A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various
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in the Tay at Dundee, and was in the habit, sometimes, of carrying younger boys on his back out into the stream, and then throwing them off; but before doing this, however, he always gave them instructions how to swim on their “own hook.” He has been known to swim for three miles on a stretch, resting occasionally on his back. At Pond’s Bay he one time fell out of a boat, while steering with a long oar, amongst a lot of whales. There were about fifty ships’ boats and their crews in a crack in the land ice, which extended about twenty miles from the shore, and in some places the rent was about one hundred yards wide. In this opening the whales were so numerous that the harpooners only selected the largest fish for capture. During the excitement, and when passing another boat, the blade of one of their side oars unshipped the doctor’s steering oar while he was pushing it from him, and, losing his balance, he fell into the water. He however did not feel the least alarmed, but at once struck out for the ice, and, drying his clothes as well as he could, walked to his ship, which was anchored about two miles away, in the field ice, and soon found himself on deck, not much the worse for his ducking. In the spring of 1835, having passed his examination before the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, he returned to Dundee and married Margaret McDonald, the only daughter of Duncan McDonald, a well-known manufacturer of that town, and Margaret Rose, his wife. To Miss McDonald he had been betrothed for several years. He then became house surgeon in the Dundee Royal Infirmary, and having filled this position for about two years, gave it up, and entered into private practice, his office being in the same house in which he was born and married. In 1843 Dr. Wanless, accompanied by his wife, mother, brother, and sisters, with their husbands, emigrated to Canada, and ultimately settled in London, Ontario. While in this city the doctor built up a good practice, and as coroner for the city of London and county of Middlesex he was highly spoken of by the press for the luminous and logical way in which he presented evidence to his jurors. In 1849 he received his license from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada. One day, in 1859, as he was walking along a street in London to visit a patient, he observed Dr. Bull, a homœopathist, give some pellets to a man who had fallen out of a two-story window. Having a prejudice against homœopathy, he accosted Dr. Bull in these words, “Don’t you think shame of yourself in giving that useless trash to a man in that condition?” Dr. Bull rose up, in a defensive attitude, and said, “I have always taken you for a sensible man, and instead of acting as you have done in your persecutions of us, why don’t you try to test our remedies according to the law of cure? I will give you some of our books to read, and also some of our medicines for that purpose.” Dr. Wanless accepted the offer, and took the books and medicines, thinking that he would be able to expose what he then thought was a humbug. After studying the principle of homœopathy for some time he gave the medicines to some of his patients, strictly according to the principles of homœopathy, beginning with some cases which had resisted the allopathic treatment under his own care, and that of some of the ablest men in the country, keeping a strict account of the symptoms and disease, and the symptoms and pathogenesy of what the medicine would produce on the healthy body, and after carefully testing this method of practice for nearly two years, he found that, instead of persecuting the homœopathists, he would have to become a homœopathist himself. After thorough conviction of its benefits to his patients, like Paul with the Christians, and in order to carry out the practice of homœopathy with more efficiency, he ceased from practice in London, and devoted himself to renewed study at the age of fifty years, and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1861, and the degree of Doctor in Medicine from the same University in the following year, 1862. He then, in order to have a wider field to labour in, went to Montreal (but before leaving having been complimented by the press of London upon his previous professional attainments), where he now resides, enjoying a good practice. In politics, as in medicine, Dr. Wanless has sought to conserve the good, and set aside the effete and worthless. Both in London and Montreal, by his spirited and able contributions to the press, he has done much to popularize homœopathy, and establish its prime tenets. He was instrumental in procuring an act of the Provincial parliament of Quebec, in favour of homœopathic education, and with power to grant licenses to those who had studied according to the curriculum specified by the act, and who had passed a satisfactory examination before the appointed board of examiners, as he always upheld that homœopaths, as well as allopaths, should be able to show that they possessed a thorough medical education and training. Dr. Wanless is nominal dean of the Faculty of the College of Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons of Montreal, and professor of the practice of physic and one of the examiners of the college. He attained the license of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1835; College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada in 1849; M.B. of the University of Toronto, 1861; M.D. of the University of Toronto in 1862, and is a member of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and Quebec. He has a son, Dr. John R. Wanless, who now practises in Dunedin, New Zealand. This gentleman is a graduate M.D.,C.M. of McGill University, Montreal, and, like his father, has adopted the homœopathic principle from conviction. In religion, as in politics and medicine, the doctor is thoroughly liberal, and belongs to the Congregational body of worshippers. He is broad in his views, giving liberty of opinion to all, and exhibits no desire to scold and burn those who differ from him, except to show them their error by fair reasoning.
Boswell, George Morss Jukes, Q.C., Judge of the County Court of the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham, Cobourg, Ontario, was born at Gosport, England, in June, 1804. His father, John Boswell, of London, England, solicitor, was the youngest son of James Boswell, an officer in the Royal Navy, whose four elder brothers were also officers in the same service, and a descendant of the Boswells of Balmuto, Scotland, the elder branch of the family of the celebrated biographer. Judge Boswell, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the Grammar School, Buntingford, Herts, England, came to Canada in 1822, and was one of the earliest settlers in Cobourg. He was called to the bar in Michaelmas term, 1827, and is the premier Queen’s counsel in Canada, being the first created by commission in August, 1841. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Upper Canada Assembly in 1836, but was returned at the first election after the union of Upper and Lower Canada, and sat from 1841 to 1844, in the then Parliament of Canada. While in parliament he took a prominent part in constitutional debate, was a staunch advocate of responsible government, and although a Conservative in principle, worked with the Reform party until constitutional government was conceded. During the discussion on this question, he forced Mr. Draper, then attorney-general, to admit the principle, “That if the government cannot command the majority of the house, so that its measures may be carried on harmoniously, if they do not find by the whole proceedings of the house that they have the confidence of a majority of its members, then that a dissolution of the house shall follow, or that the government resign.” This then settled this important question of responsible government, though dragged out of Attorney-General Draper against his will (see Cobourg Star, June 11th, 1841). Before accepting a judgeship, Mr. Boswell was one of the leading lawyers in Canada, and as such was specially retained to defend Hunter, Morrison, Montgomery, and others, who were tried for high treason in connection with the rebellion in 1837. The two former were acquitted. In 1845, he was appointed Judge of the County Court of the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham, and accepted superannuation in 1882. In 1837, he served under Colonel Ham as brigade major with the volunteers in suppressing the rebellion, and was on the frontier at Chippawa, at the time the rebels under McKenzie took possession of Navy Island. Judge Boswell was married first in 1829, to Susannah, daughter of James Radcliffe, by whom he had a numerous family; and last to Mary, daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Wrench, rector of St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, London.
Ogilvie, Hon. Alexander Walker, Montreal, Lieutenant-Colonel, member of the Senate of Canada for Alma division, was born at St. Michael, near the city of Montreal, on the 7th of May, 1829. The Ogilvie family is descended from a younger brother of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, a valiant soldier who in the thirteenth century was rewarded with the land of Ogilvie, in Banffshire, Scotland, and assumed the name of the estate. The family is celebrated in history for having long preserved the Crown and sceptre of Scotland from the hands of Oliver Cromwell. The parents of Senator Ogilvie came from Stirlingshire, Scotland, to Canada in 1800, and Mr. Ogilvie, sr., served his adopted country as a volunteer cavalry officer during the war of 1812–14 against the Americans; and took up arms against the so-called patriots during the Canadian rebellion of 1837–8. To this couple were born a large family of sons and daughters, and