Educator, surveyor.
Born at Winnipeg on 12 December 1903, son of pharmacist Arthur Thornton Andrews (1871-1936) and Emma Harris (1872-1913), nephew of Alfred Joseph Andrews and Fletcher S. Andrews, as a teenager during the First World War he worked as a “soldier of the soil” on a farm near Purves. He was later a schoolmaster at Big Bar Creek and Kelly Lake in British Columbia (1922-1926) then received a forestry degree from the University of Toronto (1930). He became a land surveyor with the British Columbia Forest Service. In 1931, he initiated aerial photography in the province.
During the Second World War, he served from 1940 to 1946 in the Canadian military, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After his military discharge back to Canada, he returned to survey work in British Columbia, serving as Chief Air Survey Engineer, Surveyor General of Mapping, and Provincial Boundaries Commissioner (1952-1968). A keen historian of British Columbia, he wrote some 50 publications and wrote articles for the British Columbia Historical Society. In recognition of his community service, he was inducted into the Order of British Columbia (1990) and Order of Canada (1991).
He died at Victoria, British Columbia on 5 December 2005.
His articles for the Manitoba Historical Society:
Reminiscences of a “Soldier of the Soil”
Manitoba History, Number 17, Spring 1989
Marriage registration [Arthur Thornton Andrews, Emma Harris], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Birth registration [Arnold Andrews], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“A. T. Andrews, former druggist in Winnpeg, dies,” Winnipeg Tribune, 27 November 1936, page 10.
Death registrations [Emma Andrews, Arthur Thornton Andrews], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Gerald Smedley Andrews, Order of British Columbia.
Obituary, Victoria Times Colonist, 15 December 2005.
“City-born vet dies at 101,” Winnipeg Free Press, 6 January 2006, page 4.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 21 March 2023
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