William H. Biggar Vice-President and General Counsel of G.T.R. and G.T.P. Railways — Some Recollections and an Appreciation
During that turbulent period in Britain’s history when Sir Francis Drake’s buccaneering exploits had Spain by the ears and intrepid Champlain was spying out the boundaries of Bay of Quinte, there flourished under the checkered reign of the first James in bonny Scotland, Herbert Biggar, and it is a coincidence that centuries after his descendents settled on the rim of the bay where the great explorer had camped. This Scottish gentleman was Laird of Barbine and Nethergloly and espoused Janet Maxwell, Balterson, in the Parish of Holyrood, who survived, dying in 1689, and their children were the ancestors of the subject of this sketch.
William Hodgins Biggar, called to the Bar in 1880, twice Mayor of Belleville, and in 1890 elected M.P.P. for West Hastings, Ontario, now director of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and vice-president and General Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway, was born in September, 1852, at the Carrying Place, an historic portage where no doubt, Samuel de Champlain and his Indian allies carried from Quinte Bay to Lake Ontario their supplies and canoes.
Late in the autumn, two thirds of a century ago when older units of the family were sailing westward with equipment and settlers’ impedimenta enroute their original location near Brantford, Canada, the voyageurs were frozen in and stalled by winter’s rigors and thus fate or fortune, unsolicited, determined a new world habitation, giving point to the proverb, “There is a destiny which shapes our ends rough hew them as we may”. From here it was that James Lyons Biggar, general merchant, often journeyed in the interests of East Northumberland to parliament in far off Quebec before Confederation and this sturdy trader of pioneering days was wont to accompany goods shipments from tidewater by wagon, coach and vessel to their western destination.
“There is luck in odd numbers”, said Rory O’More and as young Biggar was but one of nine lusty children—all of whom later attained individual prominence—he was not featured as a favorite. Who can tell to what influence his Celtic mother from the city of Dublin, whose surname and temperament he inherited, attributed the success of her son, perchance the good fairies or to the “Luck in odd numbers”. The acquisition of knowledge was easy for him because he gave the task his attention and his inclinations developed system in study. His preliminary education in the village and at Trenton Grammar School, culminated with the gilt lettered honor of Head Boy at Upper Canada College, Toronto, and that distinction has since been bestowed on one of his four children, Winchester, on the eve of his entry to McGill University and gravitation to the army. The mother of the interesting trio and the curley-headed dictator of the family, was Miss Marie Louise Ballou of New York.
A cardinal qualification, noticeable in the majority of leaders in Law and Commerce, is the ability to cast aside the superfluous, bare a proposition and promptly discern the gist of the matter; this qualification W. H. Biggar possesses, combined with a clear, well ordered mind and a splendid memory for facts and precedent. It won him the confidence of the late John Bell of Belleville, former General Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway and his legal acumen soon became exact and expanded by contact with the ripe experiences in railway jurisprudence of his senior who took the young lawyer into partnership giving him charge of their civil practice. His penchant for deductions explains his skill as a billiardist and one time enthusiastic lawn bowler at home and on the greens at Niagara-on-the-lake, when he was President of the Ontario Bowling Association. He is decidedly deliberate towards all appeals for his opinion on any topic, does not make snap decisions and would never be caught in the fix of the man who jumped at the conclusion of a departing ferry boat and fell into the harbor.
In the capacity of General Counsel for G.T.R.-G.T.P.R., he has dealt with many weighty railway corporation matters and affairs of national import and—no doubt, participated prominently with Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his cabinet in governmental and financial endorsation of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway past and present.
Not long ago his interpretations of the intentions of certain clauses respecting the Government’s attitude towards the sale of bonds of the western section of the N.T.R., were sustained by the Privy Council at London and that body’s vindication of Mr. Biggar’s insight was equivalent to an immense saving in favor of the “G.T.R.”
With the strain of business he intersperses a lively participation in golf, always evinces a keen interest in good sport and when a younger man in Belleville owned and raced his yacht “Iolanthe” on Lake Ontario and across the bay beside his birthplace. He was also a bit of an angler and could pink the bull’s eye at rifle ranges. Many a time, when a boy, have I seen him galloping past in the saddle accompanied by (Justice) R. C. Clute, the late U. E. Thompson, then City Ticket Agent of the G.T.R., Thomas Ritchie, T. S. Carman, publisher of the “Ontario” and the late Senator Harry Corby. A gentleman of the old school, Will Biggar was as prompt to perceive the charwoman’s courtesy as he would be to acknowledge the gracious inclination of the city’s first lady.
Like some men in public life, he is reserved, almost shy of the lime light, but an interesting companion among his intimates and a favorite with little children and generally popular, so much so, that he proved a rara avis in local politics when he carried the Liberal standard to victory in “Tory” West Hastings in 1890 with the untrumpeted aid of many Conservative friends, it has been said. He was always a “man’s man” but now gives the Mount Royal and other Clubs only such a share of his limited leisure as domesticity will permit.
QUINTE BAY
Ensconced in a setting of green and gold,
She is ever young to young and old;
Could her waters speak as they flow along,
“Forget me not” would be their song.
Reproduction of an early type of steam locomotive used by the Great Western Railway of Canada and photographed on the area then known as “Kent’s Paradise”, below Dundurn Park, Hamilton, Ont., in 1864. This locomotive was the first mogul built in Hamilton shops.
The occasion was the visit to Canada of Sir Thomas Dakin, English Chairman of the Great Western Railway, whose name appears on the engine. A key to the interesting headquarters group beside it is given below and some of the gentlemen in the picture still survive.
| Top row reading from headlight to tender— | |
| W. A. Robinson | Ass’t. Mch’l. Sup’t. |
| Geo. Forsyth | Gen. Foreman Shops |
| Wm. McMillan | Fuel Purc’g. Agent |
| Samuel Sharp | Mechanical Sup’t. |
| John Robertson | Locomotive Eng’eer. |
| William Paine | Loco. Fireman |
| Dick Furness | Conductor |
| Aaron Penny | Mess’r. official car |
| Lower row, reading left to right— | |
| Geo. L. Reid | Civil Engineer |
| Wm. Wallace | Traffic Agent |
| G. Harry Howard | Booking Agent |
| William Orr | Dist. Freight Agent |
| Geo. B. Spriggs | Through Fr’t Agt. |
| James Howard | Gen. Purch’g. Agent |
| Thomas Swinyard | General Manager |
| Brackstone Baker | English Secretary |
| Thomas Bell | Treasurer |
| John Hall | Foreman Run’g. Dep. |
| John Weatherston | Track Superin’dent. |
| John A. Ward | Mech. Accountant |
| Peter Neilson | Station Agent |
| William Wilson | Track Foreman |
| James Fawcett | Call Boy |
The Toronto & Nipissing Railway, traversing the territory between Toronto, Ont., and Coboconk, now a “G.T.R.” branch serving Markham, Stouffville and Blackwater, was inaugurated in 1869 and built by Chief Engineer Edmund Wragge for the promoters.
The line was opened to Uxbridge, September 14th, 1871, amid great rejoicing and enthusiasm and an oil painting from the brush of B. Armstrong, commemorating the scene, with the elaborate decorations of that thriving agricultural centre, was presented by the President, the late John Shedden, to William Gooderham, Junior, Vice-President and Managing Director of the Toronto & Nipissing Railway Company.
The personnel of the prominent men of a past generation who were present at the turning of the first sod in 1869 at Toronto, as they appear in the accompanying photograph, is as follows:—
| Reading from left to right— | |
| Edmund Wragge | Chief Engineer. |
| J. C. Fitch | Merchant. |
| George Laidlaw | General Merchant. |
| Joseph Gould | Merchant and Farmer. |
| Hon. John Beverley Robinson | Former Solicitor-General, Legislative Council, Province of Canada. |
| Robert Elliott | Merchant. |
| Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald | Premier of Ontario. |
| James E. Smith | Merchant. |
| John Leys | Barrister. |
| Hon. Geo. W. Allan | Senator before Confederation. |
| S. B. Harman | Barrister, Mayor of Toronto. |
| W. McMaster | Merchant. |
| R. Brethour | Farmer. |
| James Graham | Secretary of T. & N. Railway. |