The legendary national political and civil service legend Sir Joseph Pope passed into history on this date in 1926. He famously went on to serve Sir John A. Macdonald as the Father of Confederation’s loyal and effective private secretary between 1882 and 1891. He would go onto write seminal books about his late boss such as the Memoirs of Sir John A. Macdonald and the Day of Sir John A. Macdonald. Historians and students of Canadian political history remain in his debt today. Pope’s story, however is not a partisan one. Sir Wilfrid Laurier also appointed him to senior positions in the civil service. Joe Pope was 72 when he died in Ottawa.
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.