Isaac Montgomery Barr

Isaac Montgomery Barr (March 2, 1847 – January 18, 1937) was an Anglican clergyman and promoter of British colonial settlement schemes, most notably the Barr Colony which became Lloydminster and District in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.

Isaac M. Barr was born in Hornby, Canada West (now part of Halton Hills in Ontario, Canada). His father, William Barr, born in 1816 in Ireland, was a Presbyterian Minister. Isaac Barr’s mother Catharine (Baird) Barr, also born in Ireland, died when Isaac was 10 years old. Isaac Barr’s early education was in a small rural school where the teacher was his father, supplementing his modest ministerial stipend. William Barr brought much of his ministerial approach to education and young Isaac emulated his father by playing the role of preacher in childhood games. From 1868 – 1870 Barr attended Huron College, in London, Ontario, with the intention of becoming an Anglican cleric. In 1870, he moved his studies to the University of Toronto. Following graduation he began his ministerial career as a curate in Exeter and Woodstock, Ontario.

August 10, 1870 – Isaac Barr married Eliza Weaver in London, Ontario. Their first child, Dora Kathleen Barr was born in 1874. A son, Harry Baird Barr, was born in 1877 and a daughter, Gertrude, was born 1883. Allegedly divorced from Eliza, Barr married Emma Williams on June 25, 1900 in New Whatcom, Washington. His son Harry died of disease while serving with Canadian contingents participating in the Second Boer War in South Africa. In 1905, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Barr married Christina Helberg. They would have two sons: Harry Baird Montgomery Barr and William Hall Barr.

In 1875, Isaac Barr was appointed by the Bishop of Saskatchewan to serve the Prince Albert Settlement in Saskatchewan in what was then the North-West Territories. He left this charge, without permission, after receiving news that his wife and daughter in Ontario were ill. Barr was next appointed by the Bishop of Huron to charges in Point Edward and then the Kanyenga Mission, near Brantford. Controversies with church officials led to him moving to the United States in 1883 as Rector of Grace Church in Lapeer, Michigan. This was followed by charges in East Saginaw and Midland, Michigan, and Harriman, Tennessee before, in 1899, moving to New Whatcom, Washington. In December 1901, Barr resigned his ministerial appointment with a view to join and support the colonizing efforts of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa. On February 4, 1902, the Archbishop of Canterbury licensed Barr to preach in England. Barr secured a post as Curate-in-Charge at St. Saviour’s Church in London.

Isaac Barr became a great admirer of Cecil Rhodes and his efforts to spread British influence in the world. He resigned his ministry in Washington state with a view to travelling to South Africa to assist Rhodes. When Barr reached London, England in January 1902, he was dismayed at news of Rhodes failing health and, two months later, Rhodes died. Barr by now though had first-hand experience with the economic doldrums in England, compounded by thousands of soldiers returning from the War in South Africa with few economic prospects. Barr began an intensive campaign of letter writing and public speaking, urging the people of England to emigrate to Western Canada. As his biographer, Helen Evans Reid, describes it, Barr stressed two opportunities: to “exchange ... the poverty of Britain for an estate in Canada”; and the “chance to build the Empire by planting a colony of pure British culture in the empty territory”.

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