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SCOBIE, HUGH, newspaperman, publisher,
justice of the peace, and office holder; b. 29 April 1811 in Fort George,
Scotland, third son of Captain James Scobie of the 93rd Foot; m. 27 April
1844 Justina McLeod, and they had one daughter; d. 4 Dec. 1853 in Toronto.
Hugh Scobie was raised in a military family and received a classical
education in Scotland at the Tain academy. He articled in an Edinburgh law
firm, and when his family decided to emigrate to Upper Canada he planned to
pursue his legal career in the colony. However, on his arrival with his
brothers and sisters in the late spring of 1833, he discovered that the
legal system deprived him “of every advantage that my former course of study
ought to have afforded me.” Until 1838 he was occupied with helping to
establish the family farm in West Gwillimbury Township near Bradford. An
ambitious man, he quickly became a leading lay spokesman for the Church of
Scotland, acting as secretary of the Presbyterian conference held in 1837 at
Cobourg to protest the creation of 44 Anglican rectories the previous year
[see William Morris]. Also during this period he became the Upper Canadian
agent for the New York Albion, a weekly journal for British emigrants.
Having already established himself in Toronto as a defender of Scottish
interests in Upper Canada, Scobie was the logical choice to edit and publish
a newspaper which prominent Scots hoped to establish. The new journal was to
promote a moderate political alternative to reform, discredited by the
1837–38 rebellion, and to toryism, represented by a political oligarchy
dominated by the Church of England. The first issue of the Scotsman appeared
on 1 Feb. 1838. Two weeks later it became the British Colonist, an important
change which may have reflected Scobie’s assumption of personal control as
well as his desire to remove distinctions based on “National Origins.” His
goal was to “make the paper as generally useful & instructive as possible.”
Moderate in tone, as a rule the Colonist resisted hyperbole, excessive
partisanship, and attacks on personalities. Through its editorials and
articles, Scobie sought to influence public opinion by advocating such
causes as an open and liberal education system and by supporting Upper
Canadian sectionalism while implacably opposing French Canadian nationalism.
Many of his editorials, undoubtedly influenced by his early legal training,
read like well-documented, closely argued, legal submissions.
Scobie was to remain financially dependent on his newspaper. When reformers
led by Francis Hincks* became enraged by Scobie’s support of Governor Sir
Charles Theophilus Metcalfe* during the constitutional crisis of 1843–44,
they nearly succeeded in bankrupting Scobie by a campaign to scuttle the
Colonist. Yet it was during this same crisis, when his subscription list
fell by 250 names, that the newspaper achieved new heights of influence,
which it maintained following the victory of Metcalfe’s candidates in the
election of 1844. That year James Morris* wrote to Isaac Buchanan*, “Our
friend Scobie is conducting his paper with much ability.” Although rival
newspaperman and reformer George Brown* described the Colonist at that time
as the “literary common-sewer of Toronto,” he nevertheless joined with
Scobie in 1847 to obtain a shared telegraph information system to relay
Atlantic shipping news. Scobie’s success throughout this period was aided by
his gathering about him a group of ambitious young journalists, some of
whom, most notably Brown Chamberlin, would go on to achieve considerable
recognition.
In November 1851 Scobie added the Daily Colonist to his now semi-weekly
British Colonist, and the following August he introduced the News of the
Week, or Weekly Colonist. These newspapers provided the forum in which
Scobie developed his vision of government built upon the principle of the
“common good.” He believed that civil well-being, which would provide the
foundation-stones of an emerging British Canadian identity, could only be
guaranteed through education, material prosperity equitably distributed
among all classes, the moral values of Christianity, and a political system
that embodied the good of all members. Though a spokesman for the Church of
Scotland, he resolutely opposed religious sectarianism, and he scorned
parties and politicians who appeared to place their own passions before the
best interests of the Upper Canadian community. He urged politicians to
build roads, bridges, and schools instead of engaging in divisive and
fruitless debates on political philosophy. Passionately biased in favour of
the “productive classes” (domestic manufacturers, agriculturalists, and
workers), Scobie railed against speculators who sought to manipulate the
economy.
In the first issue of the Scotsman, Scobie had advertised his services as a
“Bookseller, and stationer, printer, bookbinder, lithographer, copperplate
and woodengraver,” and during the 1840s and 1850s his job-printing firm had
become an important adjunct to his other activities. The Canadian Christian
Examiner, and Presbyterian Magazine was printed and published by him from
October 1839 to December 1840; he also printed the Minutes of the Toronto
Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of
Scotland as well as other religious matter. His presses issued volumes of
verse, agricultural lectures by Henry Youle Hind*, and political pamphlets
by Egerton Ryerson* and Isaac Buchanan. In association with John Simpson* of
Niagara (Niagara-on-the-Lake), he published The Canadian mercantile almanack
from 1843 to 1848. From 1848 to 1850, in partnership with John Balfour, a
fellow Scot, he published Scobie & Balfour’s Canadian almanac, and
repository of useful knowledge. The following year Scobie continued by
himself and Scobie’s Canadian almanac appeared until 1854. The association
with Balfour also produced Scobie & Balfour’s municipal manual, for Upper
Canada in 1850, but it too was published with only Scobie’s name in 1851 and
1852. The Manual contained thorough digests of important provincial laws and
was sold cheaply in order to improve public welfare by enlightening
citizens.
In an advertisement dated October 1843 Scobie had announced that he had
obtained a lithographic press and was “prepared to execute orders in this
department.” According to historian Mary Allodi, this purchase was
significant because “pictorial lithography, which had virtually ceased when
[Samuel Oliver Tazewell*] left Toronto in 1835, flourished again under
Scobie’s patronage.” From May 1846 to June 1850 Scobie again teamed with
Balfour to produce the Colonist as well as a number of lithographed prints
and maps.
During his years in Toronto, Scobie was involved in numerous social,
economic, and political organizations. An active freemason, he was also a
founding member of the Toronto Literary and Historical Society, which was
formed in 1842, about the time he was appointed a magistrate of the city.
His concern for educational reform was recognized in 1846 when Ryerson
appointed him to the province’s first board of education. An ardent
protectionist, he played a prominent role in the British American League in
1849–50 [see George Moffatt*] and the Colonist became the league’s voice in
Toronto. He sat on the local board of trade, was a founding director of the
Consumers’ Gas Company, and was a vice-president of the Ontario, Simcoe, and
Huron Rail-road Union Company. Following his death, his employees who
belonged to the Toronto Typographical Society noted that he was, “as an
employer, strictly honorable, and generous in overlooking faults, ever
striving to place the profession in a high and exalted position before the
world, and rendering to the employed that which was their just due.”
His direct political involvement was limited, but Scobie campaigned
incessantly in the Colonist for moderate “liberal conservatism.” In 1839 he
had accepted the nomination as an anti-tory candidate in Simcoe County for
the next election but withdrew in favour of Elmes Yelverton Steele* who won
the seat in the 1841 election. In 1844 Ryerson nominated him for the
position of inspector general in the ministry of William Henry Draper*;
Draper rejected him for political and personal reasons. Scobie did run in
the 1847–48 election in the 4th riding of York against Robert Baldwin but
was soundly defeated. In an editorial which appeared in the Colonist on 21
Dec. 1847, he wrote, “Between a no-party candidate and a violent partisan,
what choice is likely to be made by that class of electors who are more
desirous to see the country opened up by emigration and settlement, and more
concerned about internal improvements in agriculture and manufacture, than
in the profitless pursuit of political shadows?” In 1851 Scobie was again
soundly defeated, this time by Joseph Hartman.
After a painful illness which lasted about ten weeks, the result of an
aneurysm, Hugh Scobie died at his Toronto residence on 4 Dec. 1853. Although
only 42 at the time of his death, Scobie had contributed significantly to
the publishing, political, and cultural realms of Upper Canadian life. Had
he not died at such a young age, his talents might have led him to rival the
success of his competitor George Brown.
Some of his publications (pdf)...
Scobie's Municipal Manual for Upper Canada (Third Edition)
Scobie's Canadian Almanac
1852
Scobie's Canadian Almanac
1854 |
