R. Stanley Bagg, Tory Politician

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Stanley Bagg (1848-1912), was a Montreal businessman, sportsman and life-long Tory. A newspaper report of his death noted, “He was a staunch Conservative both in and out of power, and some years ago was president of the Liberal-Conservative Club giving a great deal of his time to the work of organizing as well as well as to public discussion. He was well known amongst the French-Canadian people and spoke French almost as fluently as his mother Robert tongue.”1

My great-grandfather’s interest in politics was not limited to reading about the issues of the day in the newspaper (The Gazette was a die-hard Conservative-leaning publication) or debating issues privately with his friends. Stanley became actively involved in the Liberal-Conservative Club after it was founded in 1895 as a rallying point for English and French-speaking Conservatives in Montreal. The club took a leading role in the Dominion (federal) election of 1896, and the Quebec campaign of 1897. No doubt to Stanley’s dismay, the Conservatives lost in both elections.

The Conservatives had been the party of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, who is said to have been a personal friend of Stanley’s father, Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873). They remained in power until 1896, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals defeated them, and Laurier remained prime minister for the next 15 years. One of the main differences between the two parties was that the Conservatives promoted loyalty to the British Empire, independence from the United States and protectionism in trade, while the Liberals were in favour of free trade.

R. Stanley Bagg, portrait by Adam Sheriff Scott. Bagg family collection.

Stanley played a role in many party activities, especially after his retirement from the family real-estate business at the turn of the century. He frequently chaired public meetings, he served for several years in the early 1900s as president of the Liberal-Conservative Club, and he twice attempted to run for a seat in the House of Commons in Ottawa. The first time was during the Dominion election of 1896 in the St. Lawrence riding, east of Mount Royal. This was the area where Stanley’s ancestors had lived and owned property for almost a century. Stanley was the third candidate in the riding, and the nomination papers he submitted showed he had considerable support among both English and French-speaking Conservatives. However, four days later, when it became apparent that the other Conservative candidate had broader support, Stanley withdrew his name.

In 1905, The Gazette anticipated that Mr. R. Stanley Bagg might run as an independent candidate for the provincial legislature vacancy in the St. Lawrence division caused by the death of the incumbent.2 The newspaper’s prediction was wrong, however, and he did not run. A few years later, in the federal election of 1908, Stanley did put his name in for the Conservative nomination for the St. Lawrence division. This time, Henry Archer Ekers, the outgoing mayor of Montreal, won the nomination by a narrow margin, and Stanley called on the meeting to make the choice unanimous.

Although he never did run for office, Stanley appears to have been a popular speaker at Conservative party functions, and the newspapers reported on his speeches on several occasions.

When he addressed a meeting during the 1897 provincial campaign, The Montreal Star summed up his remarks:

“Mr. R. Stanley Bagg was the last speaker. In a really eloquent and polished speech this gentleman drew a picture of the possibilities of the Province of Quebec under good government. Especially strong were his commendations of the Flynn educational programme, which would bestow that priceless boon of education upon the poor as well as upon the rich. This education would enable the growing generation to intelligently study the questions appertaining to the government of the province, and when the young people became enfranchised, such study would enable them to vote for honest government, for the party and platform that best represented the best interests of Quebec.“3

In January 1900, Stanley was president-elect of the Liberal Conservative Club and a general election was coming soon. In remarks to a club meeting, he pledged to put forward the interests of the club, the Conservative party and the county, adding that the Conservative party was the “true patriotic party of Canada.”4

Later that year, during the Dominion election campaign, The Montreal Star quoted Stanley’s remarks to a Tory campaign rally: “Never in the history of Canada has there been an election so important, so fraught with vital interest in the whole Dominion, as that in which the people of this country are now engaged. The relations between Canada and the Mother Country are, at the present time, peculiar. The South African (Boer) war afforded Canada an opportunity to demonstrate Canadian loyalty and Canadian valour, and today we have as a result an exceptional chance to secure favours from the Mother Country, which never before presented itself. The Imperial sentiment is strong throughout the Empire and the British people are disposed to accord to the colonies trade concessions the value of which to ourselves cannot be overestimated.

“There is but one way in which Canada can benefit from this opportunity, and that way lies through the return of the Conservative party to power. The Conservative party is pledged to use its best efforts to secure a mutual imperial preferential tariff …. The Conservative party stands for protection, for stability in the tariff, for patriotism and for progress.…”5

Eleven years later, Stanley again focused on the topic of reciprocity (free trade) with the U.S.In an hour-long address, he noted that, as someone who had taken part in a large number of election campaigns and given close and continuous study to public affairs, he had been invited to give his views on the great question now before the voters. He “emphatically urged that reciprocity be thrown out. He not only showed that the pact would be commercially injurious to Canada, but appealed to the patriotism of the electors, their spirt as Canadians and Britons. He reminded them, amidst ringing applause, how Sir John A. Macdonald had denounced the attempts of Liberal leaders to bring about unrestricted reciprocity in 1891 as ‘veiled treason’.”6

These accounts of Stanley’s speeches may seem old fashioned today, but I was pleased to discover them as they provided a window into my ancestor’s thoughts. He clearly identified as Canadian and English, although his ancestors also included Americans and Scots.

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Horses, Snowshoes and Family Life”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Sept 21, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/09/horses-snowshoes-and-family-life.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Silver Spoon”, Writing Up the Ancestors, ”, June 12, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/06/the-silver-spoon.html

Sources:

  1. “R. Stanley Bagg Died Yesterday,” The Gazette, (Montreal, Quebec), July 23, 1912, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/419604976 accessed Aug. 4, 2024.
  • 3. “St. Louis Division; Mr. Parizeau’s Supporters Enthusiastic.” The Montreal Daily Star (Montreal, Quebec), 10 May, 1897, p. 4, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/740883625 accessed Oct. 1, 2024.

Horses, Snowshoes and Family Life

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Horses were a common part of daily life in turn-of-the-century Montreal. Tradesmen delivered milk and other items by horse and cart, fire engines were horse-drawn, and many people got around the city in horse-drawn carriages in summer and sleighs in winter. For those who could afford it, horseback riding, horse racing and horse shows were also popular.

My great-grandfather Robert Stanley Bagg (1848-1912) was a skilled rider and every spring in the early 1900s, he and his wife, Clara, attended the Montreal horse show, held in suburban Westmount. Hunters, jumpers, harness horses and ponies competed for honours, but the show seems to have been more of a social activity than a sporting one, and proceeds from a tea served during the afternoon’s events were donated to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

A newspaper illustration of the Montreal Horse Show, 1904.

The Montreal Star published columns of names of attendees, and in 1904, the paper noted that R. Stanley Bagg had a private viewing box. Perhaps, like other boxholders, he and Clara entertained guests at dinner prior to the evening events.

Two years later, the Star reported that Clara, dressed in green tweed with a black hat trimmed with white, attended the show with her sister-in-law Amelia Norton, in a purple dress and a white hat, and her daughter Evelyn, in a grey homespun dress and a pale blue hat, trimmed with white.1

Stanley was still riding at age 59 when he was injured in an accident on Mount Royal, the mountain that rises behind the city center.The Star reported that he was riding on rough ground near the park ranger’s house when his horse stumbled on a rock, fell and rolled over on one side, pinning Mr. Bagg beneath him. Two men who happened to be nearby helped him get up and encouraged him to rest for a few minutes before riding home. Stanley had sprained his shoulder, hit his head and his face was badly scraped, however, he soon recovered.2

Snowshoeing was also a popular sport in Montreal, and one of Stanley’s favourite winter activities. Between the end of November and the beginning of March, the city’s rival snowshoeing clubs competed in races, held weekly “tramps” over the mountain and organized longer excursions to other locations on the Island of Montreal. Club social activities usually included an annual dinner, charity fundraisers and lots of singing. Stanley was a member of the St. George Snowshoe Club, and it had its own club song with a chorus that began, “Hurrah! Hurrah! It’s jolly on the snow. Hurrah! Hurrah! The stiffest storm may blow.…”3

Stanley was on his club’s building and furnishing committee, overseeing the construction of a new clubhouse at Côte St. Antoine. The building was constructed in the early English stye of architecture, with spacious verandas on all sides, a high-pitched roof with dormers and a square entrance hall that gave way to an assembly room with a huge fireplace and large windows overlooking the veranda. When the club house held its grand opening on the evening of December 21, 1887, Stanley was among those who led the way from the Windsor Hotel downtown to the new building.4

When he wasn’t enjoying sports, Stanley, a lawyer, worked in the Bagg family real estate business.  Family life was also important, especially when family members were travelling together or on summer holiday.

Stanley was married to Clara Smithers (1860-1946). One of eleven children, she was the daughter of Charles Francis Smithers, president of the Bank of Montreal, and his wife, Irish-born Martha Bagnall Shearman. When he started pursuing Clara in 1880, Stanley was age 32 and living at home at Fairmount Villa with his mother and sisters. (His father had died in 1873.) Stanley and Clara were married on June 8, 1882 at St. Martin’s Anglican Church in the presence of guests who included “the elite of our inner social circles.”5

The couple’s eldest child, Evelyn St. Clare Stanley Bagg, was born in 1883, and another daughter – my future grandmother – Gwendolyn Stanley Bagg was born in 1887. Their third child, Harold Fortesque Stanley Bagg, arrived in 1895.

Having started a family, Stanley and Clara must have realized it was time to own a house of their own, so Stanley hired architect William McLea Walbank to build a house at 436 Saint-Urbain, near his mother’s home. It was completed in 1884. 

According to a newspaper report, it was a handsome, well-finished brick villa of the Early English style of architecture, on Upper St. Urbain Street. The house contained all the modern conveniences of the time and was heated by Spence’s patent hot water furnace throughout. It claimed to be rat-proof. The bricks were all of Montreal manufacture and compared favourably with imported pressed bricks.

The family did not stay there long, however. In 1890, Lovell’s city directory listed Stanley as living in Georgeville, Quebec, while his sister Mary, the wife of stock broker Robert Lindsay, was living in the house on St. Urbain. Stanley had purchased a large house in Georgeville, on Lake Memphremagog, although it was probably a summer residence. Montreal was a very dirty and unhealthy city, especially in the heat, so many Montrealers left town during the summer months.

The Bagg family on summer vacation, probably at Cacouna, on the lower St. Lawrence River.

It does not appear that the Baggs owned the Georgeville house for many years. My grandmother acquired a camera around 1901 and her snapshots showed family summer vacations at Cacouna on the lower St. Lawrence River, at a rented a house on a lake near Ste. Agathe in the Laurentian Mountains, and at a summer hotel at Kennebunk Beach, Maine.

As for their city home, perhaps Stanley and Clara realized that their house on St. Urbain was not in the city’s most desirable neighbourhood. The place to live in Montreal was an area known as the Golden Square Mile, on the southwest slope of Mount Royal. Montreal was the financial and industrial capital of Canada, and businessmen were making fortunes and building mansions in that part of the city.

Stanley purchased a lot at the western edge of the Golden Square Mile, the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Côte des Neiges Road, and architect Walbank designed a new red sandstone house for him. Construction started in 1891, and the Baggs were living there by 1892. It was Stanley’s home until his death from cancer in 1912.6 Clara then divided the house into two apartments and remained there until she died in 1946.

This story was posted earlier on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com.

Photo sources:

The Montreal Star, May 7, 1904, p. 20

The Montreal Star, Feb. 12, 1887, p. 6

Gwendolyn Catherine Stanley Bagg, Portrait of the Family, Cacouna, 1903, McCord-Stewart Museum, M2013.591.134

Sources:

  1. “Horse Makes Farewell Bow Tonight,” The Montreal Star (Montreal, Quebec), May 12, 1906, p. 12, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/738949773; accessed Aug. 4, 2024.
  • “Snowshoeing; The Red Cross Knights; St. George’s Snowshoe Club Inaugurated Last Night,” The Gazette, (Montreal, Quebec), Dec. 21, 1887, p. 8, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/419349867; accessed Aug. 3, 2024.
  • “Marriage Chimes: Fashionable Wedding at St. Martin’s Church Yesterday,” The Gazette, (Montreal, Quebec), June 9, 1882, p. 3.