Sydney Bellingham's Canada: People, Places, and Events in the Middle Half of the Nineteenth Century

The Irish-born Sydney Robert Bellingham (1808-1900) immigrated to Canada in 1824 and settled in Montreal in 1827. During his years in Montreal and Argenteuil, he was a businessman, lawyer, journalist, military and political figure in Canada East/Quebec. During the Rebellion of 1837, Bellingham served as a captain with the Royal Montreal Cavalry and the aide-de-camp to Lt.-Col. George Augustus Wetherall. In 1840 he was called to the Lower Canada bar, having studied law under Alexander Buchanan (1798-1851). In 1843, Bellingham became editor of the Montreal Times and Daily Commercial Advertiser, and in 1871 he became editor of the Daily News of Montreal. In 1854, Bellingham was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for Argenteuil, having bought 21,000 arpents of land there. After Confederation, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. In 1878, Bellingham and his wife returned to Ireland to take up residence at his ancestral home, Castle Bellingham, which he had inherited in 1874 after the deaths of his elder brothers. This book, based on his memoirs of his life in Canada that were dictated to his nurse in 1895, is described as "Contemporary observations and travel notes on the history of pre-Confederation Canada, including commentary on the life of the people, cities, towns, farms, transportation routes, politics, and economy through reminiscences and autobiographical accounts of Irish observer Sydney Bellingham."

Markham, ON

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

2019

xi-233p.

en

978-1-55455-415-7