Date Published:
July 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Antoine Gérin-Lajoie

Gérin-Lajoie, Antoine (1824-1882), journalist and author, was born at Yamachiche, Lower Canada, on August 4, 1824. He was educated at the College of Nicolet, and while still at school wrote Un Canadien errant, a famous French-Canadian song, and a play entitled Le jeune Latour (Montreal, 1884). He was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1848, but did not practise law. From 1845 to 1852 he was editor of La Minerve;. then he became French translator to the Legislative Assembly; and finally he was appointed assistant librarian in the Library of Parliament, a post which he held until his retirement on pension in 1880. He died at Ottawa on August 4, 1882. He was one of the founders of the Institut Canadien at Montreal, and was twice its president. In the establishment of the Soirées canadiennes (Quebec, 1861-5) and the Foyer. canadien (Quebec, 1863-6) he took a prominent part; and he was the author of a Catéchisme politique (Montreal, 1851) and of two well-known novels, J ean Rivard le défricheur (Montreal, 1874) and J ean Rivard l'économiste (Montreal, 1876). After his death appeared his Dix ans au Canada, de 1840 à 1850 (Quebec, 1888), a history of the establishment of responsible government in Canada. See L. de Montigny, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (Toronto, 1926) ; Abbé H. R. Casgrain, Biographie de Gérin-Lajoie (Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 1885), and Biographies canadiennes (Montreal, 1885).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 27.