A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography. Various
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éclat to his statesmanship. He would see Canada a unit while aiding the mother lands in Europe by force of arms, and thus uphold the prestige of the British Empire. And the various offices Sir Lomer Gouin has held from the day he entered public life in 1891, indicate the strenuous part he has played as a public-spirited Canadian. In 1891, he was President of the National Club in Montreal, which was virtually “the Executive of the Liberal Party” in the Montreal district. That year he was defeated in his first election contest. Six years after he was elected representative for the St. James Electoral Division of Montreal, and thereafter has been member for his native County of Portneuf. He has continued to be a Member of the Council of Public Instruction since 1898; became President of the American Fish and Game Protection Association in 1910; was Chairman of the Ottawa Inter-provincial Conference in 1906, and afterwards a delegate to a like Conference in 1910. As from one “learned in the law,” his edition of the Municipal Code is a standard work; while no one has so well at his command the details of parliamentary law-and-order as he has, as leader of the House of Assembly. The record of his regime is concisely given in a neat little volume published in 1916, under the title of “Le Gouvernment Gouin et Son Oeuvre.” Another volume referring to the federal subsidies in favor of the provinces was published in 1903, giving the amplified record of an address delivered by Sir Lomer under the heading of “The Actual Question.” These volumes, together with the reports of his speeches from time to time, indicate how Sir Lomer Gouin has ever had in mind the public interest—seeing to the improving of the conditions in his native province, even to the widening out of its area as in the case of the annexation of the District of Ungava, building government works, and highways, and bridges, and never forgetting to urge it to keep pace with its sister provinces in the federacy which includes them all within the Dominion of Canada. In seeing to the advancement of the province he has in charge as premier, he has made fame for himself as a loyal statesman and dignified scholar, duly honored by the King and his country’s seats of learning. He was married to Miss Alice Amos, his second wife, in 1911. By his first wife he has had two sons—Leon, who is practising law in Montreal; and Paul, who is a lieutenant on active service.
Drayton, Sir Henry Lumley, K.C., K.B., Chief Commissioner, Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, was born in Kingston, Ontario, April 27, 1869. He is the son of Philip Henry Drayton, who came to Canada with the 16th Rifles of England, and Margaret S. (Covernton) Drayton. He was educated in the schools of England and Canada. On September 14, 1892, he married Edith Mary Cawthra, daughter of the late Joseph Cawthra, Toronto, and has three daughters. Sir Henry Drayton was called to the Ontario Bar in 1891 and soon became recognized as one of the leaders in the legal profession. In September 1893, he was appointed Assistant City Solicitor for Toronto, and when he resigned in September, 1900, he was presented with a gold watch in recognition of the valuable services he had rendered to the city in his legal capacity. He immediately (September, 1900), formed partnership with Charles J. Holman, K.C., and in January, 1902, was appointed Counsel to the Railway Committee of the Ontario Legislature by the Chairman, the Hon. John Dryden. The following year he was appointed representative of the Ontario Government for the purpose of adjudicating upon and paying, on behalf of the Government, the claims of workmen of the different Clergue Companies operating at Sault Ste. Marie, and on January 29, 1904, he was appointed County Crown Attorney for the County of York, on the recommendation of the Hon. J. M. Gibson. In 1905 he was appointed Counsel on Civic Bribery Investigation, Toronto, the Civic Investigation Court House in 1906, the Public School Board Investigation, and also the Civic Investigation into the Medical Health Department. January the 20th, 1908, he was created K.C. He resigned his position as County Crown Attorney in 1909, and the following year, April 25, 1910, was appointed Counsel for the Corporation of the City of Toronto. May 11, 1911, he was appointed as representative of the Ontario Government a member of the Toronto Power Commission. When on July 1, 1912, he was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada the Toronto City Council presented him with an illuminated album. In July, 1913, he was appointed Commissioner to deal with the question of Control of Ocean Freight Rates. In 1917 Sir Henry Drayton was appointed a member of the Drayton-Smith-Acworth Commission which investigated the Canadian railway situation. When the work of the Commission was completed and their report presented to the Government, he, as his fee for his able services on the Commission, was presented with a cheque for $15,000 by the Dominion Government. He refused to accept payment and returned the cheque. Acknowledging the receipt of the returned cheque the then Minister of Railways and Canals, Hon. Mr. Cochrane, wrote in part as follows: “I can assure you that your very patriotic attitude in this matter is most sincerely appreciated by the Government at a time when every dollar which can be saved is of material importance to the successful prosecution of the war.” In very many other ways since the war commenced in 1914, Sir Henry Drayton has rendered valuable services—financially, as a member of committees and in the direction of transportation, supply and other matters. He is ever to the fore to do all he can to help Canada successfully bear the burdens—financially, commercially and otherwise—that this war has forced her to carry and no one has ever rendered such services more freely and willingly. Sir Henry Drayton is a member of the Toronto, Toronto Hunt, Ontario Jockey, Rideau, Ottawa Royal Golf, Country (Ottawa), Connaught Park Jockey (Ottawa), and the Kaministiquia (Fort William) Clubs. His address is 233 Metcalfe St., Ottawa.
S. R. PARSONS
Toronto
Dobell, Sir Charles Macpherson, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. (Quebec City), Lieutenant-General of the British Army, is a son of the late Hon. R. R. Dobell, lumber merchant, of Quebec, and a grandson of Senator Sir David Macpherson, at one time Speaker of the Canadian Senate. He is a native of Quebec, having been born on June 22, 1869. Receiving his elementary education at the Rev. Canon Von Iffland’s Private School, he became a student at the Quebec High School and later at the Charterhouse School in England, previous to his entering the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario. From that institution he graduated in 1890. After serving as a Lieutenant in the Hazara Expedition, wherein his bravery was mentioned in dispatches and by the award of a medal and clasp, his advancement has proceeded steadily with his experience in active service. He took part with the International Forces in the occupation of the Island of Crete, and was there raised to the rank of Major. During the South African War, he joined the Canadian Contingent, and won his D.S.O. with other honors, during the several engagements of the campaign. In command of a regiment of mounted infantry he shared in conflict after conflict with the Boers, taking part in the relief of Kimberley, and in the engagements of Paardeberg, Poplar Grove, Prefontaine, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Diamond Hill, and many others. After serving in Nigeria, he was given the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, his name from time to time occurring in the dispatches to the War Office. As an interruption to his service in Nigeria, he was called to China during the Boxer uprising, and was present at the relief of Pekin by the International Forces. On his return from China, he was appointed by the War Office to the South African Intelligence Department, and became an A.D.C. to the King. Later on he was gazetted as Inspector-General of the West African Field Force, with the rank of Brigadier-General, a position he was holding when Germany declared war in 1914. Since then he has gained further distinction and promotion. With a combined force of French and English troops numbering nearly ten thousand, he shared in the conquest of the German Colony of the Cameroons, a territory covering an area in all of 300,000 square miles. On New Year’s Day, 1916, the order of C.M.G. was bestowed upon him by King George, and eventually, at the close of the Cameroon Expedition, he received the honor of K.C.B., as well as the Legion of Honor from the President of the French Republic, being at the same time gazetted as a Major-General of the British Army. A still later event in his career as a “soldier of the king” led to his being placed in command as Lieut.-General of the Coast Forces that were to advance from the Suez Canal into Palestine. Altogether Sir Charles Dobell’s career has been a splendid one. Hailing as he does from a district in Canada that has provided several military officers of high rank to the forces of the Motherland, his fellow-Canadians cannot but be proud of the record made by one of their own as a soldier and commander. He was married in 1908, to Mrs. (Elsye Bankes) Campbell, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel Meyrick Bankes, of London, and widow of Captain F. L. Campbell, R.N. His two brothers, Mr. William Molson Dobell, lumber merchant,