Chapter three

When I was six years of age, my father bought a farm two miles north of the village from William Banting, father of the late Sir Frederick, a few years before Sir Frederick was born. In later years, and after he has become illustrious through the discovery of insulin, we became close friends, and I spent many interesting hours on visits to him in the Banting Institute for Medical Research, so named in his honour. His tragic death, while on active service in World War II was a great loss to Canadian Medicine, and to his Canada, his Commonwealth and Empire.

William James Deadman ⁱ

As we discussed, Will’s father was finally persuaded that his son should go farther in his career. His mother also could see the changes that were coming and she supported him in his desire to pursue a professional career. But he needed to work if he was to afford a university education.

In the newly opened townships in the Queen’s Bush ¹ there was a severe shortage of school teachers so teaching certificates was developed with three levels or grades, each grade requiring less training with corresponding limitations in the scope of practice. A first-class certificate usually required a prior college or university degree. It permitted teaching at the secondary school level. A second-class certificate required training at Normal School and permitted teaching at the primary school level. A third-class certificate required a four month course at Model School and only allowed teaching in rural one-room schools where the difficulty in getting teachers was most severe.

So he decided to go to Model School. Will talked to a Mr. Scarrow who was very helpful in steering him into teaching. Mr. Scarrow taught at Bradford High School but was also in the Model School program which was run at the High School. Will enrolled in the Model School in the fall of 1902, completing this program just before Christmas. There was some delay in finding a suitable school, and Mr. Scarrow helped him with the search. By early spring he had found a school in Grey County not far from Walter`s Falls. His account continues:

“I completed my matriculation at the Bradford High School, and, after a four months course in teaching at the local Model School there secured a Third Class Teacher’s Certificate. For the next four years I was a school teacher in one-room rural schools around the village of Walter’s Falls about 20 miles south-east of Owen Sound.”ⁱⁱ

School-teaching in the Queen’s Bush.

After the Easter holidays, he began teaching at S.S. No. 9, Euphrasia Township and continued there for two years. He described a stone school house near the hamlet of Goring, a few miles south-east of Walter’s Falls. His salary was $325 a year and he lived with a local farm family – room and board, $2 a week. He also recalled a Methodist church which held revivals fairly regularly.ⁱⁱⁱ He then continued there until the spring of 1905.

After his 2 years at Goring, he taught for 2 years at the Blind Line School ² in adjacent Holland Township, at the intersection of the 1^st line and the 3^rd sideroad a few miles north-east of Walters Falls. He mentions Bogner, another hamlet nearby. As of 2005, the school was still standing, a substantial stone building built in 1873 in the style of rural schools of the period with the girls’ entrance on the right and the boys’ on the left. It has not been used as a school since the 1950s but it is well maintained and gives an idea of the typical schools of the period. From its size and layout, it probably could not accommodate more than about 25-30 pupils in the double school-desk benches of the day.

The building was closed many years ago and has been converted into a private residence. This is now located on Grey County Road 29. Presumably one of these roads was a blind line when the school was built.

Walter’s Falls was a very small village south-east of Owen Sound in a part of Grey County that was entirely rural and sparsely populated. It was much smaller than Beeton and even in its heyday would not have had more than a couple of hundred souls. But from Will’s descriptions, there was an active social life and many outdoor activities. He mentions trout fishing in the local river and the pond behind the mill dam. He had played football at the Bradford High School and here, he found that his skills were in demand with the local football team.³ They played games with neighbouring villages and with larger centres such as Owen Sound or Meaford. While visiting there, he was impressed by the large “lakers” (steamships) that were plying the Great Lakes and putting in to Owen Sound.

“Teacher’s salaries in those days were not what they are today. My first year’s salary was $325.00 and for my last year I received the better-than-average salary of $460.00 per year. Room and board were to be had for $2.00 a week and country life involved very little out-of-pocket expense.”^iv

In many respects his life here would be similar to life in Beeton except as a school teacher, he would have some professional status. Even though automobiles were becoming common in the cities, they were a rare sight in these rural areas and transportation was either by horse and buggy or the ubiquitous stage coach that connected the larger centres. Will used a bicycle to get around. It was of the “velocipede” style, with a chain and sprockets. But there was no “free-wheeling” or brakes, so, on the rough gravel or dirt roads of the day, it must have been a beast to ride.

Will recalled that he had pointed toes on his cycling shoes so that he could insert his toe between the front wheel and the fork to stop. If not carefully done, it could throw you over the handlebars. To slow down, you simply put your full weight on the pedals during the up-stroke. He recalled more than one header into the roadside bushes or the ditch when his feet came off the pedals while he was going downhill. They were thrashing around furiously and he could not get his feet back on to control his speed.

In winter, the main mode of transportation was horse and sleigh, or “shanks’ mare”.⁴ Otherwise, he would have stayed at his lodgings, walked to his school and ventured out only for essentials. To visit his parents on the farm, he would ride his bicycle down the township roads to the Prince of Wales highway near Markdale, then down to Shelburne, across to Alliston and down to the 10^th concession north of Beeton, a distance of close to 70 miles. He makes reference to this but one wonders how often he actually did it. It is more likely that he may have taken the stage coaches especially in bad weather.

It seems that he returned to the farm to help his father and his brothers most summers. After his last teaching year, he obtained a job with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in the summer of 1907 laying track through Saskatchewan, but this was just before he was due to start his university career.

Nineteenth Century Bicycles

The bicycle had undergone great development in the 19^th century. The original version, called the velocipede had two wheels the same size, and the rider sat astride it, like a horse, and pushed with his feet on the ground to make it go. Then someone thought of attaching pedals to the front wheels. To gain more speed, the front wheel was made bigger, until in the latter half of the century, the front wheel was so large that one needed very long legs to reach the pedals. This design was referred to as the “penny-farthing” because the enormous front wheel and the tiny rear wheel reminded them of a large English penny and a quarter penny, called a farthing, which was smaller than a Canadian 1¢ coin. The contraption was difficult to ride and even more difficult to mount.

A Career in Medicine.

By the time he had taught in one-room schools for a few years, he was encouraged by the village doctor in Walter’s Falls to consider a career in medicine because doctors were in short supply in the country. He had been considering a university career to become a high school science teacher so, with the doctor’s encouragement he also investigated medicine. Then, as now, you needed high marks to get in and some background in medicine was always helpful. The doctor suggested a compromise. He writes:

“I had at first thought of aiming to be a High School Science teacher. However, having formed a friendship with the son of local doctor, I learned from him of the course in Biology and Physics which led into Medicine, and decided to enrol in it so that if, at graduation in Arts, Medicine had no appeal, I could follow my original plan.” ^v

…and from a later draft:

“Over the four years I managed to save nearly $1000.00 which carried me through the most of my university course, for at that time, a year in Arts cost about $250.00 and a year in Medicine $400.00 – approximately one tenth of the cost today.”^vi

By the time he entered the University of Toronto in 1907 ‘boom’ times were here. These good times lasted until 1913, when another world economic collapse began. The agricultural depression had been more persistent than the general depression which had lasted throughout the 1870s with some relief in the 1880s becoming worse again in the 1890s. By the time of the Boer War, the agricultural economy was improving and by 1907, there had been almost a decade of higher farm prices and general buoyancy in the mood of people in the rural areas. This was a heady time to be entering on a new career. In the summer of 1907, he helped his father on the farm. He had only seen his family infrequently during the previous four years and there was a lot of catching up to do. It was another time when Will felt that his world was opening up in new and challenging directions.

The Early 20^th Century – Social and Economic Visions.

As we have noted, the same issues that dominated debate at the close of the 19^th century continued into the early years of the new century. Reciprocity was politically divisive. The Second Boer War (1899-1902) divided French and English populations – the English being very supportive of their place in the British Empire, whereas the French were more isolated and still threatened by the dominant English majority. But the Manitoba Schools question continued as a festering sore right up to the onset of the First World War.

In the general election of 1896, Sir Wilfred Laurier became Prime Minister. His Liberal government lasted through elections in 1900, 1904 and 1908. In the election of 1911 he was defeated by a Conservative administration under Sir Robert Bordon. By that time the world was within a few years of the cataclysm in Europe, the Great War (1914-1918).

While the Liberals had a newly confident leader in Wilfred Laurier, who began the Liberal policy of seeming to promise one thing, while having no actual intention of pursuing such a policy. In the campaign he denounced the Conservative plan for the Manitoba Schools issue as giving too little to the French language in Manitoba, but once in power he gave even less, in order to settle the issue and get it out of the spotlight. By 1896 also, the Liberals had quietly abandoned their quest for free trade with the Americans, and spoke only vaguely about the need for freer trade in general. The new Liberalism had been born, which was to make the 20th century largely a Liberal century in Canada.

In the first national census of 1871, Canada had a population of about 3.6 million facing 38 million Americans. It could be described as an uncertain experiment in semi-independence. By 1901, although the Canadian economy was now finally booming and immigration was at last fulfilling its promise and the West was being filled with settlers, it was a nation of only just over 5.3 million now facing 76 million Americans. Only within the Empire could Canada hope for anything more than banana republic status for the foreseeable future. Within the Empire, however, Canada could see itself as a growing influence in its own turn strengthening the Empire, whose population and international stretch, both politically and economically, was far greater than the United States.

This new prosperity was reflected in the overall rise in per capita income from an average of 1% per year up to the late 1890s, to an average of nearly 3% per year from then to 1912.⁵ There was still flow-through migration to the U.S. where wages historically remained higher on average than in Canada, but the U.S. was full, so to speak, with virtually no cheap land and cities already marked by enormous size, stark contrasts between poverty and wealth, and massive corruption to match. Canada seemed prosperous enough and a kinder, gentler place in all.

In 1901 Canada produced roughly 55 million bushels of wheat; in 1912 this figure was 231 million. By 1911, Ontario and Quebec accounted for four fifths of manufacturing in Canada. While Nova Scotia had had much manufacturing during the early railway age, this was now ended, as the Maritimes were now experiencing their long, slow decline relative to the rest of the Dominion. In 1911, the Borden Conservatives defeated Laurier at last, over a Liberal proposal for reduced tariffs on trade with the U.S. Unfortunately for Borden, the economic boom came to an end at about the same time – prices for Canadian commodities fell, investment in Canada declined – and the new railways did not produce enough revenue to become profitable; too much of a good thing meant too many railways in proportion to the population. But, the Canada that was to exist for another generation was in place.

Fin de Siècle – The Apogee of the Victorian Age.

The new century not only marked the end of the Victorian era, it also marked a dramatic change and decline in the old European order that had been in place for many centuries. The fourteen years from the end of Queen Victoria’s reign until the beginning of the Great War has been captured by Philipp Blom in his book: The Vertigo Years ^vii and also by Margaret MacMillan in a series of books such as The War that ended Peace.^viii The period was marked by the rapid advances in science and corresponding changes in culture and society. It saw the breakdown and eventual collapse of aristocracies and imperial powers. It saw dramatic power realignments not only between nations but between social classes and political systems. In the cataclysm of the first World War that followed, it was sometimes considered as a peaceful time and a time of social advance but as Blom points out, it would not be seen that way by the people who lived through it. As one studies the events that took place in those fourteen years, one concludes that the war that followed became inevitable. But as viewed from the colonies in North America, it began to take on the appearance of a Greek tragedy. In the United States, it spawned a strong move to isolationism that persisted well into the Second World War. But in the closing years of the Victorian era, none of this could be imagined or anticipated. The British Empire seemed strong and Canada depended on it for its strength and protection.

The tensions between French and English were to underline the insurmountable difficulties of imperial union within Canada, the senior dominion. While the British were quite willing to create an Empire Council and push for imperial free trade, they rightly insisted this also meant a sharing of the hard slogging, in this case an official contribution to the war from Canada. French opinion in Canada made this impossible. Laurier was to be forced by public opinion to equip a force of 1000 volunteers to be sent to South Africa. His French cabinet members opposed this.⁶

The Alaska boundary dispute also served in the long run to build a national feeling in Canada. The Americans had purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 and the boundary in what is now called the Alaskan panhandle was decided by an older treaty between Russian and England, signed in 1825. The terms were confusing however, but caused no problems until the Klondike gold rush of the late 90s. Canada hoped for a resolution which would give unfettered access to the sea from the gold fields. The dispute dragged on until 1903, when a commission, composed of three Americans, two Canadians and one Brit, gave the Americans most of what they wanted, not as much inland as they claimed, but Canadian access to the goldfields from the sea was blocked. This produced an enormous anti-British backlash in Canada, and also caused many Canadians to regard the U.S. with suspicion from that time, with the overall impact of changing Canada’s thinking away from imperial or continental ties and towards an autonomous nationality. It was obviously not the sole reason, but was a significant factor.

The period of prosperity in the decade or so before the First World War, ushered in at the turn of the century, got the Liberals to thinking about railways again. Laurier saw the political advantages in constructing a new transcontinental line. The Grand Trunk was the principle system in the East, and in the West, private promoters were building a western regional line, the Canadian Northern.⁷ These great projects, still costly for a small nation, were eventually to be completed,⁸ but were not to prove financially viable when the boom ended. ation, were eventually to be completed,⁹ but were not to prove financially viable when the boom ended.

This boom of the first decade was dependent on a confluence of favourable factors: a drop in ocean transportation rates which favoured the export of Canadian agricultural and mining products, a rise in prices for raw materials, the recovery of the British economy and subsequent influx of investment capital into Canada (75% of monies invested in Canada in this period came from Great Britain) and hugely increased rates of immigration, much of it from eastern Europe and Great Britain, bringing in needed agricultural labour and skilled manufacturing workers at the same time. For this decade at least, there was a net increase from immigration. There were huge investments in infrastructure in the period 1896-1910 in the order of 5 billion 1900 dollars, a sum incalculably more in modern dollars. This was, in fact, a degree of investment in roads, sewers, railroads, electricity, buildings etc. etc. never before and perhaps never to be seen again. Many immigrants still left Canada but now there was a net gain – more stayed than left. In 1901 Canada’s population was 5.3 million, ten years later it was 7.2 million and half the increase had settled in the West. Population had begun to shift to towns and cities also. In 1871, only 20% of Canada’s populations lived in urban areas; by 1911 40% did. In 1871, the English & French comprised 92% of the population; in 1911 83%. The remainder were Germans, Scandinavians and Ukrainians and a whole list of other nationalities in small proportions. Yet, an often ignored fact was that the British formed the single largest group of immigrants in this decade. Rather than farmers for the finally opening West, they came as already experienced factory labourers for the prosperous establishments – many American branches – in the East. A valuable lesson was taught then, though perhaps not learned, that improvements in productivity brought increased domestic investment in the economy and caused foreign investment and immigration to follow, creating a cycle of prosperity.

His Teaching in the Queen’s Bush, Continued

As we said, Will had taught, first at Goring for two years and then at the Blind Line school not far from Walter`s Falls. He also recalled a Methodist church which held revivals fairly regularly. He mentions trout fishing in the local river and the pond behind the mill dam. He also played football with local teams and entered into the social life of the community. They played games with neighbouring villages and with larger centres such as Owen Sound or Meaford. He was impressed by the large “lakers” (steamships) that were plying the Great Lakes and putting in to Owen Sound. These experiences gave him more confidence and a feeling of being a professional rather than a farm labourer.

A few years ago, the lead author visited Walter’s Falls and asked about the local schools. At first no-one we asked seemed to know but when we saw an older grey-haired man, he resonated and was able to give directions. The school is a substantial stone building built in 1873 in the style of rural schools of the period with the girls’ entrance on the right and the boys’ on the left. I recalled my experience at S.S. #14 Nelson. We were not able to get in but a woman in the farm house across the road came to our aid. She was converting her old house into an art gallery. She said that the schoolhouse had not been used as a school for some years but some people had bought it and were converting it into a residence. It was locked but we were able to peer in the windows and get an idea of the typical schools of the period.

We have described Will’s experience with his bicycle and the difficulty in riding these early machines. In winter, the main mode of transportation was horse and sleigh, or would walk. Otherwise, he would have stayed at his lodgings, walked to his school and ventured out only for essentials. To visit his parents on the farm, he would ride his bicycle down the township roads to the Prince of Wales highway,¹⁰ a distance of close to 70 miles. It is more likely that he may have taken the stage coaches especially in bad weather. In the summers he returned to the farm to help his father and his brothers. He obtained a job with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in the summer of 1907 laying track through Saskatchewan, but this was just before he was due to start his university career.

1 The Queen’s Bush was an area north-west of the settled part of the Home District that extended to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. It would become the future counties of Dufferin, Grey and Bruce.

2 Blind Line: Road allowances of 1 (surveyor’s) chain (4 rods, 22 yards or 66 feet – about 20 metres) was left along every concession boundary or line. Although it varied in some townships, the lines running east-west were usually called ‘roads’ and the north-south ones were called ‘lines’. Sometimes there were gaps such as would be encountered by a steep cliff or a body of water and the line came to an abrupt end or part of it did not connect with other roads in the township. These would be called blind lines.

3 Now called Soccer in North America.

4 An old country expression for walking.

5 The Canada census from 1871 shows a population of 3,689,257. The census from 1901 shows a population of 5,371,315. In 1911 it was 7,206,643.

6 Despite this, a contingent of Canadians signed up to fight in the war. They were virtually all from the Anglophone community – those who had British backgrounds. William would have been 14 at that time so too young to go to war but he knew many people who did.

7 The two were combined into the Grand Trunk Pacific that ran from Winnipeg to Vancouver. It was built north of the Canadian Pacific line and opened up northern communities in Western Canada.

8 In small part with the added labour of William, who had a summer job with the Grand Trunk Pacific in 1907 laying track at the end of line in Saskatchewan.

9 In small part with the added labour of William, who had a summer job with the Grand Trunk Pacific in 1907 laying track at the end of line in Saskatchewan.

10 Now Highway #10. The road that ran from Shelburne to Owen Sound still is a main thoroughfare for the area.

i From ‘Hamilton Memories’ an earlier draft of his autobiography. The next draft was called “Hamilton of the Teens and Twenties”. These were all probably written between 1958 and 1965.

ii Hamilton Memories. Ibid

iii Memories of a Canadian Pathologist. Ibid

iv Hamilton Memories. Ibid

v From Memoirs of a Pathologist, another of the many handwritten drafts of an autobiography.

vi Hamilton Memories. Ibid

vii Blom, Philipp; The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914. Basic Books, 2008.

viii MacMillan, Margaret; Paris 1919 (2001). The War That Ended Peace (2013).