It seems only fitting that the railway brought JOHN HENRY SMITH (1849-1920) and his family to Vancouver. Smith had grown up in Birmingham as the railways were transforming that city into the second largest in England. They crossed the Atlantic to settle in Winnipeg, a city destined to be the major rail terminal on the prairies. Family tradition asserts that Smith was the founding editor of the WINNIPEG FREE PRESS. The reality was humbler, but every bit as interesting.
BIRMINGHAM
John Henry Smith was born in Birmingham on March 30, 1841.
We know little of his family, aside from the fact his father, George Smith, was a "rulemaker." Rules were thin metal strips used in the printing trade to produce “continuous lines or lines of dots or pattern, as in a plain border. Thickness of rule determines thickness of printed line. Rules can also be thicker at the center with tapered ends.”
Thus we could be related to one, or both, of two Smiths listed in Birmingham's 1818 Directory. George Smith was a Plater” residing on Bartholomew street. W. Hawkes Smith “Letter Press & Copper Plate Printer, Bookseller” listed on Easy Row in the same directory.
John was a 22-year-old compositor (type setter) living on High Street, Birmingham, when he married 21-year-old Ellen Garrad on Aug 1 1863.
The tradition that Ellen was a gypsy may have originated with her family's migrations through-out England. Her father William (1811-aft 1881) was a London-born-butcher who settled in Farthinghoe, Northants. Ellen's maternal grandfather, John Hawkes (1783-1843), was a horse dealer who moved from Adderbury, to Bodicote, Oxon and finally died in Somerton, Oxon,
The 1871 census lists her as the 27-year-old wife of John H Smith, living at Merville street in the ward of Ladyward, Birmingham. They had three children. John is listed as a "printer, compositor" and Ellen as a retail brewer.
By 1881, the Smiths were living at 104 Kyrwicks Lane (Hereford Arms), in Aston, Birmingham. John Henry Smith was now 40 and a "retail brewer" who employed a barmaid to serve his customers. He and Ellen had seven children: Ellen Smith 16 , Annie Smith 13, Agnes Smith 10, Elizabeth Smith 8, George Hy. Smith 5, May Smith 4, John L. Smith 2.
WINNIPEG, MB
They emmigrated to Canada in 1882.
The WINNIPEG FREE PRESS was already 12 years old and employing a staff of 60 when the Smiths reached Winnipeg. So John Henry Smith was definitely not the founding editor.
Murray Donnelly's book DAFOE OF THE FREE PRESS supplies a piece of evidence supporting the idea Smith may have been employed by the newspaper. According to the Winnpeg City Directory, he was a compositor (typesetter) in 1884 and 1885. Donnelly writes (p 24): "By the time that Dafoe arrived in late May 1886 the paper was more firmly established, having acquired a mechanical printing press powered by a gasoline engine ..."
Thus John Henry Smith's typesetting skills would not have been needed in 1886, when the city Directory lists him as a "job printer" at the very prestigious address of 487 Main.
His daughter Agnes Smith would later tell my mother that she had once looked out the window to see “Louis Riel passing with all of his Metis”. This could only have taken place during the Metis leader’s brief visit to the Red River area during June 1883. His period of exile now over. All but one of Riel’s brothers and sisters were glad to see him. His 61-year-old mother, who lived across the Red River from Winnipeg, was overjoyed to embrace her son. Many of the local Metis, however, were embarrassed by his presence. The Metis leader also visited Archbishop Tache’s seigneuire, 7 or 8 miles from Winnipeg, and was interviewed by reporters. Thus it is possible Agnes did see Riel.
She and her father were in Winnipeg when troops that passed through the city to crush the Riel rebellion in 1885
John Henry Smith operated two offices in Winnipeg's downtown core during 1887. It was then that he launched a shortly lived publication known as the WINNIPEG SIFTINGS.
Smith's last listing as a "job printer and publisher" occurred in 1888. Then his name disappeared from the directory.
Most of Winnipeg's small papers were disappearing. This was the topic that William Coldwell, of the long defunct NOR’WESTER, meant to address at Cloughers, on April 2nd 1888. Only he was indisposed and instead sent a list of the newspapers that had gone under. At that point Winnipeg only had two newspapers and William Luxton’s WINNIPEG FREE PRESS would soon absorb the SUN. Coldwell concluded “Everyone knows that there is a very large journalistic graveyard here, but few have any conception of the number of journals in it.”
MORDEN, MB
John Henry Smith had already moved on. He purchased Morden's "MANITOBA NEWS" in 1886. Though only possessing a population of 200, by 1884 the village had become the most important trading post for 50 miles due to the box car station there. On April 6th 1887, John began printing a Conservative Newspaper known as the MORDEN MONITOR. He hired Reverend Hugh J Borthwick, a fondly remembered local minister, as the first editor.
Smith was elected secretary of Morden’s first Board of Trade. The MORDEN MONITOR, which he published but did not yet edit, reported on their first meeting during its’ March 27th 1890 issue.
“The charter of incorporation for the Board of Trade for the Electoral Division of Morden, having been received from the secretary of State. A meeting was held in St Andrew’s Hall on Thursday last when the following officers were elected: President - H. P. Hansen, Vice President – W. J. Sutton, Treasurer – H. J. Pugh, Secretary – J. H. Smith, and eight
members of the council vig. W Garrett, George Ashdown, T Duncan, J. T. Blowey, J Hieman, D McMillan, Henry Meikle and Dr. Wilson.
“The report of the delegates to the Winnipeg convention was reported and Votes of thanks accorded them for their service.
“A petition was introduced to the meeting petitioning the Dominion Government to give substantial aid to the building of the Hudson Bay Railway which was unanimously carried and ordered to be sent to Ottawa for presentation.
“A large amount of routine business was transacted and after a lengthy Meeting which was characterised by a hearty and business like spirit, the meeting adjourned to Saturday evening.”
In 1893, Morden’s Board of Trade was one of the local bodies supporting Winnipeg’s request that the Federal Government construct locks at St Andrew’s Rapids. The people of Manitoba desired a waterway that would break the CPR’s monopoly of transportation across the prairies. The St Andrew’s locks were a key component of a potential water route that could enable goods to be shipped south into the United States along the Red River (17 miles to the east of Morden), north into Hudson’s Bay and as far West as Edmonton.
Despite the Winnipeg MP’s insistence that Ottawa display “prompt action”, the Federal government responded that the project was too costly and would benefit only one locality – Winnipeg. The Manitobans soon learned that the Minister of Railways was spending half a million dollars – the amount deemed necessary for St Andrew’s project – to construct a canal in his home riding of Perth Ontario. This was regarded as yet another example of Western Canada’s interest’s being ignored in favour of the East!
JOHN A MACDONALD'S LAST HURRAH
According to my aunt Norm, Smith played a pivotal role in one election. Agnes Smith would tell her that the Tories had seemed in danger of losing in that area because most of their support was in the rural areas and the farmers were hard at work. Then Agnes suggested her father send wagons out to bring them in. As a result the Conservative candidate won.
This story most likely relates to the election of March 5 1891, in which the Conservative candidate for Morden won his seat by a mere 190 votes.
My great grandfather Ben Cross was the MONITOR's "news agent" when he married Agnes Smith on May 31 1893. They moved to Winnipeg.
Prime Minister John A MacDonald's last election campaign took place in 1891. He had imposed tarrifs on American goods, to protect Canada's manufacturers. The Liberals, led by the youthful Wilfred Laurier, were calling for free trade with the United States. MacDonald, now 77, responded by crying treason! The Liberals wanted to sell the nation’s proud British heritage for a mess of American stew! MacDonald proudly declared “I am a British subject, and British born, and a British subject I hope to die.”
This was MacDonald's last victory. He won a majority in the House of Commons, only to have a stroke. The "father of Confederation" died on June 6th, 1891.
JOHN HENRY SMITH BECOMES AN EDITOR & MERCHANT
Reverend Borthwick resigned as editor of the MORDEN MONITOR in February 1892, as the result of a dispute with his Tory sponsors. Smith became the editor, while Borthwick teamed up with another printer to start a Liberal paper called the MORDEN HERALD. According to Morden's 1882-1892 Centennial Booklet, for the next five years the “political writings of both were rousing and lengthy castigations of political enemies, which in modern times would have instigated libel suits.”
J F Galbriath purchased the MONITOR in 1895 and the Liberal's took Morden during the election of 1896.
John Henry Smith opened a bookstore in the downtown area. With the help of an article called “I remember Morden in 1902” , the secretary of the Morden Board of Trade identified site of Smith’s Book Store with the present (1997) Radio Shack on Stephen Street.
According to the 1901 census, John H Smith earned $420 and his son Will, a clerk, $120.
LAST DAYS IN VANCOUVER, BC
The Smiths moved to Vancouver around 1909 and were at 2322 Burns street when Ellen died in 1918.
By the time the 1921 census was taken, John Henry Smith was livingwith his daughter Agnes and her husband Ben Cross at 611 7th Ave East. My mother Dell and her sister Norm both remember their great grandfather as a dapper old man who liked a stiff tot every night and had a talent for picking the winners at girlie shows. He died of "septica caused by "the bite" of a spitz dog, on July 16, 1928.
CHILDREN OF JOHN HENRY & ELLEN SMITH