William Kingsford

William Kingsford , (born December 23, 1819 in London , † September 29, 1898 in Ottawa ) was a Canadian surveyor , journalist and man of letters who published a ten-volume history of Canada .

life and work

Kingsford was born in London to his parents who owned an inn . Little inclined to become an architect, he enlisted in March 1838 with the 1st Dragoon Guards, who were sent to Canada to calm things down after the rebellions of 1837. In October 1838 the unit was in Chambly , and thus in the area of ​​the second survey. Kingsford did not sympathize with the rebels, nor did he approve of the subsequent looting by the British. In October 1841 he left the army.

Despite rather limited experience as a surveyor, he managed to get the position of deputy city surveyor for the city of Montreal in early 1842 . As a surveyor he only received a certificate on November 5, 1844 for Lower Canada and on October 8, 1855 for Upper Canada . However, he resigned from his position in July 1845. He also pursued a journalistic career and founded the Montreal Times in 1844 with Murdo McIver . As a result of the serious conflict in 1844, he almost died; two scars marked his face from 1846. After his newspaper was received in 1846, he had to work again, this time in Lower Canada as a surveyor and worked on the Lachine Canal , but also on the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad .

In 1849 Kingsford went to the United States and worked in Brooklyn , supervising the expansion of the boardwalk in the state, was from April 1850 to October 1851 assistant engineer on the Hudson River Railroad . In the first half of 1852 he worked on the railroad in Panama , then he examined the water supply of the state capital.

In October 1852 he was again active as an engineer, this time for the Montreal and Kingston Railway , where he often represented the chief engineer Thomas Coltrin Keefer. After the Grand Trunk Railway took over the railway , he continued his work in the area between Montreal and Bytown ( Ottawa ). In 1854 he also worked on the Victoria Bridge near Montreal over the St. Lawrence, a bridge that was almost a symbol of progress. In June 1855 Kingsford committed to Toronto, but he resigned immediately when he found that his subordinates should be paid from his salary. So he returned to Grand Trunk as superintendent and engineer responsible for construction between Belleville and Stratford.

From 1856 to 1860 he worked with his own company for the railroad between Toronto and Stratford. At the same time he published political articles in the Daily Colonist in Toronto, but also music and theater reviews in the Montreal Herald , as well as reports on his travels. He was also a correspondent for London and Toronto newspapers. Thomas Brassey was so impressed by his language skills - in addition to English and French, he spoke Spanish, Italian and German - that he hired him to work east of Vienna and north of Naples .

In 1862 again in Canada Kingsford worked as a consultant for various companies. In 1863, for example, he examined the road conditions around Toronto for the York Roads Company , and in 1865 he was called to give advice on the construction of a railway to Fort William ( Thunder Bay ). In 1866 he traveled back to Europe for Brassey, this time to Sardinia , to investigate the requirements for a textile factory and a railway connection. When he returned to Canada in 1867, he was able to intervene in discussions about a transcontinental railroad and was hired as a consultant.

From 1870 to 1872 he worked for the state on the Lachine Canal, as well as on the Grenville and Welland canals in Ontario, measured the Ottawa and Gananoque and the Rivière Hudson in Québec . In June 1873, through good political contacts, he became an engineer for all state river and port works in Ontario and Quebec. In 1879 he already had 10 employees. As a supporter of the government, he was viewed with suspicion by the conservatives who came to power in 1878. On December 31, 1879, Kingsford was fired on the grounds that his position was superfluous, and after heated debates he was still paid half a year of salary. Kingsford was thus cut off from all major projects. In 1887 he was one of the founding members of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers .

He now concentrated more on writing. He had been collecting Canadiana for at least 20 years and now he was drawn to the archival material that was collected in Ottawa, in the Department of Agriculture under Douglas Brymner. His goal was a history of British North America. He acted like an engineer, believing that historiography was to the spirit of the nation what engineers were to infrastructure. From 1887 to 1898 a History of Canada was created in 12 volumes, which was largely based on sources. The huge project ate up his entire fortune, and only energetic friends saved him from ruin. However, he mainly exploited the archives to prove his preconceived notions. His interpretations were based on his predecessors, Michel Bibaud, Robert Christie and especially Lord Durham. For him, the British victory over New France was the result of the spirit of freedom and material progress, the assimilation of the Franco-Canadians was inevitable, and self-government in the sense of responsible government was the basis of society. The political public took up the work and honored the author with honorary degrees, such as from Queen's College in Kingston or Dalhousie University in Halifax (1889 and 1896).

However, only a few read the opulent and rambling, unoriginal work. The Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada criticized the lack of social and economic history, as noted by George MacKinnon Wrong . Kingsford replied polemically in the Queen's Quarterly. Nevertheless, Kingsford's widow - he had married Maria Margaret Lindsay in Montreal on March 29, 1848 - received a substantial pension for her husband's services as a historian. Today he is considered an amateur historian who had to fail professionally in a phase of increasing professionalism in the Métier.

Works (selection)

• History, structure and statistics of plank roads in the United States and Canada , Philadelphia, 1852.
• The Canadian canals: their history and cost, with an inquiry into the policy necessary to advance the well-being of the province , Toronto, 1865.
• The history of Canada , 10 volumes, Toronto and London, 1887–98.

Web links

• William Kingsford . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Remarks

1. ^ Reply of Doctor Kingsford to the strictures on volume VIII. Of The history of Canada in the Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada. In: Queen's Quarterly. Volume 5 (1897-98), pp. 37-52, ISSN  0033-6041 .