Date Published:
May 2005

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

Samuel Edward Dawson

Dawson, Samuel Edward (1833-1916), critic and historian, was born in Halifax, Nova.Scotia, in June 1, 1833, the son of the Rev. Benjamin Dawson, a native of Prince Edward Island. He was educated at McCulloch's School, Halifax, and came with his father to Montreal in 1847. He became a partner, and subsequently head, of the firm of B. Dawson and Son (afterwards Dawson Bros.), publishers and booksellers, Montreal. In 1891 he was appointed King's printer at Ottawa. He was superannuated in 1909, and he died at Westmount, Montreal, on February 9, 1916. For many years he contributed fugitive papers on a wide variety of subjects to newspapers and other periodicals; but his most important publications were A study, with critical and explanatory notes, of Lord Tennyson's poem, The Princess (Montreal, 1882), Handbook of the Dominion of Canada (Montreal, 1884), and The St. Lawrence basin (New York, 1905), a work of capital importance for the history of early exploration in Canada. He married, in 1858, Annie, daughter of Gilbert Bent, of St. John, New Brunswick. He was created a C.M.G. in 1906; and he was a Litt.D. of Laval University (1890) and an LL.D. of McGill University (1911). In 1907 he was elected president of the Royal Society of Canada.

Source: W. Stewart Wallace, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., pp. 185-186.