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Memorial University College was founded in St. John’s in 1925 to commemorate Newfoundlanders who died in the First World War. Its institutional history also traces the development of higher education in Newfoundland to the Council of Higher Education, established in 1893.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: User:Neelix · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The University of Windsor’s story began in September 1857, when the first students arrived at its predecessor, Assumption College. Assumption admitted its first women students in 1950 and, on July 1, 1953, ended its affiliation with the University of Western Ontario and gained its own university powers by an act of the Ontario Legislature.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Krylan22 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Western University was founded on March 7, 1878, by Bishop Isaac Hellmuth as The Western University of London Ontario, and first admitted students in 1881 in arts, divinity, law and medicine. It bought its present campus from the Kingsmill family in 1916 and was renamed The University of Western Ontario in 1923. Brescia University College fully integrated with Western in 2024.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: R.schneider101 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
The University of Toronto was founded in 1827. Its Governing Council, established under the University of Toronto Act, 1971, oversees the university’s academic, business and student affairs.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: KTMAR · Photo licence: CC BY 3.0 · Credit & context
Queen’s University was established in Kingston, Ontario, in 1841. Arthur B. McDonald, a professor emeritus at Queen’s, received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Takipoint123 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
OCAD University began in Toronto as the Ontario School of Art in 1876, founded by the Ontario Society of Artists with 14 registered students. It was incorporated as the Ontario College of Art in 1912 and adopted the OCAD University name in 2010. The Sharp Centre for Design opened in 2004.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: John Vetterli from Toronto, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Tyndale University traces its origins to the Toronto Bible Training School, founded in 1894. It adopted the name Tyndale College & Seminary in 1998; Ontario legislation authorized its arts degrees in 2003 under the name Tyndale University College & Seminary.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Silver Dovelet · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Nova Scotia Community College traces its vocational-education roots to a school opened in 1872. That institution developed into the Nautical Institute at the college’s Strait Area Campus in Port Hawkesbury.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Nikitoomey · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Mount Allison University traces its beginnings to Charles Frederick Allison’s 1839 proposal for a school offering elementary and higher education in Sackville, New Brunswick. The university provides a liberal arts and sciences education near the Tantramar marshes.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jmdc-chicago · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Founded in Halifax in 1818 by Lord Dalhousie, Dalhousie University began regular teaching later in the nineteenth century. Margaret Florence Newcombe became its first woman graduate in 1885.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: mricon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 · Credit & context
Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, was founded in 1838 by local Baptists who wanted a university for the region that would not require religious tests of its faculty or students. Clara Belle Marshall became its first woman graduate in 1884, and University Hall, completed in 1925, is a landmark of the campus.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ryan Stevens · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
John Norquay, a Métis statesman born at St. Andrew’s in the Red River settlement, was elected to Manitoba’s first assembly in 1870 and became premier in 1878. His government, built on shared French and English participation, won an extended Manitoba boundary and better financial terms from Ottawa, and built railways in defiance of the Canadian Pacific charter and federal disallowance. He resigned as premier in 1887 but sat as a member until his death.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Ogilvie of Ottawa became a Dominion Land Surveyor in 1872. He worked on the Canada–Alaska boundary survey and explored the Mackenzie River, contributing to mapping Canada’s northwest. He wrote The Klondike Official Guide (1898) and served as Commissioner of the Yukon from 1898 to 1901, during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John William Ritchie, a gifted lawyer, legislator and judge, helped pave the way for Nova Scotia’s reluctant entry into Confederation. A member of the colony’s legislature and solicitor general (1864–67), he was a delegate to the London Conference of 1866–67, which finalized the terms of union. After championing Confederation in the Legislative Council, he was named to the first Senate and later sat on the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown artist · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Horatio Walker, born at Listowel, Ontario, learned watercolour in Toronto and was largely self-taught. In 1883 he settled on Île d’Orléans, where for more than fifty years he painted rural life. Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1918, he became its president in 1925. His traditional portrayals of people and animals won international acclaim and hang in major American galleries and the National Gallery of Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Melvin Ormond Hammond (1876 - 1934) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Anthony Musgrave, a career imperial civil servant, was governor of Newfoundland (1864–69) and British Columbia (1869–71). In both colonies he worked hard to encourage union with the new Canadian confederation, and under his direction British Columbia entered the Dominion on July 20, 1871. Knighted in 1875, he later governed Natal, South Australia, Jamaica and Queensland.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer; State Library of South Australia · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Archibald Fraser started in his family’s small sawmill in the 1880s and became a leading pioneer of New Brunswick’s pulp industry. As the lumber trade declined he looked for new uses of the province’s forests, and in 1918 opened a modern pulp mill at Edmundston. He soon became an industry giant, and by his death pulp and paper had replaced lumber as the province’s most important manufacturing industry.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Bouchecl · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
James Cockburn came to Montréal from England in 1832, was educated in Toronto and set up a law practice in Cobourg. Elected for Northumberland West in 1861, he attended the Quebec Conference of 1864 as a cabinet minister and is one of the Fathers of Confederation. When the first Parliament of Canada met in November 1867, he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, serving until 1874.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Jonathan McCully, born in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, practised law in Amherst and from 1848 sat in the Legislative Council, serving as Solicitor General and government leader there. As editor of the Halifax Morning Chronicle, the Novascotian and later the Unionist, he championed Confederation and attended the Charlottetown, Quebec and London conferences. Named to the Senate in 1867, he became a judge of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in 1870.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hantsheroes · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Joseph-Israël Tarte, a brilliant polemicist, journalist and politician, took part in every major political battle of his time, working under various banners to protect French and Catholic minorities and strengthen Canada’s place in the Empire. Elected in 1891, he engineered Laurier’s 1896 triumph in Quebec. As Minister of Public Works (1896–1902) he improved St. Lawrence navigation and made Montréal the country’s leading port.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jules-Isaïe Benoît · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph Howe, born in Halifax and largely self-taught, became publisher of the Novascotian and by 1836 was his province’s leading journalist and orator. Elected that year, he led the struggle that won responsible government in 1848. An eloquent opponent of Confederation in the 1860s, he joined the federal cabinet in 1869 after negotiating “better terms” for Nova Scotia, and shortly before his death in 1873 became its lieutenant governor.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Theodore August Heintzman, a German immigrant and experienced craftsman, worked in a piano factory in the United States before his own business there failed. Arriving in Toronto almost penniless in 1860, he built a piano in his daughter’s home and used the proceeds to start a factory. His company grew quickly into one of Canada’s longest-lived piano makers, selling across the country and abroad.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert Barry Dickey, born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, practised law there and sat in the province’s Legislative Council from 1858 to 1867. A Father of Confederation, he attended the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences but would not endorse the Quebec Resolutions until better financial terms were granted in 1866. A successful businessman, he was named to the Senate in 1867.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Ernest Alexander Cruikshank, born in Bertie Township, Ontario, was a journalist and translator before joining the militia in 1877, rising to brigadier-general in 1915 and directing the general staff’s historical section. He chaired the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada from its creation in 1919 until his death, and wrote many papers and books on Ontario and Canadian history.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context