Biographical Sketch of Walter Frederick Brendon Rubidge

From Association of Ontario Land Surveyors Report 1931 pp. 98-99.

WALTER FREDERICK BRENDON RUBIDGE

Compiled by Mr. A. P. Walker

[photograph]

There passed away, in the prime of life, on 12th June, 1930, at his beautiful home, "Hopewell," Port Credit, Ontario, of pneumonia and an illness of only a few days, Walter Frederick Brendon Rubidge, O.L.S. and C.E. Mr. Rubidge was not only an Ontario Land Surveyor with a large practice, but an engineer of high standing, a master craftsman, a naturalist of ability, and a lover of the great out-of-doors.

The subject of this sketch was born in Winnipeg, Man., on 20th Spetember, 1886, and educated in Public Schools at Victoria, B.C., and Toronto, Ont., and afterwards at Pickering College and Woodstock Baptist College. Prior to entering the University, he spent one and one-half years as rod and instrument man on Maintenance of Way, Canadian Pacific Railway, under A. P. Walker, O.L.S., and A. G. Ardagh, O.L.S. He entered the School of Practical Science, University of Toronto, in 1906, and during vacations assisted Messrs. Speight and vanNostrand, O.L.S., in city, suburban and other surveys. He graduated in 1910 and served as a Fellow during the following term. He served under articles for one year with A. G. Ardagh, O.L.S., of Barrie and Chas. E. Fitton, O.L.S., of Orillia, and received his diploma as an Ontario Land Surveyor on 15th April, 1912. During his apprenticeship with Mr. Ardagh he assisted in a triangulation survey of Islands in the Georgian Bay. He remained with Mr. Fitton until December, 1912, when he joined the Dominion Bridge Company and was in charge of important work in the Maritime Provinces, and afterwards in charge of the erection of the Bloor Street Viaduct across the Rosedale ravine, Toronto, from March, 1915, to July, 1916. From July, 1916, to August, 1917, he was Field Engineer for George F. Hardey (New York) in charge of Twin Falls developement for Abitibi Pulp and Paper Co. at Iroquois Falls, Ont. From 1917 to 1922 he was employed under Messrs. Baines and Peckover, and Frank Barber, Engineers, Toronto, and in May, 1922, commenced private practice as an Engineer and Ontario Land Surveyor at Port Credit, where he practiced until his death in 1930. During the summers of 1926 and onward he made surveys for the Ontario Government, including a number of control surveys in the Muskoka, Parry Sound, Sudbury, and Nipissing Districts in connection with the aerial surveys carried on by the Topographical Survey of Canada. He also made a municipal survey of Lots 30 and 31, Toronto Township, in July, 1929.

Mr. Rubidge was a son of the late Charles Murter Rubidge of Toronto, and a great-grandson of Captain Charles Rubidge of Peterboro'. The late Frederick P. Rubidge, P.L.S., of Ottawa, was also a distant relative.

He was married on 5th October, 1910, to Florence Ottilie Gordon, youngest daughter of the late Captain Andrew Gordon, R.N., and granddaughter of the late Sir Melville Parker, Bart., of Knoyle, Cooksville, and leaves, in addition to his widow, four sons, Andrew, Lindsay, Tom, and Beaumont, to mourn his loss.

Mr. Rubidge was a Mason, and a member of University Lodge, A.F. and A.M., and also a member of the Church of England.

Comments:

"Charles Murter Rubidge of Toronto" is Charles Marter Rubidge, a son of Walter Boswell Rubidge and Henrietta Ann Marter.