Honouring the Memory
of
Dr. William Henry Drummond
Dr. William Henry Drummond (1854–1907) was "Canada's First National Poet" as well as the first doctor in the Cobalt area, and a silver mine owner.
From University of Toronto's Representative Poetry Online website:
An immigrant to Montreal from Ireland, Drummond graduated with an M.D. from McGill University in 1884 and started practising in the eastern townships (along the St. Lawrence River) to which his dialect poems so often refer. In 1888 he moved to Montreal. It was ten years later, well after his marriage to May Isobel Harvey, that Drummond published his first book of poetry, The Habitant (1897). His preface includes the following remarks:
Having lived, practically all my life, side by side with the French-Canadian people, I have grown to admire and love them, and I have felt that while many of the English-speaking public know perhaps as well as myself the French-Canadian of the cities, yet they have had little opportunity of becoming acquainted with the habitant, therefore I have endeavored to paint a few types, and in doing this, it has seemed to me that I could best attain the object in view by having my friends tell their own tales in their own way, as they would relate them to English-speaking auditors not conversant with the French tongue.
Drummond's sentiments were welcomed by Louis Fréchette, a well-known French-Canadian poet, in an enthusiastic introduction to this book that closes: "le Canadian-français sent que c'est là l'expression d'une âme amie; et, à ce compte, je dois à l'auteur plus que mes bravos, je lui dois en même temps un chaleureux merci".
Drummond went on to publish five more books of poetry, Phil-o-Rum's Canoe (1848), Johnnie Courteau (1901), The Voyager (1905), and The Great Fight (1908), and to become one of the most widely-read and loved poets of his nation. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1899 and received two honorary degrees, the first from the University of Toronto in 1902, and then from Bishop's University in 1905.
For a biography, see J. B. Lyons, William Henry Drummond: Poet in Patois (Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1994; PS 8457 R85Z75 1994 Robarts Library). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Digital Library
DR. WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND, the poet of the habitant, was born in the village of Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland, on the 13th of April, 1854. Shortly afterwards, his father, an officer in the Royal Irish Constabulary, moved to the village of Tawley, on the Bay of Donegal. It was in this village that the future poet's education began.
While he was still a boy, the family emigrated to Canada, where the father in a few months died, leaving but limited means for the support of his wife and children.
William Henry soon found it necessary to leave school, to earn what he could to help provide for the family. Having learned telegraphy, he was employed at Borde à Plouffe, a small village on the Rivière des Prairies, near Montreal. It was here that he first observed the speech and the customs of the habitant, whom, with the kindliest intent, he has so faithfully portrayed.
In time, the family exchequer permitted him to attend the High School in Montreal, later, McGill University, and finally. Bishop's College, where he graduated in medicine in 1884 Dr. Drummond practised his profession for four years in the district about Brome, and then returned to the City of Montreal, where he continued to reside until his lamented death in 1907.
In 1894, he married Miss May Harvey, of Savannah la Mar, Jamaica. In Mrs. Drummond's memoir of her husband, she relates that he read with many misgivings, one of his earliest poems, 'Le Vieux Temps,' at a dinner of the Shakespeare Club, of Montreal, and further says:
This was the beginning of a long series of triumphs of a like nature, triumphs which owed little to elocutionary art, much to the natural gift of a voice rare alike in strength, quality and variety of tone, but, most of all to the fact that the characters he delineated were not mere creations of a vivid imagination. They were portraits tenderly drawn by the master hand of a true artist, and one who knew and loved the originals.
The Habitant and other French-Canadian Poems was published in 1898, and the popularity of the book was such as to bring the poet fame, and a substantial income in royalties. It was followed by Johnnie Courteau and other Poems in 1901: by Phil-o'-Rum's Canoe and Madeleine Vercheres in 1903; [Page 179] and by The Voyageur and other Poems in 1905. His unpublished poems were edited and issued with the afore-mentioned memoir, by his wife, in 1909; and, in 1912, a complete and beautiful edition of his works, in one volume, was published by G. T. Putnam's Sons, of New York.
For several years he was Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in his Alma Mater. In 1902, the University of Toronto conferred on him the degree of LL.D. Subsequently he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature of England, and, later, of the Royal Society of Canada.
Much of the last two years of his life, Dr. Drummond spent in the Cobalt district, where he had mining interests. There he was stricken with cerebral hemorrhage and died in the morning of April 6th, 1907. Probably no other Canadian poet has been so widely mourned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"… prestigious awards to come out of the 1960s were…the Dr William Henry Drummond National Poetry Contest. "
Canadian Encyclopedia Historica