Stealing Hamilton: March 2012

Monday, 26 March 2012

Adam Ferrie

Adam Ferrie was an industrialist, merchant, shipowner, and politician who moved to Montreal in 1829 in the hopes of augmenting his import-export business and re-establishing himself after suffering some business failures. He was philanthropic and set up two of his sons in the family business and also helped organize the St Andrew's Society (which helped settle newly arrived immigrants from Scotland). Unfortunately, many of his co-operative style business schemes failed, mostly through bankruptcies of his associates. As a result of this experience he took an active part in forming the Board of Trade in 1842. It is not thought that he had an enjoyable time in Montreal and at age 76 he left for Hamilton, where most of his children had settled. There was a lot of family tension and conflict especially between Adam and and his son, also Adam, (1813-1849) showing the best and worst of family businesses. He and his wife Rachel had 12 children, six of whom survived infancy. One of his sons, Colin Campbell (1808-1856), became the first mayor of Hamilton.

for a Taphophile Tragics
from the Hamilton Cemetery

Monday, 19 March 2012

S.O.E.B.S.

Sons of England Benevolent Society

The Sons of England Benevolent (or Benefit) Society was founded in Toronto in 1874

to assist needy Protestants of English extraction and to promote loyalty to the monarchy.

As a mutual benefit society, members would pay their weekly subscriptions and in return they and their families could benefit in times of need, such as unemployment assistance, disability benefits, medical fees, funeral costs and burial plots. Organized into local lodges, the Society served mainly ex-pat working class families in Canada and South Africa. Hamilton Lodges provided plots in the Hamilton Cemetary until it ceased operations in 1971.

for Taphophile Tragics
from the HamiltonCemetery

Monday, 12 March 2012

Mary Amelia Robinson

resting

at Hamilton Cemetery

Mary Amelia Robinson was the daughter of Sir John Beverley Robinson, a baronet who was the most important member of the Family Compact (a brotherhood that ran the government in Upper Canada from 1815-1848) and also a Chief Justice who would oppose the uniting of Upper and Lower Canada. Perhaps being attracted to powerful, ambitious men like her father, she married Donald MacInnes who was a merchant and President of the Bank of Hamilton before being appointed to the Senate by Sir John A Macdonald. They had five sons and a daughter (Beverley Stuart, Donald Walker, Duncan Sayre, Jessie Lefroy, William Robinson, Charles Stephen) but I can't find if any of them entered into politics.

for Taphophile Tragics