- Byron Edmund Walker
Sir Byron Edmund Walker,
C.V.O. ,LL.D. , D.C.L.. (14 October 1848 –27 March 1924 ) was a Canadian banker. He was the president of theCanadian Bank of Commerce from 1907 to 1924, and a generous patron of the arts, helping to found and nurture many of Canada's cultural and educational institutions, including theUniversity of Toronto ,National Gallery of Canada , [http://www.champlainsociety.ca Champlain Society] ,Appleby College ,Art Gallery of Ontario andRoyal Ontario Museum . In 1910, King George Vknighted Walker for his contributions to business and the arts.Early years
Byron Edmund Walker was born on
October 14 ,1848 on the outskirts of Caledonia inSeneca Township , Haldimand County,Canada West .His Grandfather, Thomas Walker, had been a manufacturer of watchcases in
London ,England . He arrived inUpper Canada (nowOntario ) in 1834 with four of his children, some books and some pictures. The loss of his wife and four of his children contributed heavily to his decision to leave London for Canada. The third youngest child was Alfred Edmund Walker, Sir Edmund's father, a farmer who became a clerk. He was also an amateur naturalist, paleontologist and watercolour painter. Alfred Edmund married Fanny Murton of Hamilton in 1845. Fanny's parents also were immigrants from England, having arrived in 1832. Her father, William Murton, was college educated and her mother spoke Italian and French and played the harpsichord. She also ran a private junior school in Hamilton.The Walkers had nine children of which Byron Edmund (or Edmund, as he preferred to be called) was the second oldest. The family moved from their farm near Caledonia, to Hamilton in 1852. There, at the age of four, Edmund began studies at his grandmother's school and then at the
Hamilton Central School where he completed all six grades. He hoped to pursue a teaching career but poor health curtailed his enrollment in the Toronto Normal School, the teacher's college founded byEgerton Ryerson in 1851. At the age of 12, Walker entered the service of his uncle, John Walter Murton, who had a currency exchange business in Hamilton.A stellar career
While working at his uncle's "
bureau de change ", Walker became an expert in recognizing counterfeit bills being circulated during theAmerican Civil War . After seven years at his uncle's firm, he spent a few months inMontreal but poor health forced him to return to Hamilton in 1868 where he began work as a discount clerk in the newly openedCanadian Bank of Commerce .The Canadian Bank of Commerce was established by industrialist
William McMaster in 1867. McMaster would serve as a guiding light to the young Edmund, who quickly rose through the ranks. In 1872, he was appointed chief accountant at the bank's head office inToronto . In May 1873, Walker was sent toNew York as junior agent for the bank. Charged with responsibility for loans of gold against currency, he successfully maintained proper margins in spite of his clients' many sudden bankruptcies. The enterprising Walker was then sent to the bank's Windsor branch in 1875. In 1878, he was appointed manager of the London, Ontario branch, a year later was made inspector of the bank, and in 1880 he returned to Hamilton as manager.Walker married
Mary Alexander in 1874 while living in New York. Together they had four sons and three daughters. She was the daughter of Alexander Alexander, a carpenter who emigrated from Scotland to Lockport, New York, in 1834. That year, he married Isabella Buchan and moved to Hamilton, Ontario, where he became a green grocer. Together they had five children.From 1881 to 1886, Edmund was again in New York as the bank's joint agent, giving him the opportunity to increase his talents in foreign exchange and to conduct international banking on a much larger scale. There he could expand his cultural interests, visiting galleries and museums, and beginning, in earnest, his art collection. In 1886, at age 38, Walker was recalled to
Toronto as general manager of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. By then there were 30 branches in Ontario and agencies in Toronto, Montreal and New York. The bank's assets at its inception were $2,997,081; 50 years later, these were $440,310,703 with branches across the country, largely attributable to Walker's strong leadership.Walker is known for developing the first set of written regulations for dividing a bank into a complex array of departments and is widely credited for the revision of the "
Canada Banking Act " that gave Canada a centralized, panic-proof banking system. Walker was also professionally respected internationally. As vice-president of theAmerican Bankers Association he was invited by a U.S. congressional committee to advise on the drafting of theFederal Reserve legislation. He held many key national and international positions; chairman of the bankers' section of theToronto Board of Trade from 1891-92; vice-president of theCanadian Bankers Association (which he helped found in 1891) in 1893 and its president from 1894-95; chairman of the 1899 Royal Commission on the financial position of the province of Ontario; and chairman of the Section of Money and Credit for the 1904Universal Exposition in St. Louis. He was a fellow of theInstitute of Bankers of England and fellow of the Royal Economic Society of England.In 1906, he was elected director of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. He served as president from 1907 until his death in 1924.
Political ties
The Liberal Party government of Sir
Wilfrid Laurier appointed Walker to theNational Battlefields Commission in 1908. The commission was charged with the recovery of non-Crown land for a "Battlefields Park" inQuebec City where theBattle of the Plains of Abraham was fought between French and British forces. The commission was also charged with supervision of the expenditures of the Tercentenary Celebration of Samuel de Champlain founding Quebec in 1608. Later, Walker was made chairman of the Canadian committee of the Peace Centenary, an event planned by the Canadian, American and British governments to commemorate 100 years of peace between Canada and the United States following the War of 1812-14.Although Walker tried to stay out of active politics all his life and never joined a political party, he decided to take a pivotal role in the political arena with a group of 18 prominent businessmen who opposed the Reciprocity Agreement with the United States proposed by the
Wilfrid Laurier government. Walker feared that the giant American trusts, once allowed into Canada, would paralyze the Canadian market. Furthermore, as an ardent patriot and staunchImperialist , he feared it would weaken Canada's ties with Britain and ultimately lead to annexation by theUnited States . The anti-reciprocity forces led to the defeat of Laurier's government in 1911. Walker was among those who advised the new Conservative Party prime minister, SirRobert Borden , on preserving the financial stability of Canada during theFirst World War .Interests in education
Walker credited his father for developing his broad interests and love for learning, and always regretted that poor health prevented him from getting a formal education. He believed that the basis of a civilized society was its educational system and that a nation's universities were its most treasured institutions. Throughout his life he took an active interest in educational institutions. One of the first and most lasting of his interests was the
University of Toronto . In 1887, the denominational institutions ofVictoria College (Methodist ),Knox College (Presbyterian ),Wycliffe College (Anglican theological school), andSt. Michael's College (Roman Catholic ) had entered into a federation with the secularUniversity College , the only one funded by the government. After fire destroyed the eastern portion of University College in 1890, Walker was instrumental in persuading theOntario government to make its first grant to the amalgamatedUniversity of Toronto .He was also responsible for leading the last denominational college - Trinity College, affiliated with the
Church of England - into the federation in 1904. Trinity awarded him aDoctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) that same year. In 1905, he was a member of the Royal Commission on the reorganization of the university, which was responsible for securing annual government grants thereafter. Over the course of his 32-year involvement with the university, Walker served astrustee (1892-1906),senator (1893-1901), member of theBoard of Governors (1906-10), chairman (1910-23) and chancellor (1923-24).The
Toronto Conservatory of Music also joined the university through his efforts. He served as a member of its Board of Governors, and later as president (1917-24). His support for music also included theMendelssohn Choir , for which he was honorary president (1900-24).With a lasting commitment to education and the importance of Canadian history in nurturing patriotism and a Canadian identity, he founded the [http://www.champlainsociety.ca Champlain Society] in 1905. Established as a
non-profit organization , its mandate was to publish important documents relating toCanadian history , projects that commercial publishers would consider unprofitable. He believed that this Society was his finest achievement. He served as its president until his death.As an author of articles on a variety of subjects - banking,
Robert Browning , Italian andJapanese art - it is not surprising that Walker would be one of the founders of theCanadian Society of Authors , established to promote Canadian literature and protect authors withcopyright laws. Walker served as president from 1904-09.In 1911, Walker established Appleby School, a boys' private boarding school, for which he purchased the initial 32-acre property in Oakville.
A love of art
Through his years in
New York and early trips toEurope - including toLondon in 1887 andItaly in 1892 - Walker developed skills as an art connoisseur and collector, often lecturing on the subject. His collection of art was housed in his Toronto residence - "Long Garth" at 99 St. George Street. The Victorian brick structure had fine wood interiors,Art Nouveau ceiling decorations byGustav Hahn , and allegorical murals byGeorge Agnew Reid . "Long Garth" became a treasure trove of etchings, prints, embroideries and oriental carpets, bronzes, brass and ivory work, porcelain china, not to mention his fossil collection and his extensive library. Walker had a particular fascination with printmaking and it was said that his expert eye for detail in detecting counterfeit banknotes aided his connoisseurship. Walker also was a member of theJapan Society of America and the most notable part of his collection, 1,070 Japanese woodblock prints, were bequeathed to theRoyal Ontario Museum on his death. Equally of note is the collection of over 400 works of graphic art, ranging from the 15th to the 9th centuries, which he assembled between 1880 and 1924, including works byAlbrecht Dürer andRembrandt . His children gave the collection to theArt Gallery of Ontario in 1926.Beyond purchasing some pictures by Canadian artists, Walker's first real connection with the Canadian art world began when he was approached by a number of prominent Toronto artists to help them organize a guild. With these like-minded laymen and artists who shared his ideals he formed the
Toronto Guild of Civic Art . Spearheaded byGeorge Agnew Reid , the guild pressed for civic improvements in the city. Walker served as its first president in 1897. As the Guild's representative on the committee to select the artist for the monument to Lieutenant GovernorJohn Graves Simcoe at Queen's Park, Walker was largely responsible for the commission being awarded to sculptorWalter Seymour Allward . Later, Walker was responsible for Allward's commission to design the South African War Memorial on University Avenue in Toronto.The Art Gallery of Ontario
Walker's relationship with
George Agnew Reid led to the founding of theArt Gallery of Ontario . OnMarch 15 ,1900 , Reid, then president of theOntario Society of Artists , brought a group of citizens together to consider the formation of an art gallery forToronto . At that meeting, a Provisional Art Museum Board was set in place with Walker as chairman and Reid as secretary. Through effective lobbying and fundraising ($5,000 each from 10 benefactors), the Ontario Legislature later that year passed a bill incorporating the Art Museum of Toronto. Walker became president of itsBoard of Trustees and served until his death.The initial challenge was to find a home for the new institution. It was Walker who convinced his friends, writer Dr.
Goldwin Smith and his wife, the former Mrs.William Henry Boulton , to leave their historic house, "The Grange," to the new museum. Before the news became public, Walker bought surrounding land so that the museum would have space for future expansion. The Art Museum of Toronto (later renamed the Art Gallery of Toronto and then theArt Gallery of Ontario ) officially opened its first galleries in The Grange in April 1913. In 1926, two years after his death, when the gallery was expanding, the Canadian Bank of Commerce donated the funds to build the magnificent room that bears his name, the "Walker Court".The Royal Ontario Museum
The campaign for a world-class public museum for
Toronto was led by Walker, philanthropist Sir Edmund Boyd Osler, then director of theCanadian Pacific Railway and president ofThe Dominion Bank , and Dr.Charles Trick Currelly , the first curator of theRoyal Ontario Museum of Archaeology . Anarchaeologist , Currelly had been doing fieldwork inEgypt ,Crete andAsia Minor for the purpose of collecting artifacts as a core collection for the small museum he established atVictoria College in 1907. But he wanted a larger museum for the university and others soon became involved. Walker, Osler and others provided funds and solicited financial support from the government.Together, Osler and Walker created an organizational structure for the museum, including how funding was to be shared between the university and the government. In 1912, the "Royal Ontario Museum Act" was passed. A
Board of Trustees was created, with appointments shared equally by university and government. Walker was its first chairman.The
Royal Ontario Museum opened onMarch 19 ,1914 . Currelly became director in 1914 until his retirement in 1946 and Walker remained chairman of the Board of Trustees until his death. In the ensuing years he contributed financially, and assisted through generous lines of credit from the Canadian Bank of Commerce, notably for Currelly's substantial acquisitions of Chinese artifacts. Walker's fossil collection became the nucleus of the museum's paleontology collection, and resulted in a dinosaur, the " [http://www.bowdoin.edu/~dbensen/Dinosaurs/Parasaurolophuswalkeri.html Parasaurolophus walkeri] ", being named after him in 1922. His interest and support ofpaleontology had led to an earlier association with theRoyal Canadian Institute , another scientific institution of which he was president from 1898-1900.The National Gallery of Canada
At the first official exhibition of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts onMarch 6 ,1880 , Canada's Governor General, theMarquis of Lorne , established theNational Gallery of Canada at the Clarendon Hotel inOttawa . An Advisory Arts Council was formed in 1907 and consisted of SirGeorge Drummond , president of theBank of Montreal , as chairman; the senator fromMontreal ,Arthur Boyer , as secretary; and Sir Edmund Walker, then just newly appointed president of theCanadian Bank of Commerce , as member. The council was charged with advising the government on architecture and decoration of public buildings and public monuments. It was responsible for selecting and purchasing artworks for the collection. Drummond favoured the acquisition of European works while Walker was adamant that Canadian art be included. On Drummond's death in 1909, Walker became chairman of the council. Walker's influence as a print collector was crucial in launching the gallery's Prints and Drawings Department, which opened in 1911.Another responsibility of the council was to advise on the Victoria Memorial Museum (Ottawa's present Natural History Museum), which opened in 1913. The same year the "National Gallery of Canada Act" was passed with an independent Board of Trustees constituted; Walker was appointed chairman and served until his death. Its trustees were charged, among other duties, with the development, encouragement and cultivation of "correct artistic taste in the fine arts." By 1924, this collection had over 4,000 items.
Canada's "war pictures"
Walker was key in the creation of what today is the collection of
First World War "war pictures" now housed in theCanadian War Museum in Ottawa. In 1915, the Canadian financier and expatriate,William Maxwell Aitken (later Baron Beaverbrook), was appointed the Canadian force's official records officer in England. Beaverbrook established theCanadian War Memorials Fund to record for posterity the events of that war. As both a member of the fund's committee and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery, Walker insisted that the commissioned artists include Canadians, as well as the British artists Beaverbook proposed. By 1918, a large number of Canadian artists, among themA.Y. Jackson andFrederick Varley , were in Europe sketching munitions factories and various theatres of operations where Canadians were active. Other artists,C.W. Jefferys among them, recorded the war effort at home in Canada. In 1921, the Beaverbrook-funded war collection was deposited with the National Gallery.Walker also served on both the Canadian and British Commissions on War Records and Trophies, formed in 1918. In the Canadian plan, a gallery for the war pictures and a hall of trophies was to be built on
Sussex Drive inOttawa . Efforts to complete the building in 1922 and 1923 were unsuccessful and the paintings and trophies were loaned out. In 1971, the paintings were transferred from the National Gallery to the Canadian War Museum and now are displayed.Innisfree
For weekend retreats, Walker began to purchase land in 1890 at De Grassi Point in Innisfil Township,
Simcoe County . "Innisfree," as his wife named it, became the centre of Walker's family life. There, he build "Broadeaves" designed by leading Canadian architect Frank Darling. Darling was the architect of theUniversity of Toronto and designed many buildings associated with Walker such as Convocation Hall and Trinity College at theUniversity of Toronto and the Canadian Bank of Commerce (nowCommerce Court North ) on King Street West in Toronto. In 1913-14, Walker built "Innisfree Farm" to further his interest in livestock husbandry. Innisfree was left in trust to his descendants as a private land trust. Managed today with the assistance of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Innisfree is designated an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest for its prairie grassland and remnants of an old growth forest ecosystem.Last years
Sir Byron Edmund Walker left his imprint on the financial, artistic, and intellectual development of Canada. A wizard of finance, skilled in the intricacies of exchange and international business, he molded a tiny bank into a national institution and was largely responsible for overhauling the Canadian banking system. Simultaneously he established a wide range of cultural icons - the National Gallery of Canada, the collection of "war pictures" forming the nucleus of the Canadian War Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, the [http://www.champlainsociety.ca Champlain Society] , the federation of colleges that became the
University of Toronto - and many more. An amateurpaleontologist , he was also an author of note. He wasknighted by King George V, was a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, andJapan appointed him Honorary JapaneseConsul-General . Walker died at the age of 75, onMarch 27 ,1924 . After his death, the "Globe and Mail " wrote this description of Walker:"Possibly no more versatile Canadian existed in his day and age; probably few others have done so much for Canada."References
*Ontario Heritage Foundation. "Sir Byron Edmund Walker", 2005.
External links
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=7878 Biography at "the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://ontarioplaques.com/Plaque_Simcoe38.html Ontario Plaques - Sir Byron Edmund Walker]
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