cases, they contain the sole records of men who initiated great
enterprises or furthered important movements which have left a lasting
mark on the history of Canada. We cannot but think that the reader who,
thirty or forty years hence, may chance to scan the pages of the present
volume will gather a very vivid picture of Canada as it was in one of
the crucial periods of the world’s affairs—a picture in which the
characters of those Canadians who lived and “carried on” through the
years of the greatest war in all history may be discerned in the records
of their lives. There is hardly a page in this book into which the war
does not enter directly or indirectly in some form or other, by way of
allusions to services rendered, bereavements endured, or honours gained
on the field of battle. In that sense the 1919 volume must remain
unique, and a mine of useful information for students in future
generations.
Generally speaking, in comparing the biographies of the Canadians of
to-day with those of 1886 and 1888, the reader gains a sense of this
country’s continuous expansion. The present century has witnessed a
marvellous development in the Canadian West, so that in these pages we
find numerous records showing not merely the commercial, but the
intellectual, progress of the Provinces West of the Great Lakes—stories
of brilliant careers built up by men who were mere children in the East
when the first volume was published. The reader will also note in the
biographies of business men which abound in these pages, the
ever-increasing scale on which Canadian commerce and enterprise
everywhere is conducted, so that what seemed large in 1886 is relatively
small to-day. Though some of the men whose names figure in the index are
of less importance than others, all play their part in our complex and
vigorous social life, and the story of their progress and fortunes
cannot be really tedious to any sympathetic student of humanity.