Dianne Brydon tells us about the life of Emma Maud (Playter) Lampman: married young to "Confederation Poet" Archibald Lampman, widowed at age 32, and being among the first women to work in Canada's civil service at the turn of the 20th century.

Born into slavery in Kentucky, Paul Barber, was one of Ottawa’s earliest Black permanent residents and a renowned horse trainer, founding a family that has made its mark in the capital for over a century. Thomas Barber, Paul Barber's grandson, shares the remarkable story of his family and their important role in Ottawa’s past.

Award-winning educator, activist, and community leader June Girvan discusses the importance of understanding and reconciliation—and the complicated journey we all share in trying to make peace with the past.

Football fans in this town have managed to remain loyal to their home team for 145 years, be it the Rough Riders, or the Renegades, or back again to the Rough Riders, and now the Redblacks. Hockey fans have retained their allegiance to two different Senators teams over 80 seasons, separated a by a 58-year winter when locals were forced to chose between the Leafs, Habs, or other members of the Original Six. But as we learned at our January 26th presentation, Ottawa’s sports history is much more than hockey and football.

Our guest speaker for the January 26, 2022, Virtual Speaker Series was HSO member James Powell, who began his presentation by reminding us that in the late 19th century, watching professional sports was not nearly as popular as participating in amateur pastimes like lacrosse, cricket, and cycling. As James noted, skiing was a popular pastime in Ottawa before devotees could even come to agreement on how to spell the name of their favourite sport.

As always, when it comes to James’ presentations, his history is well researched. During the Q&A session that followed, one participant though he might have stumped James with a question regarding the obscure sport of “hose reel racing” which was held annually in Ottawa a century ago. Suffice to say, James had an answer. I won’t tell you here what hose reel racing is. You’ll find it more entertaining to watch James’ presentation for the answer.

Like all our Virtual Speaker Series presentations, you can find James’ talk at our HSO website. The website is also the place to register for upcoming presentations.

Randy Boswell highlights the opportunity to find deserving figures "other than Victorian-era politicians, government functionaries and members of the British mobility" to name our landmarks after. Randy had been one of the first to propose, in a 2020 Ottawa Citizen column, to rename Ottawa's Prince of Wales Bridge in honour of Chief William Commanda.

Randy, a past member of the HSO Board of Directors, draws attention to the way "the naming of streets, buildings and other places has sometimes memorialized slave owners and other unworthy figures from the past" and suggests replacing implied tributes to "historical figures (Henry Goulbourn, for example) with deeply problematic past and little or no connection to our country".

In other cases, Randy advocates a delicate balance, with figures such as Sir John A. Macdonald, to "find ways to preserve pride in the achievements of Canada's founding prime minister without ignoring his role in shaping the Residential Schools system and other racism-laced policies targeting Indigenous and Chinese people."

(At the start of his presentation, Randy acknowledges that there exist a wide range of views on this topic and invited audience members to join the conversation during the Q&A session following his talk.)

Since the HSO's founding almost 124 years ago with our mission to “increase public knowledge of the history of Ottawa” and “to preserve the history of the peoples of Bytown and Ottawa”, we have frequently been guilty of telling Ottawa's stories from a very narrow cultural perspective.

We can't "erase" the past in terms of erasing what has already been written. But we need now to expand upon what has been written -- and update the record of our past with the important perspectives that thus far have been glaringly missed from our history books.

We need to understand, acknowledge and come to terms with our past -- as historical society, as a city, and as a nation.

Randy, a journalist and Carleton University professor, notes that we should be at liberty to override some of the naming choices made by our Victorian-era forebearers that date back to a very different colonization era.

Randy's presentation recognized the difficult task ahead for Ottawa’s politicians, city planners and community groups (including HSO) in setting new, inclusive standards on how to honour the past, into the future.

View Randy's full presentation on the HSO YouTube channel.

HSO director James Powell provides a colourful play-by-play of sporting pastimes from Ottawa's early days in the video presentation.

A few months ago, I had the honour of taking part in the Historical Society of Ottawa’s Speaker Series and speaking about my Grandpa Jack. My grandpa passed away when I was about 12 or 13 but during the lockdowns in 2020, I had a chance to reconnect with him. At the urging of my mother, he spent the last few months of his life using a tape recorder to record his early memories of coming to Canada as a British Home Child. Hearing his voice again, telling his own stories, has been an amazing gift for my family.

When I first started to work with them, I tried to keep two guiding questions in mind. First, was it possible to rebuild a connection to a family member who had passed away? Second, how can I best honour the recordings and pass them along to the next generation?

Jack Edward Kent was the oldest child born to Edwin and Elsie Kent on June 1, 1911 in Surrey England. He attended the boarding school of King Edward in Witley. Jack was naturally gifted and received awards in Divinity and School Work. Unfortunately, when his father passed away, there was no provision in his will to pay for additional education for Jack or his younger brother Bruce. It was decided that given the problems in post-First World War England, the best thing to do would be to send the two boys to the emigration home, and Jack found himself a few months later at the age of 16 on the Hooker’s family farm in Ormstown, Quebec. He recounts:

“Well, possibly the first thing I should say is how I came to Canada. I was in a boarding school in the south of England. My eyes were bad and I was told to get on the land. So my mother came down to the school and she said there’s nothing in England, maybe you should go to Australia. Well, I said. Bob Christian, my best friend, he’s thinking of going to New Zealand, maybe I should go too. So it was agreed.

The headmaster took me down to London. We filled out all the papers, the time came and I left school and I went to Hadley, the Sally Ann farm in Essex and I’ll have to talk about Hadley. It was a very pleasant place and after a while, we heard the New Zealand rep was coming. Good. I’m happy! Today I’m here; tomorrow I’m going to New Zealand. We line up and he says, I’ll have that one and that one’s o.k. Don’t want him – he wears glasses. They said to me, what do you want to do? Do you want to go home or do you want to go to Canada? I said I’ll go to Canada and that’s just how long it took.”

It is estimated around 100,000 British children were resettled in Canada between 1846 and 1948 under what was called the ‘Assisted Juvenile Emigration Program’ and became what Canadians would call “Home Children”. These children were usually between the ages of 7- 14 but could be anywhere between 6 months and 18 years old. About 70% of these children were settled in Ontario while the other 30% were spread between Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia, and the Maritime provinces. The goal behind this program was to provide British children whose future was expected to be limited due to poverty, lack of family or other reasons a chance for a new life in Canada. Canada was also trying to increase their population so saw the value of bringing British immigrants over. The attraction to Canadian families who signed up for the program was a way to add children into their families, either as a member or source of labour.

Jack was lucky and had a lot of fond memories of the farm and of the Hooker family. Others, however, were not so fortunate. It’s now recognized that many of these Home Children experienced abuse and slave-like working conditions. Siblings were separated, as were Jack and Bruce, and all had to deal with the hardship of coming into a new life in a country far away from their families and homes.

The program was largely discontinued in the 1930s, but not entirely terminated until the 1970s. In the following decades, research was done to expose the abuse and hardships of the Home Children and their families. 1998 saw the Ontario Heritage Trust added a provincial historical plaque to the Home Children to the St George's Home in Ottawa explaining the history of home children.

I’m still working on finding answers to my guiding questions. However, through hearing Jack tell his own stories I can feel connected to him. I think he would have been excited to know his story was shared with the Historical Society of Ottawa.

You can view Emma's presentation on the HSO YouTube channel.