Historian, politician.
Born at Wyecombe, Ontario on 23 June 1905, son of Frank Allen Pickersgill (1879-1920) and Sarah Cornelia Smith (1877-1961), brother of Francis Herbert Dedrick Pickersgill, he and his family moved to a farm near Ashern in 1907. He attended Ashern School before moving into St. Boniface to attend Tache High School. He studied at the University of Manitoba (1922-1927), graduating with a BA degree. During a summer break in 1925, he taught on permit at McMaster School.
After graduation, he moved on to Oxford to study history. In 1929, he accepted a lectureship at Wesley College in Winnipeg, and he taught history there until 1937, when he wrote the civil service examination and finished first that year. He was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Office and remained there until 1953, rising to become Clerk of the Privy Council in the St. Laurent government.
Pickersgill was one of the most ardent supporters of Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation in 1949. With Joey Smallwood’s assistance, in 1953 he was elected to Parliament for the riding of Bonavista-Twillingate, serving until 1967. He held several Cabinet portfolios including Secretary of State, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and Transport before arranging his own appointment as Chair of the Transport Commission, which he as Minister had created. He retired from that post in 1975.
He was married twice, first in 1936 to Beatrice Landon Young (1913-1938) and second to Margaret (?-?). He had four children. He was an active writer on politics and political biography, as well as a memoirist. His first work was Canadian Responsible Government from British Hansard and Other Sources (1927). He also wrote The Mackenzie King Record (1960), The Liberal Party (1962), My Years with Louis St. Laurent: A Political Memoir (1975), Louis St. Laurent (1981), and The Road Back (1986). He wrote an autobiography, Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir (1994). He was given honorary degrees by the University of Manitoba (1967) and University of Winnipeg (1982), and was inducted into the Order of Canada (1970).
He died at Ottawa, Ontario on 14 November 1997. A collection of his records is held at Library and Archives Canada.
See also:
Seeing Canada Whole: A Memoir by J. W. Pickersgill, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1994.
Birth registration [Beatrice Landon Young], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Death registration [S. B. Pickersgill], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Pickersgill rumored for cabinet,” Winnipeg Free Press, 14 May 1953, page 19.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 22 November 1997, page 58.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Frank Allen Pickersgill (1879-1920), WikiTree.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
We thank David Frank for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 25 July 2023
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