Lumber and coal merchant.
Born at Dublin, Ireland on 8 October 1845, son of William W. Ireland and Mary Bryan, he worked on the family farm then became a cash boy with the firm of Faucett Beulah and Company of Dublin. He came to Canada in 1867 and worked for a time on railroad construction in the United States. He then worked as a chainman on the Inter-Colonial Railway at Halifax until 1871 when he became a railroad construction engineer at Kamasqita, British Columbia. He then did railway exploration work in western Ontario. From 1876 to 1880 he was at Fort William doing location and construction work for the Canadian Pacific Railway and, in March 1880, he came to Winnipeg, soon moved onto to Emerson where he established the lumber business of Wardrobe and Company. They continued in business until 1885 when he opened a lumberyard at Boissevain, conducting it until 1887. He established a retail lumber and coal store at Carberry, Manitoba in the spring of 1888.
He was married twice, first to Elizabeth Sandford (?-1884) of Dublin. On 28 March 1888 he married Margaret Nicol, daughter of Erskin and Margaret Nicol. They had three children: Hazel M. Ireland (wife of R. Y. Eaton, First Vice-President of T. Eaton and Company), Erskin Wallace Ireland, and Edith Isabelle Ireland. He served as President of the Dominion Conservative Association of Portage la Prairie, first Mayor of Carberry (1890), President of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Lumbermens Association, and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Masons (Scottish Rite), and Anglican Church.
He died at Carberry in 1917.
The Story of Manitoba by F. H. Schofield, Winnipeg: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
Death registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 15 February 2010
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