Category: Montreal

Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Stanley Clark Bagg

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As a well-known Montreal land-owner, writer and philanthropist, my great-great grandfather Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) was profiled in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB). Unfortunately, several errors appeared in that article and, when researchers look to the DCB as a reliable source of information, these mistakes are perpetuated. 

Stanley Clark Bagg

The DBC is correct in saying that SCB, as I like to call him, was the only son of Stanley Bagg, a Montreal merchant, and his wife, Mary Ann Clark. The entry adds that SCB was a notary, large landowner and president of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal and of the English Workingmen’s Benefit Society.

Then it states, “The Bagg family claimed to be of Norman descent. At the end of the 18th century Stanley Clark’s grandfather emigrated from England to America. At his death he left large estates in Durham County, England to his son Stanley.” This paragraph seems to refer to SCB’s grandfather Bagg.  In fact, it was SCB’s maternal grandfather, John Clark, who emigrated from Durham, England. A butcher by trade, Clark owned property in Durham and he purchased a number of farm properties in Montreal that his grandson inherited. 

Far from being wealthy, SCB’s paternal grandfather, Phineas Bagg, brought his family to Canada after he lost his farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to pay off his debts. On this side of the family, SCB’s immigrant ancestor was John Bagg, possibly from Plymouth, England, whose marriage in Springfield, Massachusetts was recorded in 1657.

The DCB was correct in saying that Stanley Clark Bagg married Catharine, eldest daughter of Robert Mitcheson and Frances MacGregor of Philadelphia in 1844, however, it went too far in adding that Frances was descended from the chiefs of the MacGregor clan and the old Scottish kings. This is a family story that may or may not be true. My research on Mary Frances MacGregor’s ancestry has come up against a brick wall. 

The Dictionary says that SCB and Catharine “had one son, Robert Stanley.” True, Robert Stanley Clark Bagg was their only son, but they also had four daughters: Katharine Sophia, Amelia Josephine, Mary Heloise and Helen Frances. 

The final inaccuracy in the DCB article was the statement that “his family was one of the oldest English families on Montreal Island .…”  Both the Bagg and Clark families arrived in Montreal in the late 1790s, three decades after the British conquered New France and at least a decade after many English, Scottish and Loyalist families had made their way here. 

These errors may be minor (although the descendants of SCB’s daughters might consider them quite important), but the online version of the DCB should be corrected quickly when issues are brought to their attention. The home page of the DCB invites readers to suggest corrections or additions, so I assume SCB’s biography will eventually be fixed. Meanwhile, in 2013, I wrote them and included extensive footnotes so they could verify my sources. Not long after that, without changing a word, they highlighted Stanley Clark Bagg as the Biography of the Day. (note: The article was finally revised in 2018.)

The takeaway from this article: even if you read about your ancestor in a source you consider reliable, check as many details as possible and be skeptical about sweeping or grandiose claims. 

Photo: portrait by William Raphael; private collection.

Related articles:

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

Janice Hamilton, “John Clark of Durham, England,” Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/05/john-clark-of-durham-england.html

Janice Hamilton, “An Economic Emigrant,” Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2013/10/an-economic-emigrant.html

Janice Hamilton, “The MacGregors: Family Legend or True Story?” Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/03/the-macgregors-family-legend-or-true.html

Notes:

The wording I have quoted here is from the online version of SCB’s biography:

Pierre Landry, “Bagg, Stanley Clark” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bagg_stanley_clark_10E.html, accessed November 29, 2015.

This is a rewrite of the original print version of SCB’s biography, published in Volume X of the DCB in 1972, which had even more errors.

I decided to blog about this after a friend showed me an article about Robert Stanley Bagg and Stanley Clark Bagg in a book edited by Col. William Wood, William Henry Atherton and Edwin P. Conklin, The Storied Province of Quebec, Past and Present, vol. IV, Toronto: Dominion Publishing Company Ltd., 1931, 435; http://www.ourroots.ca/page.aspx?id=3660140&qryID=7ac7b13a-a7be-4ef4-9eb9-ab5b20789894, accessed Nov. 29, 2015. That article not only invented a military career for SCB, it also erroneously stated that Stanley Bagg was born in England. 

The most extensive biography of SCB was written shortly after his death and appeared in the journal to which he had been a regular contributor. The article is “In Memoriam, Stanley Clark Bagg, Esq, J.P., F.N.S.”, The Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, vol. II, no. 2 (Montreal, Oct. 1873), p. 73, accessed through Google Books, Nov. 29, 2015.

Jim Hamilton: A Life

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My father, James Drummond Hamilton, was born 100 years ago this week, on Sept. 27,1915. The son of Winnipeg physician Thomas Glendenning (T.G.) Hamilton and of Lillian (Forrester) Hamilton, Jim had an identical twin, Arthur. In photos, the twins were always together, usually dressed similarly. 

In February, 1919, the influenza epidemic that was sweeping the world hit the Hamilton household. Jim lost his right eardrum as a result of the flu and was deaf in that ear for the rest of his life. He also lost his twin brother.

Twins Jimmy and Arthur at the cottage, summer, 1918.

Dad didn’t talk about his childhood often, but he told me that his happiest childhood memories were of summers spent at the family cottage on Lake Winnipeg. Undoubtedly, the most unusual aspect of his childhood was the fact that his parents spent many evenings attending séances in the family’s home. Meeting with a medium and a small group of friends, they watched tables rise into the air on their own and they tried to communicate with deceased individuals. This didn’t frighten Jim, but perhaps his school friends teased him about it. 

Jim was a very good student, and he graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1937 with a degree in physics. In 1938, he received an M.A. in physics, mathematics and chemistry from the University of Toronto. 

When World War II broke out, he wanted to enlist but, despite strong character references, he was rejected several times because of his perforated ear drum and poor eyesight. Finally the military changed its medical requirements and he became eligible for service, but by that time he was making documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada, including a public health film on the transmission and treatment of venereal disease.  

He met my mother, Joan Murray Smith, in Ottawa and they were married in 1946. They then moved to London, Ontario, where my father did cancer research at the University of Western Ontario and obtained a PhD in Medical Research. About the time I started kindergarten, Dad made another career move and enrolled in medical school. Eventually our family moved to Montreal and my father opened his own office in the Westmount Medical Building.    

He enjoyed being a family doctor, partly because he liked people. Many of his patients were elderly and they appreciated the fact that he would make house calls. But his real passion was for the theory he called triads. He thought about it and talked about it constantly.

On holiday in Florida, 1976

  He said that the theory he developed in collaboration with John Q. Stewart, a retired astrophysicist from Princeton University, explained problem solving by humans — and all animals — as a two-step process: first, P, the path to the goal, and second, F, the exchange of material, such as food or waste. He created the term merge, M, to describe mental ideas and images, which are formed by the interaction between P and F. He spent months with his slide-rule, working out a mathematical equation of his theory, then many more years at the typewriter, describing his ideas and their applications. 

His biggest disappointment in life was probably that most people could not understand this theory (especially the math), nor could he convince many people of its significance. On April 15, 1980, he wrote to a friend that he had been reading philosophy and was planning to rewrite his triads paper from a different perspective. Two days later, he suffered a fatal heart attack.  

His ashes are buried in Winnpeg, beside his twin’s grave.