Hamilton MacCarthy
Hamilton Thomas Carlton Plantagenet MacCarthy was one of the earliest masters of monumental bronze sculpture in Canada. He is known for his historical sculptures, in particular his Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia as well as Samuel de Champlain overlooking Parliament Hill on Nepean Point, next to the National Gallery of Canada, his monument to the Ottawa volunteers who died in the South African War was moved to Confederation Park in 1969 after several moves. Other works include that of Samuel Bingham, in Notre-Dame Cemetery in Vanier. MacCarthy's father Hamilton Wright MacCarthy exhibited independent works at the Royal Academy and the British Institution in 1838 and between 1846 and 1867, they included a number of portrait busts. He contributed to the Great Exhibition a group of a deer hunt, consisting of a Scottish huntsman about to blow his horn, with a felled stag and two dogs'executed in silver for ornamental purposes', it was praised as'a spirited performance, well composed' and was considered'a credit to the designer'.
His wife exhibited a statuette of a famous racehorse,'Pyrrhus The First', at the BI in 1857. Their son, Hamilton P MacCarthy, was a sculptor and he exhibited portraiture and ideal works at the Royal Academy between 1875 and 1884. In London, MacCarthy studied with his father, in Antwerp under Kerckhoven and at the RA Schools in London, he attended St Marylebone School. At age 39, MacCarthy moved from London, England to Toronto, Canada in 1885. Thirteen years he moved to Ottawa, he studied at Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and was made a member of Council. He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists, his work appears in public parks throughout Canada. MacCarthy had 15 children; the first three were born in the others in Canada. One of his sons Coeur de Lion MacCarthy became a sculptor. Coeur de Lion executed many busts of political figures including the bust of Queen Victoria for the alcove above the Speaker's Chair in the Senate Chamber, he worked with Dominion carver Cléophas Soucy on the figures for the Parliament Buildings including the lions at the entrance.
MacCarthy set up a studio in Montreal in 1918. He is well known for his sympathetic memorials for the Verdun War Memorial. Samuel de Champlain The Hamilton MacCarthy sculpture of Samuel de Champlain in Ottawa became controversial in the 20th century, it included an Anishinaabe Scout kneeling on its base. In the 1990s after lobbying by Indigenous people, the scout was removed from the sculpture's platform and relocated as a statue in its own right to Major's Hill Park. Experts have noted that the statue depicts Champlain holding an astrolabe, but holding it upside-down. Parting of Paul and Virginia Robert Burns and Highland Mary, Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, BC, Canada Boer War Monument at Province House, Prince Edward Island Boer War Monument, Ontario Hamlet and Ophelia Lucius O'Brien - National Gallery of Canada Edgerton Ryerson, Ryerson University Alexander MacKenzie, Parliament Hill, Ottawa Queen Victoria - bust, Saint John, New Brunswick Queen Square South End. Images of works by Hamilton MacCarthy Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain & Ireland 1851-1951 National Gallery of Canada Obituary - Montreal Gazette
Clonard Keating
Henry Edward Clonard Keating was a Nova Scotian and celebrated military officer who served Royal West African Frontier Force on Niger River in Nigeria when he was killed in the line of duty. Keating began in the Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment. From there he requested to be succonded to the West African Frontier Force; as part of the 1st Battaltion, Lieut. Keating arrived at Lokoja on 2 May 1898, he made the trek up river 400 miles to Lafagou, reaching his destination on 12 September 1898. By October, the attrition rate was reported to be 63% of the Europeans, officers and NCOs, dead or invalided home because of the climate and disease. Keating had 22 men from which to command a sixty mile district from Lafagu, Nigeria to Rofia and Illah, he was stationed in Lafagu and every six weeks had to visit Rofia and Illecon. He took his first tour of inspection of his own-river posts early in October; when it came time to return to Lafagu, on October 9, Keating went with 14 of his troops to the island village of Hela, near Yelwa, for additional canoes.
The tribe refused Keatings request. In response, Keating killed the king of the village, expropriated the canoes he needed, abducted the men required to work them; the villagers spears. Keating and his men returned fire. Keating's troops soon ran out of ammunition. A hand to hand fight ensured in which a number of Keating's party were killed on shore before a remnant of the party was able to embark; the men, impressed into service overturned the canoes. The villagers pursued in canoes, shooting arrows at the fleeing patrol. Keating was wounded five times when he was killed by a spear to his head; the rest of the patrol was killed except for two native soldiers who were wounded. In response, British troops arrived at Hela the following week, on 16 October 1898, killed 100 of the villagers and burned their villages and adjacent fields. Keating's body was recovered.and buried in the new British fort at Yelwa, a half mile away from Hela. At Keating's gravesite, Keating's comrades built a memorial with a brass plaque and a tablet erected.
The incident received significant coverage. In Halifax, on Arbor Day, 8 May 1899, the teachers and pupils of Morris Street School, Keatings alma-mater, planted a tree in his memory in the Halifax Public Gardens. General Lord William Seymour, commanding the British troops, gave an address. An easel was set up in front of the tree bearing pictures of both Queen Victoria and Keating, the whole draped in the Leinsters' colours; the Herald headline declared "Planted a Tree for Halifax Hero". In 1925, a marker was installed at the tree. In 1900 a memorial plaque was unveiled to honour Keating in Saint Luke's Cathedral, subsequently lost to fire. A second plaque was put up in the parish church at Birr, Ireland to honour Keating and other Leinsters killed in Africa the same year. At Aldershot, Keating's name was included on a tablet to the memory of all the men of the West African Frontier Force who died or were killed in Nigeria. Military history of Nova Scotia Texts Pothier Bernard. A Nova Scotian in West Africa: Lieutenant Clonard Keating, 1871-1898.
Nova Scotia Historical Review. Endnotes
Halifax Provisional Battalion
Not to be confused with Halifax Volunteer Battalion The Halifax Provisional Battalion was a military unit from Nova Scotia, sent to fight in the North-West Rebellion in 1885. The battalion was under command of Lieutenant-Colonel James J. Bremner and consisted of 350 soldiers made up three companies from the Princess Louise Fusiliers, three companies of the 63rd Halifax Rifles, two companies of the 1st "Halifax" Brigade of Garrison Artillery, with 32 officers; the battalion left Halifax under orders for the North-West on Saturday, 11 April 1885 and they stayed for three months. The battalion was assigned garrison duty along the CPR main line. After a short stay in Winnipeg, the battalion was broken into four components and sent to Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Saskatchewan Landing and Medicine Hat. Soldiers had to remain on high alert because of possible raids on their positions. Prior to Nova Scotia's involvement in the Rebellion, "Canada's first war", the province remained hostile to Canada in the aftermath of how the colony was forced into Canada.
The celebration that followed the Halifax Provisional Battalion's return by train across the county ignited a national patriotism in Nova Scotia. Prime Minister Robert Borden, stated that "up to this time Nova Scotia hardly regarded itself as included in the Canadian Confederation... The rebellion evoked a new spirit... The Riel Rebellion did more to unite Nova Scotia with the rest of Canada than any event that had occurred since Confederation." In 1907 Governor General Earl Grey declared, "This Battalion... went out Nova Scotians, they returned Canadians." The wrought iron gates at the Halifax Public Gardens were made in the battalion's honour. After eleven days on the train, the battalion arrived at Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 22 April, at 5 a.m. On the 29th the battalion received orders to go to Swift Current, District of Assiniboia, marched on same day at 4 p.m. The battalion arrived at Swift Current at 8 p.m. on the 30th, the next day it camped beside the 7th Battalion and a portion of the Midland Battalion.
On 5 May a telegram was received to hold the 63rd contingent of the Halifax Provisional Battalion in readiness to repel an uprising of the Blackfoot and other Indians. Further, the battalion was warned of a possible attack on Medicine Hat, District of Assiniboia; as a result, the headquarters of the Halifax Provisional Battalion with the 66th contingent was ordered to Medicine Hat, where it arrived early the next morning. Encamped on the South Saskatchewan River was a company of Stuart's scouts, a body of mounted cowboys. All the parties remained at Medicine Hat until the end of the rebellion. Shortly after the headquarters of the battalion left Swift Current for Medicine Hat two companies of the 63rd contingent were ordered to Saskatchewan Landing, where they were employed loading scows, forwarding supplies, assisting in transporting across the river. One company of the 63rd and the Halifax Garrison Artillery remained at Swift Current whilst it continued to be the base of supplies; the troops moved to Moose Jaw when it became the base, the two companies from the Saskatchewan Landing shortly afterwards joined them.
On these two detachments fell the labour of handling and transferring all the supplies going to the front, furnishing the necessary guards, so that they were kept employed, at times of necessity the non-commissioned officers voluntarily doing the fatigue duties of privates. The men expected that their work was the prelude to being allowed to take part in the fighting at the front, as other corps preceding them had been relieved in due order. To the disappointment of many of the battalion, the war finished before they were required to go to the frontline; the headquarters of the Halifax Provisional Battalion left Medicine Hat on the night of 30 June, arrived at Moose Jaw early on 2 July, the battalion being now re-united entire. After remaining at Moose Jaw a week the battalion was ordered to Winnipeg, where it arrived on 10 July, went into camp; the battalion left Winnipeg on 10 July for Halifax. Along the entire route the battalion was met with "continued ovation; the reception at Halifax two weeks on July 24 was "most enthusiastic, the whole population having turned out."
Military history of Nova Scotia History of the Halifax Regional Municipality Militia Act of 1855 TextsDavid A. Sutherland. "Halifax Encounter with the North-West Uprising of 1885". Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. 13, 2010. Joseph Edwards; the Militia of Nova Scotia, 1749-1867. Collections of the Nova Scotia historical SocietyEndnotes The History of the North West Rebellion Experience of the Halifax Battalion in the North West History of the Halifax volunteer battalion and volunteer companies: 1859-1887 By Thomas J. Egan
Heritage Property Act (Nova Scotia)
The Heritage Property Act is a provincial statute which allows for the identification and rehabilitation of cultural heritage properties in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The Act offers five types of protection: Provincial Registry of Heritage Properties; the Heritage Property Act was first enacted in 1980, was subject to amendments in 1991, 1998 and 2010. Nova Scotia has related legislation to protect archaeological and natural sites and to protect burial plots and cemeteries. Heritage conservation in Canada List of historic places in Nova Scotia List of National Historic Sites of Canada in Nova Scotia Heritage Property Act Canadian Register of Historic Places, search for sites designated under the Heritage Protection Act
Francis Joseph Fitzgerald
Francis Joseph Fitzgerald was a Nova Scotian who became a celebrated Boer War veteran and the first commander of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police detachment at Herschel Island in the Western Arctic. From December 1910 until February 1911, he led a mail patrol from Fort McPherson southward to Dawson City; when the patrol did not arrive in time, a search party, led by Corporal William Dempster, was sent from Dawson City and found the bodies of Fitzgerald and the other patrol members. The trip became known as "The Lost Patrol" and as "one of Yukon’s greatest tragedies." Fitzgerald served with the militia in Halifax until the age of 19 and enlisted as a constable in the North-West Mounted Police on 19 November 1888. He spent the next nine years in Saskatchewan. At age 28, under the command of Inspector John Douglas Moodie, Fitzgerald was the first to chart an overland route from Edmonton to Fort Selkirk, Yukon via northern British Columbia and the Pelly River; the voyage took eleven months. As a result of this achievement, Fitzgerald was promoted corporal in 1899.
The following year, under the command of Lawrence Herchmer, Fitzgerald joined the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles to fight in the Second Boer War. The mounted rifles participated in a number of major drives that resulted in the destruction of at least twenty percent of the Boer forces in the western Transvaal, most of these being captured, it was not all one-sided, however. On 31 March the unit fought as part of an outnumbered British force at the Battle of Harts River, or Boschbult; when Fitzgerald returned to Halifax after the war, he was given accolades by the local newspapers. As a result of his service, he came to the attention of Commissioner Aylesworth Bowen Perry in Regina, he was raised to sergeant after his return to Canada, he went to England in 1902 with the NWMP contingent for the coronation of Edward VII. In the summer of 1903 Fitzgerald and a constable were sent to Herschel Island in the western Arctic to establish a police post, where he stayed for six years, his only links with the outside world were the whaling ships that visited police whaleboats from Fort McPherson in the Mackenzie delta, a police patrol by dog sled from that post.
Relieved in the summer of 1909, he went to Regina. While at Herschel, Fitzgerald had Annie Fitzgerald, with an Inuit woman, Unalena. Shortly after, he was promoted to inspector on 1 December 1909; as the first officer posted to Herschel Island, Fitzgerald paved the way for his successors by diminishing the alcohol trade and keeping the peace. In late 1910 Fitzgerald was selected for the contingent to be sent to George V’s coronation. To get him out of the north in time, it was decided that he would head the annual patrol that winter from Fort McPherson to Dawson, a distance of some 470 miles. Given the competitive spirit within the police, Fitzgerald undoubtedly saw this trip as an opportunity to break the time record set by an earlier patrol, he therefore decided to lighten the load on his sleds by reducing food and equipment, confident that the quantities taken would not be needed. On 21 Dec. 1910 Fitzgerald left Fort McPherson with three other constables. From the outset, the patrol was slowed by heavy snow and temperatures as low as −62 °C.
They were unable to find the route across the Richardson Mountains. Nine days were wasted searching for it. With supplies dwindling, Fitzgerald reluctantly had to admit defeat and turn back toward Fort McPherson; the patrol now faced a desperate struggle. As food ran out, they began eating their dogs. In the last entry in his diary, on 5 February, Fitzgerald recorded that five were left and the men were so weak they could travel only a short distance. Within a few days all four died, three from starvation and exposure, including Fitzgerald, one by suicide, their emaciated bodies were found in March a few miles from the safety of Fort McPherson, where they were buried. On Fitzgerald's body was his will, scratched on paper with a piece of charcoal. I leave to Mrs. John Fitzgerald, Halifax. God bless all." When the four failed to return to Dawson, a search party led by Dempster set out to find the missing patrol. On 21 March, Dempster found the bodies and, as a result of the successful search, Dempster became a celebrated hero.
Today’s Dempster Highway winds northward through the land of the Lost Patrol where at Kilometre 118 there is a monument to the winter patrols. All four men were buried at Fort McPherson on 28 March 1911. In 1938, the graves were cemented over into one large tomb, with cement posts at the four corners connected by a chain. In the centre is a memorial to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police Patrol of 1910. Patrols were still made annually until 1921, but because of the fatal trip of 1910-11, measures were taken to ensure that this tragedy never occurred again. Subsequent patrols always hired an aboriginal guide. Cabins and regular caches were established along the trail in case of food shortages. Most the Forrest Creek Trail was marked so that it would not be missed again; these measures proved successful. Fitzgerald was memorialized in the Halifax Public Gardens, which named a bridge in his honour, as well as a community in northern Alberta. In 1905, Fitzgerald had met at Fort Resolution with a patrol led by Dr. George Pearson Bell.
On this occasion, he gave Dr. Bell a collection of artifacts. Among them were "Eskimo Items" which he had most acquired at Herschel Island. In 1975, Dr. Bell's widow sold them to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Author Dick North wrote a book about Fitzgerald entitled The
William Young (Nova Scotia politician)
Sir William Young, was a Nova Scotia politician and jurist. Born in Falkirk, the son of John Young and Agnes Renny, Young was first elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in 1836 as a Reformer and, as a lawyer, defended Reform journalists accused of libel; when responsible government was instituted in 1848, Young hoped to become the first Premier but was passed over in favour of fellow reformer James Boyle Uniacke and Young became Speaker. However, Young succeeded Uniacke in 1854, his government was accused of overlooking Catholics and tensions with Catholics were exacerbated by Joseph Howe's rupture with Nova Scotia's Irish Catholic community over his recruitment of Americans to fight on the British side in the Crimean War. In February 1857, ten Catholic and two Protestant Liberals voted with the Tories to bring down Young's government. Young returned to power in January 1860 when the Tory government was unable to command a majority in the legislature after an election. In July, the colony's Chief Justice died and Young, who had long coveted the job, was appointed to the position by the lieutenant governor.
He served as Chief Justice for twenty-one years and was noted for placing cushions on his chair so he would tower above his fellow justices. He died in Halifax in 1887. Young Avenue, Nova Scotia is named after Sir William Young In 1887, the estate of chief justice Sir William Young, donated three statues and six urns from his own garden, to Halifax Public Gardens. Nova Scotian artist William Valentine painted Young's portrait; the Private and Local Acts of Nova-Scotia By Nova Scotia, Sir William Young Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
Local Council of Women of Halifax
The Local Council of Women of Halifax is an organization in Halifax, Nova Scotia devoted to improving the lives of women and children. One of the most significant achievements of the LCWH was its 24-year struggle for women's right to vote; the core of the well trained and progressive leadership was five women: Anna Leonowens, Edith Archibald, Eliza Ritchie, Agnes Dennis and May Sexton. Halifax business man George Henry Wright left his home in his will to the LCWH, which the organization received after he died in the Titanic. Educator Alexander McKay was a significant supporter of the Council. In 1851 women were excluded from the vote in Nova Scotia. In 1870, Hannah Norris began to mobilize women into the public sphere through establishing the Woman’s Baptist Missionary Aid Society across the Maritimes. Following Frances Willard's visit to Halifax in 1878, Nova Scotia women organized local unions and a provincial Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In 1884, the WCTU lobbied for married women’s property legislation.
In 1891 the WCTU endorsed the suffrage cause, the first major women's organization to support women's suffrage. Edith Archibald became the leader of the Maritime chapter of the WCTU the following year. Two years in 1893, Edith Archibald and others made the first official attempt to have a suffrage bill for women property holders passed in Nova Scotia; the bill was quashed by Attorney General James Wilberforce Longley. The year following the defeat of the first suffrage bill, the Local Council was established in 1894 as the local chapter of the National Council of Women of Canada. On August 30, 1894, the executive committee met for the first time at Government House. Emma MacIntosh serving as the first president. Anna Leonowens was the secretary. Enfranchisement was the issue. Between 1892 and 1895, thirty-four suffrage petitions were presented to the Nova Scotia legislature, six suffrage bills were introduced, the final one in 1897. In June 1897 the annual meeting of the National Council was convened in Halifax, where presentations were made by Lady Aberdeen and American suffragist May Wright Sewall.> On June 11, 1914, the Suffrage Club was established at Wright's home to work on granting women the right to vote throughout the province.
On 22 February 1917 the LCWH presented a suffrage petition endorsed by forty-one women's organizations. When the Liberal Premier ignored the issue, irate members introduced a private member bill, its defeat marked the birth of the Nova Scotia Equal Franchise League in the spring of 1917. On April 26, 1918, with the support of premier George Henry Murray, the Assembly passed The Nova Scotia Franchise Act, which gives women the right to vote in Nova Scotia's provincial elections, the first province to do so in Atlantic Canada; the members of the LCWH established the following organizations: Victoria School of Art and Design Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Red Cross Children's Hospital, Halifax Dalhousie Alumnae Association Forrest Hall, Dalhousie's first residence for women Halifax Victorian Order of Nurses Dalhousie Review Ladies Musical Club of Halifax Halifax Playground Commission Pioneer Book Club Shakespeare Club Official Employment Bureau School of Domestic Science Women's Welcome Hostel Anti-Tuberlculosis League Charlotte McInnes Mary Walcott Ritchie Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission Feminism in Canada Transition House Association of Nova Scotia Council of Women, Halifax Fine Arts Gallery - under management of Council of Women Endnotes Joanne E. Veer, "Feminist Forebears: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Canada's Maritime Provinces, 1875-1900", 5.
Ruth Bordin and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 Ernest R. Forbes, "Battles in Another War: Edith Archibald and the Halifax Feminist Movement" in Challenging the Regional Stereotype: Essays on the 20th Century Maritimes Ernest R. Forbes, "The ideas of Carol Bacchi and the Suffragists of Halifax" in Challenging the Regional Stereotype: Essays on the 20th Century Maritimes Ernest R. Forbes. Prohibition and the Social Gospel in Nova Scotia. 1971. Mothers of the Municipality: Women and Social Policy in Post-1945 Halifax edited by Judith Fingard, Janet Guildford Judith Fingard; the Ritchie Sisters and Social Improvement in Early 20th Century Halifax. Journalof the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 13, 2010. 1-22
National Historic Sites of Canada by location
