The Political Other in Nineteenth-Century British North America: The Satire of Thomas Chandler Haliburton

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Barnard

The reading and study of bibles in Canada has shaped the ways in which the Christian faith is practiced, but it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that bibles became widely available. This article examines the historical developments of bible distribution in British North America, focusing on the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), which became the largest distributor of bibles in the world. Strengthening the BFBS's Canadian influence was its agent James Thomson, whose work in British North America between 1838 and 1842 expanded the organization’s reach and ensured an ample supply of bibles in the colonies. Through the expansion of local Bible Society auxiliaries and the establishment of distribution networks, Thomson laid the foundations for the BFBS’s success in establishing a successful bible enterprise that would dominate the trade in British North America for the rest of the century.


1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Burroughs

Although retrenchment, with its overtones of efficiency and its implied attack on corruption, is a familiar watchword of modern politics, it is difficult today to appreciate the deep ethical and constitutional significance of the issue of economy during the early nineteenth century, or the strong hold which the concept exerted over the attitudes and actions of British politicians and administrators in the decades following the Napoleonic Wars. Twenty-three years of costly war with France had increased Britain's national debt from £228 million in 1793 to £876 million in 1815, and the laborious process of eliminating this deficit at the rate of a few millions a year by means of a sinking fund was aptly described as ‘the attempt of a wooden-legged man to catch a hare’. The propertied classes in the post-war period considered themselves excessively burdened with taxation, and until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 had been effectively put into operation, they were also called upon to meet the costs of an expensive and inefficient system of poor relief.


Author(s):  
Creighton Barrett ◽  
Bertrum MacDonald

Singing, particularly psalm singing, has enjoyed a lengthy tradition among Christian churches. “Singing God’s praises brings us nearer to the exercises of Heaven than any other service we can engage on earth” proclaimed one nineteenth-century advertisement. Churches as well as singing schools frequently relied on tunes that circulated across countries and oceans through oral transmission and increasingly through printed tune books, as the capacity of printing technologies expanded in the nineteenth century and pricing of books became affordable to larger numbers of citizens. Singing instructions, tunes, and hymns were printed, reprinted, and modified to meet local demand. Music styles that lost favour in some countries continued to flourish in other settings. The first printed music in Nova Scotia, The Harmonicon, was produced in a Presbyterian context in 1838. Three decades later, demand for a new tune book prompted the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America to publish The Choir, a compilation designed to satisfy “a healthy taste for sacred music.” First published in Halifax in 1871, this volume was the mainstay of Maritime Presbyterian congregations for the remainder of the century. This paper traces the history of the production of The Choir, compiled by the church’s Committee on Psalmody. Details about the editions and reprinting of the tune book are provided. The paper concludes with an examination of the contents of the volume, where particular attention is given to elements of the book that illustrate the compilers’ attention to the local audience for which it was intended, including the use of local place names for tune titles, and the inclusion of locally composed tunes and fuging tunes, which were written for an antiquated singing style that persisted in the Maritimes long after it faded from church music in other parts of North America and the United Kingdom.


1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ged Martin

Selecting a name for the gold rush colony of British Columbia, although apparently trivial, embarrassed the government, threatened to become the focus for a groundswell of opposition to the whole idea of establishing a new colony, and offers a curious sidelight on the role of the Crown.On 24 June 1858 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the Colonial Secretary in Lord Derby's second ministry, wrote to the Queen to inform her that “in consequence of the recent discovery of Gold in the Neighbourhood of Fraser's River, on the Western Coast of British North America, rendering expedient the immediate establishment of Civil Government,” the government had decided “to erect at once a New Colony there.” Parliament had to authorize this, “& it is desirable that the name of the new Colony shall be inserted in the Bill.” Since the measure was to be introduced within a week, the procedure was slapdash. In asking the Queen to select a name, Lytton informed her that explorers had used the name “New Caledonia,” but did point out that the name had been used elsewhere, most notably for “the chief island of the New Hebrides Group in the South Seas where the French have lately signified their intention to form an establishment.” He added that the names New Cornwall and New Hanover had also been applied to parts of the coast by some mapmakers. While the monarch retained a significant role in mid-nineteenth century government, this hardly extended to, acting as a cartographical research institute for the Colonial Office. On 27 June the Queen informed her minister that she had settled on New Caledonia as the most generally accepted name.


1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ged Martin

The movement for imperial federation has traditionally been regarded as a late nineteenth century phenomenon, which grew out of a supposed reaction against earlier ‘anti-imperialism’. J. E. Tyler set out to trace its growth ‘from its first beginnings… in and around 1868’. Historians were aware of the suggestions made before the American War of Independence that the colonies should send M.P.s to Westminster, but tended to dismiss them as of antiquarian rather than historical interest. A few also noted apparently isolated discussions of some Empire federal connexion in the first half of the nineteenth century, but no attempt was made to establish the existence of a continuous sentiment before 1870. C. A. Bodelsen did no more than list a series of examples he had discovered in the supposed age of anti-imperialism. In fact between 1820 and 1870 a debate about the federal nature of the Empire can be traced. Like the movement for imperial federation after 1870, there was only the vaguest unity of aim about the mid-century projects, and before 1870, as after, the idea was never consistently to the fore, but enjoyed short bursts of popularity. It is, however, fair to think of one single movement for a federal Empire throughout the nineteenth century. There is a clear continuity in ideas, in arguments, and in the people involved. Ideas of Empire federalism were influential, not so much for themselves as for their relationship to overall imperial thinking: to ignore the undercurrent of feeling for a united Empire is to distort the attitudes of many leading men. In the mid-nineteenth century general principles of imperial parliamentary union were argued chiefly from the particular case of British North America, the closest colonies to Britain and the most constitutionally advanced. This Canadian emphasis strengthened the analogies with the United States which occurred in any case.


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