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Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, about 1900.
CA-K793Institutions

Sir Wilfred Grenfell, doctor to northern Newfoundland and Labrador

Wilfred Grenfell, an English-born doctor and minister, gave 50 years of service to the people of northern Newfoundland and Labrador. He and those he inspired brought medical, spiritual and material aid to fishers and coastal residents, and he raised funds for projects such as the hospital at St. Anthony. The International Grenfell Association, founded in 1912, carried on his programs.

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Photo: Bain News Service, publisher · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Arthur Sturgis Hardy, about 1900 (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K780Institutions

Arthur Hardy, premier of Ontario and Algonquin Park

Arthur Sturgis Hardy, a Brantford lawyer of Loyalist descent, entered Ontario’s legislature in 1873 and served as Provincial Secretary and Commissioner of Crown Lands. He succeeded Oliver Mowat as premier from 1896 to 1899, and his most lasting contribution was the creation of Algonquin Provincial Park.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (about 1900); Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of Canada (Supreme Court of Canada).
CA-K755Institutions

Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, chief justice of Canada

Charles Fitzpatrick held Université Laval’s chair of criminal law for nearly 30 years and served Laurier as Solicitor General and Minister of Justice. He became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1906 and was lieutenant-governor of Quebec from 1918 to 1923.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Percy Girouard in 1899 (Wm. Notman & Son, McCord Museum).
CA-K749History

Sir Percy Girouard, railway engineer of empire

Percy Girouard of Montréal, a graduate of the Royal Military College in Kingston, joined the Royal Engineers in 1888. He built the Wadi Halfa–Khartoum railway from 1896, directed railways in South Africa and oversaw the line to Kano in Northern Nigeria, later serving as governor of Northern Nigeria and of East Africa and as Britain’s director general of munitions supply.

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Photo: Studio Wn. Notman & Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
James Patrick Howley, portrait published in 1894.
CA-K745History

James P. Howley, geologist and historian of the Beothuk

James Patrick Howley greatly advanced knowledge of Newfoundland’s geology, minerals and geography through fieldwork for the Geological and Topographical Survey of Newfoundland from 1868 to 1909, and is considered founder and first curator of the Newfoundland Museum. His 1915 study of the Beothuk remains a cornerstone of Beothuk scholarship.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Browne, 1875 (Studio Inglis, BAnQ).
CA-K736Culture & sport

George Browne, architect of Kingston City Hall

George Browne, who emigrated from Belfast in 1830, became one of the most gifted architects of 19th-century Canada, known for an original mastery of Neoclassicism. His many commissions adapted the major styles of his time to local settings, and his imposing Kingston City Hall and civic buildings in Montréal and Québec City projected prosperity and strength.

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Photo: Studio of Inglis (Montréal, Québec) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Onésime Dorval (seated) with her adopted daughter Georgine d’Amours, late 1800s.
CA-K721Institutions

Onésime Dorval, Saskatchewan’s first certified teacher

Onésime Dorval, born in Quebec, came west in 1877 and became Saskatchewan’s first certified teacher. For over 40 years she taught at Oblate missions in Manitoba and at St-Laurent-Grandin, Battleford, Batoche and Duck Lake, was a talented painter and woodworker, and is fondly remembered in Métis and francophone communities.

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Photo: Unspecified; from St. Vital Parish, Battleford, Saskatchewan. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Antoine-Aimé Dorion, Ottawa, March 1868.
CA-K720Institutions

Sir Antoine-Aimé Dorion, Liberal leader and chief justice

Antoine-Aimé Dorion of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, a civil law professor and president of the Bar, succeeded Papineau as leader of the Liberals and co-led the Macdonald–Dorion ministry in 1863. Though he opposed Confederation, he became federal Minister of Justice under Mackenzie in 1873 and was chief justice of Quebec from 1874 until his death.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Harold Adams Innis, 1910s.
CA-K711Culture & sport

Harold Innis, historian of staples and communications

Harold Adams Innis, one of Canada’s great scholars, joined the University of Toronto in 1920 and headed its Department of Political Economy from 1937. Through works such as The Fur Trade in Canada, The Cod Fisheries and Empire and Communications, he deeply influenced the study of economics, history, geography, politics and communications.

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Photo: Unknown photographer (1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dora Dworkin in her nurse’s uniform, around 1909 (Ontario Jewish Archives).
CA-K706History

Dorothy Dworkin, nurse and community builder

Dorothy Dworkin, a nurse, midwife and entrepreneur, managed Toronto’s free Jewish Dispensary and helped found Mount Sinai Hospital in the 1920s, which served Jewish Canadians and employed doctors often shut out of hospitals by antisemitism. During the Holocaust she led relief fundraising and, through her family’s steamship agency, helped hundreds of Eastern European Jews settle in Canada.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Archibald MacMechan, 1897 (Dalhousie University Archives).
CA-K705Culture & sport

Archibald MacMechan, man of letters at Dalhousie

Archibald MacMechan, born in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario, was professor of English at Dalhousie University from 1889 until his death. A book critic for the Montreal Standard for 20 years, he wrote several books about Nova Scotia and edited works by Tennyson and Carlyle, and received the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1932.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché (J.-I. Benoît, Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K702History

Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché, who presided at the Québec Conference

Étienne-Paschal Taché of Montmagny, a physician and soldier who fought at Châteauguay and Plattsburgh in the War of 1812, sat in the legislature and Legislative Council of the Province of Canada. In 1864 he headed the Taché–Macdonald coalition, presided at the Québec Conference and sponsored the Québec Resolutions in the Legislative Council.

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Photo: Jules-Isaïe Benoît · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Tupper, 1896 (Topley Studio).
CA-K686Institutions

Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation and prime minister

Charles Tupper of Amherst, a physician, became premier of Nova Scotia in 1864 and, allied with John A. Macdonald, advocated Confederation despite substantial opposition in Nova Scotia. After federal cabinet posts and 11 years as High Commissioner in London, he succeeded Bowell as prime minister in 1896, then led the opposition after his party’s defeat that year.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Pierre-Amand Landry, MP, February 1884 (Topley Studio).
CA-K685History

Sir Pierre-Amand Landry, Acadian leader

Pierre-Amand Landry of Memramcook, a lawyer, politician and judge, defended Acadians’ rights in the New Brunswick legislature, the House of Commons and the courts, notably during the crisis over the Common Schools Act of 1871. A leader of the Acadian Renaissance who promoted tolerance between French and English, he presided over the first three Acadian National Conventions and was the first Acadian knighted.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Honoré Mercier, around 1880 (J.-E. Livernois).
CA-K668Institutions

Honoré Mercier, premier of Quebec

Honoré Mercier, a lawyer and orator from Saint-Hyacinthe, led the Parti national formed in 1885 by Liberals and Conservatives outraged by the Riel affair. As premier of Quebec from 1887 to 1891 he encouraged agricultural settlement, convened the first conference of premiers and fiercely defended provincial autonomy.

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Photo: Jules-Ernest Livernois · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph Trutch, June 1870 (Topley Studio).
CA-K663Indigenous peoples & reconciliation

Joseph Trutch and First Nations lands in British Columbia

Joseph Trutch, a British-born engineer who believed Indigenous Peoples inferior, was British Columbia’s chief commissioner of lands and works from 1864 to 1871. Representing settler interests, he cut existing reserves, allotted minimal land to new ones, denied Aboriginal title and refused treaties, denying First Nations access to their territories; he became the province’s first lieutenant-governor in 1871.

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Photo: William James Topley (June 1870); Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Robert Parkin, 1910.
CA-K655Institutions

Sir George Parkin, imperial federationist and Rhodes secretary

George Parkin of Salisbury, New Brunswick, a school headmaster, became principal of Upper Canada College in 1895 and was organizing secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust from 1902 to 1920. A powerful advocate of a federal union of the British Empire, he lectured and wrote widely, including Imperial Federation (1892).

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Photo: Unknown photographer; published by the Empire Club of Canada (1910) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Eulas Foster, around 1920 (Bain, Library of Congress).
CA-K651Institutions

Sir George Foster, Conservative finance minister

George Eulas Foster of Carleton County, New Brunswick, a former classics professor, sat in the House of Commons for most of 1882–1921. A central Conservative figure and orator, he was Minister of Finance under five prime ministers and Minister of Commerce under Borden and Meighen, and supported the League of Nations.

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Photo: Bain · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Richard William Scott (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K620Institutions

Sir Richard Scott and the Separate School Act of 1863

Richard William Scott of Prescott, an Ottawa lawyer, sponsored the Separate School Act of 1863 in the legislature of the Province of Canada. Appointed to the Senate in 1874, he was Secretary of State under Mackenzie, responsible for the Canada Temperance Act of 1878, and again under Laurier, and led the Liberals in the Senate.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, 1957 (Gar Lunney).
CA-K616Institutions

John Diefenbaker, 13th prime minister

John Diefenbaker, a charismatic orator raised in Saskatchewan, was a defence lawyer and MP for some 40 years and Canada’s 13th prime minister from 1957 to 1963. He revived the Progressive Conservative Party, winning a landslide in 1958, and his government extended social programs, promoted Northern development and championed human rights at home and abroad.

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Photo: Gar Lunney · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alice Ravenhill in 1917.
CA-K610Institutions

Alice Ravenhill, educator and reformer

Alice Ravenhill, an educator and social reformer prominent in public health and home economics in Britain, came to Canada in 1910 and worked with the University of British Columbia, Victoria College, the Women’s Institutes and the province on educational reform. Later she wrote a pioneering school text on Indigenous societies and founded a society to promote British Columbia Indigenous arts and crafts.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Frederick W. G. Haultain, May 1884 (Glenbow Archives).
CA-K589Institutions

Sir Frederick Haultain, premier of the North-West Territories

Frederick Haultain, a Fort Macleod lawyer, sat in the North-West Territories council and assembly from 1887 to 1905 and led the push for responsible government and provincial status. He was premier of the Territories from 1897 to 1905, then opposition leader in Saskatchewan and chief justice of Saskatchewan from 1912.

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Photo: Sproule, G. B. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Benjamin Sulte (BAnQ).
CA-K585Culture & sport

Benjamin Sulte, historian of French Canada

Benjamin Sulte of Trois-Rivières, a public servant in the Department of Militia, devoted himself to history, publishing works such as Histoire des Canadiens-français and La Bataille de Châteauguay. A founding member of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882, he became its president in 1904.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context