Date Published:
April 2005

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

John Reade

Reade, John (1837-1919), journalist and poet, was born at Ballyshannon, county Donegal, Ireland, on November 13, 1837, the son of Joseph Reade and Frances Smyth. He was educated at Queen's College, Belfast, and came to Canada in 1856. He first studied law, and then theology; and in 1864 was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England. He had, however, before this interested himself in journalism; and in 1870 he left the church to become literary editor of the Montreal Gazette. This position he held for the rest of his life, conducting for many years a column entitled "Old and New", under the initials "R. V." In 1870 he published a volume of verse, The prophecy of Merlin, and other poems (Montreal); and he contributed to literary periodicals and to the transactions of learned societies a large number of papers on a great variety of subjects. In 1882 he was appointed one of the charter members of the Royal Society of Canada; and in 1896 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature of Great Britain. In 1906 he was made an LL.D. of the University of Ottawa. He died, unmarried, at Montreal, on March 26, 1919.

Source  : W. Stewart Wallace, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. V, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 401p., p. 225.