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Hon. William Asbury
Buchanan, journalist and statesman, now editor and publisher of the
Herald at Lethbridge, is a son of the Rev. William and Mary (Pendrie)
Buchanan, and was born at Fraserville, Ontario, July 2, 1876. His
education was acquired in the schools of Trenton, Brighton and Norwood.
He was a youth of seventeen years when he entered upon the work that
eventually led him into the field of journalism, for in 1893 he secured
a position on the Peterboro Examiner, with which he was identified for
three years. He was on the editorial staff of the Peterboro Review from
1893 until 1898 and then became city editor of the Toronto Telegram,
occupying that position until 1903. In the latter year he became
managing director of the journal published at St. Thomas, there
remaining until 1905, when he came to Alberta and established the
Lethbridge Herald. He continued the publication of the paper as a weekly
only until 1907, when he established a daily and has since been editor
and owner of the paper, which is regarded as one of the strong and
influential factors in molding public opinion in Alberta.
It was also Mr. Buchanan
who organized the first Alberta legislative library, opened in Edmonton
in 1907 and it was after completing this important work that he returned
to Lethbridge and established the daily edition of his paper. Throughout
the period of his residence in this section of the Dominion he has been
prominent in public affairs. He was quartermaster of the Twenty-fifth
Regiment at St. Thomas, Ontario, for two years and thus wrote the
military chapter into his life history. He has likewise been a councilor
of the local Board of Trade and has been president of the Lethbridge
Liberal Association. In 1909 he was elected for Lethbridge to the
Alberta legislative assembly and was appointed a member of the
provincial cabinet without portfolio. In December, 1909, he resigned
from the ministry, owing to differences with the government on the
railway policy. In August, 1911, he was elected to the house of commons
for Medicine Hat and was re-elected at the general election in 1917. In
1912 he was made a member of the special committee on old age pensions
and was a member of the special redistribution committee in 1913.
In 1904 Mr. Buchanan was
married to Miss Alma Maude Freeman, a daughter of E. B. Freeman, J. P.,
of Burlington, Ontario. They have two sons: Donald, who is in school;
and Hugh. Mrs. Buchanan was educated in the Hamilton Ladies' College of
Ontario. She is a member of the Imperial Daughters of the Empire and of
the Ladies Golf Club and is also identified with different church
societies, both Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan having membership in the Methodist
church at Lethbridge. Air. Buchanan belongs to the Alberta and Eastern
British Columbia Press Association, of which he was on two occasions
president, and he also occupied the presidency of the Canadian Club,
while formerly he was chairman of the Alberta Amateur Association, and
secretary of the Ontario Hockey Association. He belongs to the Chinook
and the Lethbridge Country Clubs, the Ontario Club of Toronto and the
Laurentian, Club of Ottawa, and finds his recreation largely in golf,
turning to this when leisure permits.
In 1921 Mr. Buchanan
retired from parliament and is now concentrating his efforts and
attention upon journalistic affairs and is interested in oil development
work. Alert and enterprising, he keeps in touch with the vital questions
and problems of the day and has done much to mold public thought and
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