George E. Foster

1847-1931

Sir George Eulas Foster (politician, lecturer, and teacher) was born on 3 September 1847 in Wakefield, Carleton County, New Brunswick. At the age of fifteen, Foster’s ambition for a proper education led him to open a school in his settlement, as an unlicensed teacher.  He won the Kings County Scholarship, which allowed him to enrol at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in Fredericton in fall 1865. While at UNB, Foster founded the University Monthly, which eventually became The Brunswickan, the campus’ student newspaper that is still in circulation today. He won the Douglas Gold Medal as a freshman and Natural Science First the next year, and he graduated second in his class. Following his graduation, Foster accepted a position at Victoria County Grammar School in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. In the next few years, he took charge of the Superior School at Fredericton Junction, the Baptist Academy in Fredericton, and the Girls’ High School in Fredericton. In 1872, he travelled to Scotland and studied first at Edinburgh University, and later at Heidelberg in Germany. On his return home in 1873, Foster was made a professor of classics and literature at UNB, a position he would hold until he resigned in 1879.  Following his resignation from UNB, he became a much sought-after temperance orator. In Saint John in May 1882, he ran for office in the riding of Kings County as an independent Conservative and was introduced to the House of Commons on 8 February 1883.  Foster was appointed Minister of Marine and Fisheries in 1885 and Minister of Finance in 1888. In 1900 Foster left Parliament for the first time in eighteen years. In 1904 he ran in the general elections for North Toronto, where he had been residing since 1901. He would hold this seat with for the next two decades. In 1912 he was appointed chairman of the Royal Commission on Imperial Trade and spent two years working in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and China. Partly in recognition of his work with the commission, Foster was knighted in 1914. He was later appointed one of four British representatives at the Allied Economic Conference in Paris in 1916. Shortly after this, he was assigned the title of Imperial Privy Councillor by the King. Foster convinced Parliament to set up the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and institute Daylight Savings Time. In 1918, his long-standing fight for temperance was fulfilled as a general prohibition was instituted. That summer, the King conferred upon him the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George. He took a brief position as head the Canadian delegation to the First Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva in 1920. The following year he retired to the Senate. In 1922, he was one of the founders of the League of Nations Society in Canada, and he represented Canada at the international assemblies in both 1926 and 1929. In October 1930, he made the dedicatory address for the unveiling of the Bliss Carman monument in Fredericton. He died in Ottawa on 30 December 1931. He published a collection of some of his speeches and lectures entitled Canadian Addresses (1914).

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton, Saint John, Wakefield

Archival Material

• George Foster fonds
  ⌄
  Location

  Library and Archives Canada

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  R4815-0-8-E, MG27-IID7

  Date Range of Material

  1864-1931

  Extent

  11.03 m of textual records.
  82 photographs : b&w.
  1 print : photomechanical reproduction.
  2 drawings : pen and black ink on wove paper

  Scope and Content Note

  Fonds consists of papers of Sir George Eulas Foster which reflect his public and personal life. This includes correspondence, diaries, speeches, notes, subject files, scrapbooks, clippings, autobiographical and biographical material, manuscripts, business files, memorabilia, and family papers, n.d., 1864-1931. The fonds also contains portraits of George Foster and his family and other photographs 1900-1918; and a postcard of the Saint John River at Hartland, New Brunswick, n.d.

• George Eulas Foster fonds
  ⌄
  Location

  University of New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  MG H 43

  Date Range of Material

  1896-1927

  Extent

  12.7 cm textual records

  Scope and Content Note

  This fonds documents the personal and political activities of Sir George Eulas Foster. It includes travel diaries, weekly diaries, notebooks of political speeches, thought books (temperance, crime, religion, Canadian history), a few pieces of correspondence, lecture notes (League of Nations), speeches, manuscripts on historical subjects, and published articles on historical and political themes.