Crusading journalist and future B.C. Premier John Robson was born on this date in 1824. John Robson grew up in Montreal but moved to the colony of British Columbia in 1859. He soon became the editor of the British Columbian newspaper and was known for his advocacy of responsible government.
He had dabbled in politics in the 1870s as an MLA. He served only five years in the Legislature and then left politics and returned to journalism. Robson returned to provincial politics in 1882 and soon served in a variety of roles in cabinet.
In 1889 he was chosen Premier and held his province’s top political job until his death, still in office in 1892.
You can read more about this fascinating British Columbian at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography on-line at: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=6404
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.