Part 32

=Wanless, John=, M.D., Montreal.—This famed homœopathic physician is a Scotchman by birth, having been born at Perth road, Dundee, near St. Peter’s parish church, where the celebrated Rev. R. M. McCheyne was pastor, on May 26th, 1813. He is the second son of the late James Wanless, a man who was in his day very much respected by his fellow townspeople, and who for many years carried on business as a manufacturer of green cloth in Dundee. His mother, Agnes Sim, is still alive (August, 1887) at the age of ninety-six years, in full possession of her mental faculties, and can see to read without spectacles. Dr. Wanless much resembles this wonderful woman in many respects. Dr. Wanless’s father intended that his two sons should succeed him in his own business, but after his death, which took place when the doctor was only ten years old, the executors of the estate, when he had reached his thirteenth year, apprenticed him to Dr. James Johnston, one of themselves, a leading physician in Dundee. This gentleman having died shortly afterwards, James Hay, merchant and ship-owner, another of the executors, and one of the governors of the Dundee Royal Infirmary, discovering the boy’s aptitude for medical study, was induced to secure for him the position of dresser and clinical clerk in the above hospital, which for three years he filled to the entire satisfaction of the governors and medical men of the institution. While he was here he was a great favourite with the celebrated lithotomist, Dr. John Creighton, of Dundee, and this gentleman often asked young Wanless to assist him in his private operations, as well as in the hospital, and on the eve of his leaving to prosecute his studies in Edinburgh, he bore high testimony to his ability and diligence as a student, and as to his practical knowledge of his profession. It may be as well to mention here that young Wanless, like all other boys on the Scotch sea-board, was very fond of paddling in the water, and on several occasions narrowly escaped drowning. When about ten years of age he and some other boys were amusing themselves on some logs that had got adrift from the ship _Horton_, of Dundee, just arrived from America, and had floated up the river into a small bay, which at its mouth had a sort of pier with arches on it. While astride a piece of this timber it capsized, and our young hero was soon at the bottom of the river. On coming to the surface, he found himself immediatetly below a raft, and considering that his time had not yet come to be drowned, he struck out boldly from under, and gasping for breath, he was hauled on the raft by his terrified comrades. On getting ashore he dried his clothes and made for home; but his father nevertheless discovered that he had had a ducking, and gave him a sound thrashing and confined him in doors for some time for his boyish escapade. The doctor now thinks that if his father—who was a very loving man—had not been imbued with the idea that “he that spareth the rod hateth the child,” he would have done better had he given him some dry clothes, or sent him for a time to a warm bed. In 1831 John Wanless left Dundee and went to Edinburgh, as a student in the Royal College of Surgeons, under the then celebrated professors McIntosh, Liston, Lizars, Ferguson, and others, fellows of the college, all of whom are now gone to their final rest. During the college session of 1831, his friend, Mr. Hay, offered him the position of surgeon on board the whaling ship _Thomas_, which office he cheerfully accepted, although he was then only seventeen years of age. This good ship sailed from Dundee in March, 1832, and returned with a full cargo in time to permit the young surgeon to attend the opening of the college session of 1832-3. Subsequently during college vacation he went three times to Davis Straits in the same ship, and thereby greatly invigorated his previously rather slender physical frame. While on one of his whaling voyages he one day was out in a boat shooting loons, which are very numerous in Davis Straits, and a good many can be killed by one discharge from a gun. In the act of gathering the killed he espied a wounded bird at a short distance, and in his endeavour to reach it he leaned too far over the gunwale, lost his balance, and went head first into the Arctic sea. His shipmates were alarmed, and waited in dread suspense for some time, but at length he came up, holding on to the loon by one of its legs. The mate afterwards remarked “that the doctor should always be taken with the shooting parties, for he could dive for the wounded fellows.” It may be here mentioned that the doctor was a good swimmer, and as a youth practised swimming 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.

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=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.

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=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 all have made their mark in the country. In 1854 Alexander and his brothers, John and William, founded the firm of A. W. Ogilvie & Co., as millers and dealers in grain, and built extensive mills on the banks of the canal at Montreal, now known as the Glenora mills. Since that time the business has grown to such dimensions that the firm’s mills and business operations are carried on at Montreal, Goderich, Seaforth, Winnipeg and other parts of the North-West, and they are now the most extensive millers in the Dominion. In 1874 Alexander retired from the business. In 1867 he first entered political life, and at the general election of that year he was chosen by acclamation to represent Montreal West in the Quebec legislature, when on the dissolution of the house in 1871 he declined re-nomination. He, however, was induced again to enter the political field in 1875, and was elected for his old seat. This he occupied until the legislature was dissolved in 1878, when he retired from local politics. On December 24, 1881, he was called to the Senate to represent the Alma division in that body. Senator Ogilvie has been an alderman for the city of Montreal, president of the Workingmen’s, Widows and Orphans’ Benefit Society, and of the St. Andrew’s Society, and a lieutenant-colonel of the Montreal Cavalry (now on the retired list). He is president of the St. Michael Road Company, chairman of the Montreal Turnpike Trust, and of the Montreal Board of Directors of the London (England) Guarantee Company, a director of the Sun Life Insurance Company, the Edwardsburg Starch Company, the Montreal Loan and Mortgage Company, and the Montreal Investment Company. He is also a justice of the peace. Senator Ogilvie is a Conservative in politics, and in religion is a Presbyterian. He is married to a daughter of the late William Leney, of Montreal, and has a family of four children, one son and three daughters.

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=Campbell, Rev. Robert=, M.A., D.D., Pastor of St. Gabriel Presbyterian Church, Montreal, was born on a farm near the town of Perth, Lanark county, Ontario, on the 21st June, 1835. Peter Campbell, father of the subject of this sketch, was born at Rein-a-Chullaig, Loch Tayside, Breadalbane, Perthshire, Scotland, and belonged to the Lochnell branch of the Campbell clan. One of his ancestors having taken part in the Jacobite rising in 1715, and thus having incurred the displeasure of Argyll, who was at the head of the Hanoverian forces, did not return to his native district, but placed himself under the protection of his other great kinsman, Breadalbane, who was neutral in that contest, and who assigned him the property called Rein-a-Chullaig. Peter Campbell was a man of high character and intelligence. He had for a time been a teacher in Scotland, and this gave him much influence with his Highland countrymen who accompanied him to Canada in 1817, and settled in the Bathurst district. He brought some money with him to Canada, and owned the first yoke of oxen in the settlement; although during the first season he had to carry a bag of flour on his back through the woods from Brockville, a distance of about fifty miles, having no road to follow but guided only by the blazes on the trees. He was chosen an elder of the first Presbyterian church, which was under the ministry of Rev. William Bell, shortly after his arrival in the country. But as he was born and bred in the Church of Scotland, he united with that branch of the Presbyterian communion as soon as it was established in Perth under the ministry of the late Rev. T. C. Wilson, of Dunkeld, Scotland, and was installed an elder in it too, which office he retained till his death in 1848. Margaret Campbell, Rev. Dr. Campbell’s mother, was of the Gleno and Inverliver branch of the clan Campbell. She was born in Glenlyon, Scotland, her mother being a MacDiarmid, one of the oldest families in Scotland. Mrs. Campbell ably seconded her husband in all his aims and efforts; and one of the results of their joint influence and instruction was that three of their sons became ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, and a fourth studied for the ministry of the Baptist church, but his health broke down before he was able to complete his course of preparation. Robert was the seventh son, and eleventh child of the family, his youngest brother being Rev. Alexander Campbell, B.A., of Prince Albert, North-West Territory. He was educated at the common school, near his birth place; but as it happened that the school was taught by a succession of able masters, one of them being an admirable scholar in both classics and mathematics, he enjoyed considerable advantages, and he, with his youngest brother, made very rapid progress in study. He himself became a common school teacher at the age of sixteen; and the desire he had to perfect himself in the subjects which he had to teach was the best master he was ever under, and he learned more always while teaching than while avowedly only a student under the direction of others. In 1853 he entered as a student at Queen’s University, taking the only open scholarship for the year. This scholarship he retained by competition every year all through his course. In 1855 he obtained the first medal ever offered in Queen’s College for a special examination in English history and ancient geography. In 1856 he graduated B.A., and in 1858 M.A., in the same university. He taught the public school near Appleton in 1852, and the next year the school at Leckie’s Corners, near Almonte. In 1856 he was appointed headmaster of the Queen’s College Preparatory School, where he had under his care, at a time when High schools were few and inefficient throughout the country, students from all parts of Canada, and even from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, who had it in view to matriculate in Queen’s University. A great many of the youth of Kingston also took advantage of the educational facilities afforded by the school. This position he held till 1st October, 1860, when he quitted it with a view to entering the ministry of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland. In the autumn of 1860, after having received license as a preacher in Canada, he went abroad with a view to seeing a little of the world, and becoming familiar with men and things in the older civilized communities, and he remained thirteen months in Great Britain and the Continent, taking advantage of access to the museums, art galleries, and learned societies of Edinburgh particularly, where he spent most of the winter, as well as giving occasional attendance at lectures in the university. He returned to Canada late in the autumn of 1861, and accepted a call in April, 1862, to St. Andrew’s Church, Galt, Ontario, having declined overtures from Melbourne, Beckwith, and one or two other charges. He remained in Galt till 1st December, 1866, when called to his present sphere of labour as minister of the oldest Presbyterian church in the inland provinces. The centennial celebration of the founding of the congregation that built this church was held on the 9th of March, 1886, and was an occasion of great interest to the entire community. The University of Queen’s College conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him at the convocation in April, 1887. Rev. Dr. Campbell is chairman of the Board of Management of the Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland; a member of the Executive Committee of the Temporalities Board of the same church; a trustee of Queen’s University, and a member of the Senate of the Presbyterian College, Montreal. He held the office of lecturer in Ecclesiastical History for two sessions in Queen’s University, Kingston, and was a vice-president of the Natural History Society of Montreal. He has maintained steadfastly his early religious convictions. But while orthodox himself, he has always exercised toleration towards those that could not see exactly as he did. Rev. Dr. Campbell won the prize for the best essay on Presbyterian Union offered by a committee of gentlemen in Quebec and Montreal in the year 1866, which was afterwards published, and greatly helped to leaven public opinion on that question. He is now engaged on a history of the St. Gabriel St. Church, Montreal, which will shortly be published, and cannot fail to prove of great interest to every Presbyterian in Canada. Rev. Dr. Campbell was married on the 29th of December, 1863, to Margaret, eldest child and only daughter of Rev. George Macdonnell, minister of St. Andrew’s Church, Fergus, a faithful, useful, and highly respected minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland. Rev. D. J. Macdonnell, B.D., of Toronto, and G. M. Macdonnell, Q.C., of Kingston, are her brothers. Her mother was Elizabeth Milnes, of the same stock as Moncton Milnes, Lord Houghton.

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