William Kingsford

William Kingsford (23 December 1819 – 29 September 1898) was an English-born Canadian historian. Born in London, England, served in the army, and went to Canada, where he was engaged in surveying work. He was a self-taught historian, and one of the first to use the archives being gathered in Ottawa. He is best known for his History of Canada in 10 volumes (1887-1898), which was widely read by the upper middle class, as well as Anglophone teachers, despite its poor organization and pedestrian writing style. Kingsford believed that the Conquest of New France guaranteed victory for British constitutional liberty and that it ensured material progress. He assumed the assimilation of French Canadians into a superior British culture was inevitable and desirable, for he envisioned Canada as one nation with one anglophone population.

Born on 23 December 1819 in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, he was the son of William and Elizabeth Kingsford of Lad Lane. Educated at Nicholas Wanostrocht's school in Camberwell, he was articled at an early age to an architect. He then enlisted in the 1st Dragoon Guards, aged 16. He went with his regiment to Canada in 1837, became sergeant, and in 1840, through the influence of his friends at home, obtained his discharge, despite an offer by Sir George Cathcart, colonel of the regiment, to procure a commission for him.

Entering the office of the city surveyor of Montreal in 1841, Kingford qualified in due course as civil engineer, and obtained the position of deputy city surveyor, a post which he held for three years. He resigned to begin the publication of the Montreal Times, in company with Murdo McIver. Two years later he entered the public works department, and among other undertakings made a new survey of the Lachine Canal.

In 1849 Kingsford was engaged in the construction of the Hudson River Railroad in the state of New York, and in 1851 went to Panama as assistant engineer to J. J. Campbell, who was then building the Panama Canal Railway. Returning to Canada in 1853, he surveyed for the Grand Trunk Railway the tracks from Montreal to Vaudreuil, from Montreal to Cornwall, Ontario, from Brockville to Rideau, and, under A. M. Ross, who had the construction of the work in charge, laid down the lines of the Victoria Bridge.

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