Robert Sellar and the Huntingdon Gleaner: The Conscience of Rural Protestant Quebec, 1863-1919

The Scottish-born Robert Sellar (1841-1919) was the editor of the Canadian Gleaner (later renamed the Huntingdon Gleaner) from 1863 until 1919. The two recurring editorial themes of the newspaper under Sellar's editorial reign were free trade and the separation of church and state, both of which he treated with particular reference to the English-speaking Protestant minority of rural Quebec. With regard to the first theme, the author emphasizes Sellar's opposition to the Conservative's National Policy, his disillusionment with the Laurier Liberals for adopting it, and his pioneer work as an organizer of farm protest against it. The second theme is developed with special reference to Confederation, ultramontanism, French Canadian nationalism, the decline of the English Quebec minority, and Sellar's publicizing efforts to prevent the extension of Quebec's sectarian institutions to the rest of Canada. Throughout the thesis, the author relates national issues to the local constituency, entailing consideration of the social, economic, and political development of the Chateauguay Valley, the one region of nineteenth-century rural Quebec, he argues, in which Robert Sellar's particular editorial policy could have been sustained.

PhD dissertation

McGill University

Montreal

1970

xiii-849p.

en