Journalist, lawyer, politician.
Born at Bowmanville, Ontario on 26 February 1860, son of William Wade, he was educated at the University of Toronto and worked as an editorial writer for the Toronto Globe from 1882 to 1885 before coming west in 1886. He was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1886 and was first President of the Young Liberal Association. He wrote editorials for the Manitoba Free Fress from 1886 to 1888, and later was an active essayist on the Manitoba Schools Question. His style was described as “slashing” and ad hominem. He represented the US Department of Justice in an 1887 inquiry into claims of compensation made by Jean Louis Legare for the surrender of Sitting Bull after the Custer Massacre.
Wade was appointed a member of the Provincial Board of Education in 1889, and a member of the University of Manitoba Council, and of the Winnipeg Public School Board. In 1897, he was appointed commissioner by Lord Aberdeen to enquire into the management of the Manitoba Penitentiary. He left Manitoba for the Yukon in 1896 where he was appointed Crown Prosecutor, Legal Adviser, and a member of the Yukon Territorial Council from 1897 to 1898. He later moved to British Columbia where, in 1903, he was appointed one of the British Counsel before the Alaska boundary commission in the preparation of the Canadian case.
He wrote National Schools for Manitoba, The Manitoba School Question, The Klondyke - A Four Year’s Retrospect, The Alaska - Yukon Boundary Dispute, Its Practical Side, Some Comments on the Alaska Award, Canada at the Grave of General Wolfe, The Early Navigators of the Pacific, The Canadian Flag, and A History of Liberalism in Canada.
In 1911, Wade was a Barrister with the firm of Wade, Whealler & McQuarrie, 413 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC. He was appointed agent general for British Columbia in the United Kingdom in 1918. He died in London.
Who’s Who in Western Canada: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of Western Canada, Volume 1, edited by C. W. Parker, Vancouver: Canadian Press Association, 1911.
“F. C. Wade, Coast Agent-General, Dead in London” Newspaper clipping. [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B8]
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 27 April 2020
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