William Kingsford

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

Life and work

Kingsford was born in London, his parents owned an Inn. Little inclined to become an architect, he undertook in March 1838 with the 1st Dragoon Guards, who were sent to Canada to take care after the rebellions of 1837 for rest. In October 1838, the unit was in Chambly, and thus in the region of the second survey. Kingsford neither sympathized with the rebels, nor was the subsequent looting by the British well. In October 1841 he left the army.

Despite rather little experience as a surveyor, he succeeded early 1842, the position of a deputy city surveyor for the city of Montreal to acquire. As a surveyor, he received a certificate only on November 5, 1844 for Lower Canada and on October 8, 1855 for Upper Canada. However, he resigned in July 1845 by his office. In addition, he pursued a career in journalism and founded in 1844 together with Murdo McIver the Montreal Times. As a result of heavy fighting in 1844 he was almost killed; two scars identified from 1846 his face. After his paper was received in 1846, he had to re- activate this time in Lower Canada as a land surveyor and worked at the Lachine Canal, but also on the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad.

1849 Kingsford went to the USA and worked in Brooklyn, oversaw the expansion of plank roads in the state, was from April 1850 to October 1851 auxiliary engineer at 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 capital.

In October 1852 he was again working as an engineer, this time for the Montreal and Kingston Railway, where he often the chief engineer Thomas Coltrin Keefer represented. After the takeover of the web by the Grand Trunk Railway, he continued his work in the space between Montreal and Bytown ( Ottawa ). He also worked in 1854 at the Victoria Bridge at Montreal on the St. Lawrence with a bridge which almost was a symbol of progress. In June 1855, Kingsford committed to Toronto, but he gave the office immediately when he realized that his subordinates should be paid from his salary. So he returned to the Grand Trunk back as superintendent and engineer, who was responsible for the construction work between Belleville and Stratford.

1856 to 1860, he worked with a private company for the railway 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, were added reports about his travels. He was also a correspondent for the London and Toronto newspapers. Thomas Brassey was impressed by his language skills so - he said, in addition to English and French, Spanish, Italian and German - that he hired him for work east of Vienna and north of Naples.

1862 again in Canada Kingsford worked as a consultant for various companies. He examined in 1863 the road condition to Toronto for the York Roads Company in 1865, he was appointed to advisory services for the construction of a railroad to Fort William ( Thunder Bay). In 1866, he traveled for Brassey to Europe again, this time to Sardinia to study the conditions for a textile factory and a railway link. When he returned to Canada in 1867, he could join in the discussions on a transcontinental railroad and was hired as a consultant.

From 1870 to 1872 he worked for the state at the Lachine Canal, and to the Grenville and Wellandkanälen in Ontario, measured the Ottawa and the Gananoque and the Rivière Hudson in Quebec. In June 1873 he was good political contacts with the engineer for all state river and harbor work in Ontario and Quebec. In 1879 he had 10 employees. As supporters of the government, he was eyed by the 1878 entering Conservatives to power with suspicion. On December 31, 1879 Kingsford was dismissed on the grounds that his position was redundant, with him after fierce debates half a year salary was further paid. Kingsford was thus cut off from all major projects. Even in 1887, he was one of the founding members of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers.

He moved now more on writing. Since at least 20 years, he had gathered and now Canadiana him the archival attracted to who gathered in Ottawa, Department of Agriculture in under Douglas Brymner. His goal was a story British North America. He was going like an engineer, especially as he was of the opinion that the history of the spirit of the nation was what were the engineers for infrastructure. The result was 1887-1898 A History of Canada in 12 volumes, which was nourished largely of source materials. The giant project ate up all of its assets, and only energetic friends saved him from ruin. However, he slaughtered the archives mostly only to out to prove his preconceived notions. His interpretations were based on his predecessors, to Michel Bibaud, Robert Christie and especially to Lord Durham. For him, the British victory over New France due to the spirit of freedom and material progress, the assimilation of the French-Canadian was inevitable self-government within the meaning of responsible government, the foundation of society. The political public took to the work and honored the writer with honorary titles, such as from Queen 's College in Kingston or Dalhousie University in Halifax (1889 and 1896). However, few read the opulent and rambling, little original work. In the Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada has been criticized that the social and economic history were missing, such as George MacKinnon Wrong remarked. Kingsford answered polemically in the Queen's Quarterly. Nevertheless, there was King Ford's widow - on 29 March 1848 he had married Mary Margaret Lindsay in Montreal - a substantial pension for her husband's merits as a historian. Today he is regarded as an amateur historian who had technically fail in a period of increasing professionalization of the Métiers.

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 of 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.