Cleric, educator.
Born in Fortrose, Scotland, he received an MA from King’s College, Aberdeen in 1832, and a year later came to Red River as a schoolteacher, working at £100 per annum at the academy established by David Jones. In 1836 he married one of his mixed-blood students, and succeeded Jones as Headmaster in 1838, purchasing the school for £350 in 1841. As Headmaster, he refused to permit mixed-blood or native mothers not officially married, to visit their children at the school. He was ordained a priest in 1844 and became assistant chaplain to the Hudson’s Bay Company. An exponent of corporal punishment, he employed a rod more than three feet long. He was a member of the Council of Assiniboia from 1836, serving as its clerk in 1839.
See also:
“The Red River Academy” by T. F. Bredin, The Beaver, (winter 1974): 10-17.
John Macallum, Dictionary of Canadian Biography VII, 526-27.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 26 October 2017
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