Immigration promoter.
Born in St. Ives, Huntingtonshire, England on 8 January 1842, he was educated in private schools in Cambridge. In 1866 he moved to Liverpool and entered business as an insurance and shipping agent. He first visited Canada in 1872 and was successful in obtaining governmental support for agricultural immigrants. In 1876 he was commissioned to visit Manitoba and make a report on its potential for immigration. He travelled west from Winnipeg by ox-cart and was so impressed with the agricultural possibilities that he made application, and obtained for colonization, six townships on the Little Saskatchewan River just west of the old Manitoba boundary line. On this land he founded the present town of Rapid City.
On 14 January 1886, he married Charlotte Emily Sudlow (?-?) of Liverpool and had seven children, including Herbert Creasey Whellams and William F. Whellams. In 1892 he went to St. Paul, Minnesota but returned to Winnipeg in 1910 to become business secretary of the Millions for Manitoba League. He was later secretary of the Western Canada Development Bureau. He wrote many articles for the newspapers and periodicals of the day, in which he extolled the advantages of settlement in Manitoba.
He died at Winnipeg on 27 December 1918. The funeral was from St. Martin’s Mission with interment in the St. John’s Cathedral Cemetery.
The Story of Manitoba by F. H. Schofield, Winnipeg: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
Death registration, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 30 December 2018
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