City, Colony & Empire Defined: A Cultural Analysis of New Brunswick During the Royal Tour of 1860

by

David Parsons

Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Wilfrid Laurier University (1994) Bachelor of Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (1998)

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in the Graduate Academic Unit of History

Supervisor: Dr. Gail Campbell, Ph.D., History

Examining Board: Dr. Greg Marquis, Ph.D., History Dr. Gary Waite, Ph.D., History Dr. John Ball, Ph.D., English

This thesis is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

February, 2007

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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract:

This thesis analyses the significance of the 1860 royal state visit to the colony of New

Brunswick. Using the methodology of the 'new cultural history', it focusses on the manner in which colonial society employed symbols, rituals, pageantry, spontaneous street theatre, and formally-orchestrated pomp to debate and articulate cultural visions of New Brunswick society.

Investigation is conducted into the affective and reflective tendencies of cultural forms, the messages contained in both the formal and informal celebrations, and the meaning of the performances within the context of New Brunswick's imperial experience during the early to mid-Victorian eras. 'Thick description' of industrialisation, of the impact of imperial free trade, of the introduction of railway construction and of the move towards colonial self-government demonstrates that the archaic and anachronistic-patterned statecraft rituals - the royal entry and the royal progress - resulted in different messages within cultural communities based at Saint

John and Fredericton, though the pageants were performed with remarkable consistency.

Pageantry in both locations sought to embody the will and speak on behalf of the entire colony, all the while using the royal welcome to define the civic culture immediate to the host community - whether port-city or capital. Instances of both paternal and liberal cultures were found within the reception ceremonies at Saint John and Fredericton. Analysis reveals that while such duality existed, Saint John's muscular vision of liberal-minded progress gained momentum, and assumed primacy as the defining cultural perspective within the colony.

ii This work is dedicated to Robert Ward Parsons

Hi Acknowledgements:

The completion of this project would not have been possible without the assistance and support of a number of people. Gratitude must be expressed to the staff and faculty of the University of New Brunswick's Department of History. Special appreciation must be given to Dr. Phillip A. Buckner for suggesting this topic for study, and for his guidance and insight in the thesis' formative stages. The ongoing feedback, guidance and encouragement from Dr. Gail Campbell have been deeply appreciated; without her support this project would not have seen completion. Thanks must also be given to Dr. Steven Turner and Dr.

Gary Waite for their support as Graduate Faculty Advisors. Elizabeth Adshade must also be recognised for her ongoing assistance.

The assistance of staff at the National Archives and National Library of Canada, the

Public Archives of New Brunswick, the New Brunswick Museum Archives, Harriet Irving

Library, and Maxwell MacOdrum Library at Carleton University has been indispensable throughout the research of this thesis.

Special appreciation must be given to Dr. Barry Gough and Dr. David Monod of

Wilfrid Laurier University, and Dr. Helen Hatton of the University of Toronto for their support and encouragement leading up to work in this current programme.

Finally the writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the unending support and patience of my family, my wife Saskia, and my two sons, Liam and Andrew.

iv Table of Contents

Abstract: ii Dedication: Hi Acknowledgements: iv Table of Contents: v Introduction:... 1 Chapter 1: 7 The Canadian Initiative: The Victoria Bridge as a Symbol of the New Era Chapter 2: 24 A Half-Century of Readjustment: New Brunswick's Relationship with Empire, 1810-1860 Chapter 3: 57 City, Colony, and Empire Defined: Cultural Negotiation in the Planning Phase of the Royal Tour in New Brunswick Chapter 4: 93 Progress, Pageantry and Community Formation: The Prince of Wales in Saint John Chapter 5: 143 Progress & Paternalism: Statecraft Ritual and the Travel of the Prince of Wales Through New Brunswick Conclusion: 180 Bibliography: 184 Curriculum Vitae

v Introduction:

For British North Americans, the year 1860 was a high water mark of imperial and national celebration. During the summer of that year, Albert Edward, Prince of

Wales, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and heir to the throne, made his way through each of the British North American colonies and to parts of the United States. For the

English monarchy, this was the first official tour outside the United Kingdom into the reaches of its empire. For the small British colonies on the western side of the Atlantic, the arrival of the nineteen-year-old Prince was the first chance afforded colonials to receive royalty with pomp and ceremony. Provided with such an opportunity, communities from St. John's, Newfoundland to Sarnia, Canada West, sought to demonstrate before the world their industry, energy, and place within the global British

Empire.

The royal tour of 1860 caught the imagination of people across the Empire and beyond it. Journalists from the United Kingdom, the Colonies, and the United States followed the tour, forwarding highly descriptive, engaging accounts of the Prince and the royal entourage taking part in the many celebrations and official duties which filled the royal agenda. Correspondents of major international newspapers in the United States and

Great Britain, such as the New York Herald, the Illustrated London News, and the Times of London, brought to the pages of these widely read publications vivid accounts of the people, politics, and economy of the British North American colonies. Colonial leaders were eager to exploit such exposure, to flaunt their wares and present the

1 accomplishments of their communities to audiences at home and abroad. The people of

New Brunswick embraced the visit with crowds swelling to unprecedented numbers at every stop along the way.

Viewed against the backdrop of industrialization and its allied imperial political and economic realities, the pageants and spectacles surrounding the Prince's visit in

August 1860 present a drama which highlights the changes wrought throughout the colonies over the previous quarter century. England's removal of trade preferences in the

1840s had sent a shock wave throughout the British North American colonies. Although the initial fears of economic and social disaster following Britain's apparent abandonment of her colonies proved largely unfounded, the lasting impact of such imperial policies put

British North American needs increasingly in the hands of colonial governments. At the same time as imperial preference was scaled back across the Empire, railway construction

- perceived as the wave of the future throughout industrialized societies in the United

Kingdom, Western Europe and the United States - was proceeding apace. For British

North America, with its immense geography and difficult terrain, railway construction posed another extraordinary challenge. Nonetheless, during the 1850s the railways of

British North America experienced unprecedented development. With the impressive engineering and industrial achievement displayed in the Grand Trunk Railway's Victoria

Bridge at Montreal, Canadian technical ability and economic competency in the new industrial age was demonstrated with grandeur and spectacle. To fully capture and publicise the extraordinary accomplishment represented by this railway bridge spanning the St. Lawrence, the legislature of the United Canadas approached the monarchy with a

2 request to open the structure - and thus symbolically preside over the birth of a new

British North America. The United Canadas were to be cast as competitive, forward thinking, and dynamic in an industrial age and political Empire which demanded such independence and self-sufficiency as the measure of a colonial vitality.

The economic and political conditions which led the legislature of the United

Canadas to petition the British Crown in 1858, leading to the royal tour two years later, were very much the product of circumstances unique to the United Provinces. Once the invitation had been accepted, the remaining British North American colonies were, however, left with the decision of whether or not to respond with invitations and petitions of their own. Given the lack of anything as momentous or spectacular as the construction of the Victoria Bridge, the context and meaning of the royal tour became an issue for serious discussion and debate within the Maritime colonies. The initiative was driven by

Canadian industrial and economic achievement; accordingly, there seemed little reason for the heir apparent to visit the Atlantic British North American colonies. In New

Brunswick, the House of Assembly debated the issue of whether or not to extend their own invitation to the Prince. Regional and political divisions within the colony fractured the vote; the motion to invite the Prince to New Brunswick was struck down. Those casting votes against the initiative believed that extravagant pageantry within Fredericton and Saint John should not be financed by people in distant locations of the province who would not have the opportunity to take part in the costly endeavours financed in part by their purse. However, the public scandal sparked by this vote, which seemed to smack of

'disloyalty', resulted in the expunging of the vote from the journals and an invitation

3 being extended. Responding in kind to the Canadian initiative, Nova Scotia, Prince

Edward Island, and Newfoundland also issued formal invitations to the Crown to visit their colonies.

Thus, it was that, as part of a larger British North American tour, Albert Edward,

Prince of Wales, landed in Saint John at the beginning of August 1860. Upon his arrival in New Brunswick's port city, tens of thousands of residents and visitors turned out in the streets, transforming the city from a work-a-day commercial port into a sea of colour and excitement in the crowded, dusty thoroughfares. From there, he travelled with entourage and press by river steamer to Fredericton to be received by the Lieutenant Governor and members of the colonial government; here he attended worship in the Anglican Cathedral, held a levee reception ceremony, opened a new park, and was the guest of honour at an elaborate ball. Before making his way to Prince Edward Island he exited New Brunswick via the port of Saint John. Though the New Brunswick portion of the North American tour lasted less than a week, such a spectacle provides historians a rich opportunity to study the 'text' of city, colony, and empire created in the preliminary debates, evolving discussions and constructed monuments, as well as in the staging of many pageants and performances.

Pageantry reflects understandings; but it also creates awareness. Using the methodology of the 'new cultural history', this analysis of the royal tour of 1860 in New

Brunswick focusses on the manner in which colonial society chose to represent itself to the Prince, to the foreign and international press, and to itself through the medium of formal statecraft rituals - the royal entry and royal progress - and through informal decorations, processions, and public involvement. Viewed against the backdrop of industrial development, the realities of imperial free trade and colonial self-government, the leadership and community of New Brunswick are shown to have articulated 'loyalty' to 'Crown' and 'Empire' while at the same time negotiating cultural perspectives of liberalism and paternalism. The way in which segments of New Brunswick society conceived the southern coast of the colony as the economic heart of the maritime region; the awareness of itself as a society transforming under the dynamic stimulus of railway development; the perceived place of New Brunswick within a larger British North

America, and Empire, at the close of the 1850s; and the powerful appeal of'traditional' notions of deference to an established social order: all are elicited and studied through an analysis of archival manuscript and newspaper collections in the Provincial Archives of

New Brunswick, The New Brunswick Museum, The National Archives of Canada, and

The National Library of Canada. Against the historiography of New Brunswick this analysis explores a previously under-studied climacteric within the province's colonial history. A cultural analysis of New Brunswick society at such a critical juncture gives an added perspective to traditional historical literature which addresses the social, economic, and political development of the period. From the perspective of imperial history, the analysis of the royal tour within New Brunswick presents a rare opportunity for a colonial case study of the culture of Empire in a period, and location, not previously examined.

This analysis of the royal tour of 1860 during its brief travel through New Brunswick fills a void in the collective understanding of the province's colonial past, and places the colony's cultural mind-set in its imperial context at the beginning of the decade of the

5 1860s.

6 -Chapter One - The Canadian Initiative: Casting The Victoria Bridge as a Symbol of a New Era

On Saturday, December 17th, 1859, the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, Canada East,

was opened for traffic. With its completion, "the year ...closed with the addition of an

eighth wonder to the world's museum."1 The size and scale of the structure, as well as

the extraordinary challenges overcome in the course of engineering and construction

made its opening a signal moment in the development of British North America. In an

age in which societies were measured against their technological development this accomplishment of the United Canadas set a new standard against which other British

North American colonies would be measured - materially and culturally. As the royal tour cast the Queen's dominions in North America into the Imperial and international spotlights throughout the summer of 1860 critical attention would be given to the relative state of development of each colony. Without the showcase of the Victoria Bridge, questions over the reason for a conspicuous entertainment of royalty were raised. The political and cultural impact of the Grand Trunk Railway spanning the St. Lawrence would control discussion and decide the meaning of the royal tour itself. An analysis of the cultural significance of celebrations in New Brunswick in August 1860 must therefore begin in the United Canadas and with the completion of the Victoria Bridge.

More than five years had passed since the first stone of the bridge was set into place in the spring of 1854. The river that contemporaries had believed impossible to

1 Charles Legge, A Glance at the Victorian Bridge and the Men Who Built It (Montreal: John Lovell, 1860), p. 30.

7 conquer had been spanned. "The difficulties of nature in their most formidable type were surmounted."2 The bridge was situated one mile above the entrance to the Lachine Canal, immediately west of Montreal Harbour. At this juncture, the St. Lawrence was gauged to have been 8,660 feet from shore to shore - a distance of a mile and three quarters.3 The

St. Lawrence had presented a unique challenge to the Victorian engineers. As if the breadth of the river alone were not a formidable enough obstacle, the rapid and powerful current and massive ice flows which transformed it into a glacier-like mass throughout months of the year greatly frustrated efforts of bridge construction. "Undoubtedly, the most serious difficulty to be guarded against, both in the design and in the execution of the Victoria Bridge," wrote James Hodges, Chief Engineer to bridge contractors Peto,

Brassey & Berts, "was that operation of nature ...which is known in North America as the

Shoving of the Ice."4 High above the relentless and steady ice flow, the Canadian winter was equally inhospitable. Wrote James Hodges: "During the extreme cold, or when the thermometer was more than 20 degrees below Fahrenheit, if there was any wind at all, the men could not work, as at such times the smallest portion of the body left exposed was frozen instantly."5 For its designers and builders, then, the bridge, which took five years

2 Ibid., p. 30.

3 James Hodges, Construction of the Great Victoria Bridge in Canada (Montreal: JohnWeale, 1860), p. 4.

4 Ibid., p. 6.

5 James Hodges, Construction of the Great Victorian Bridge in Canada, p. 57-58, as cited in Stanley Triggs, et. al, Victoria Bridge: The Vital Link (Montreal: The McCord Museum, 1992), p. 65 to complete, represented a victory over nature. The almost insurmountable challenge met, in 1860 engineer Charles Legge revealed his defiance:

The mighty river was girdled and brought under man's control, and fruitless are the efforts of her deities to escape from the thraldom of his iron bands. Her mad waves and rushing currents may break against his bulwark in vain, with her heretofore irresistible winter forces laughed to scorn by this creation of the genius of her victors, whose mission it is to go forth and conquer.6

The northern elements thus wrestled into submission, the bridge exhibited before the world a new spirit and energy as Canadians reconciled themselves to their environment in a rapidly changing industrial age. Mused The Times of London: "It is indeed to be doubted if ever a monument has been raised by human hands which can offer a prouder memorial of the race which reared it than the Victoria Bridge."7 Even within the English press, then, there was the perception that the British Empire in North America, embodied by the United Province of Canada in particular, was entering a new phase in its development, one with a mission and an expanded, if not imperial role in North America.

Though the grand ceremonial opening of the bridge was not scheduled to take place until the arrival of the Prince of Wales in the summer of 1860, on December 17th,

1859, a celebration was held which marked the opening of the bridge as a functional transportation artery. The occasion was to be a mere 'private gathering' for a select group of friends, drawn together by Chief Engineer James Hodges; all involved had to be conscious not to approach the level of celebration planned for the formal opening to be

6 Legge, A Glance At The Victoria Bridge, p. 30.

7 The London Times, January 5th, 1860 - as noted in The Victoria Bridge at Montreal, Canada: Who is Entitled to the Credit of Its Conception? or, A Short History of its Origin, By a British Canadian (London: 1860), p. 3.

9 held the following summer. Given the more private nature of this celebration, it was free

from the rhetoric and posturing that would be involved in the ceremony during the state

visit of the Prince of Wales; yet even in the relatively understated musings on this earlier

occasion, the cultural significance of the Victoria Bridge to the contemporary audience is

apparent. Over seven years had been consumed in the planning, design and construction

of the bridge. Given the momentous nature of the occasion, James Hodges "felt that he

could not allow the opening of the Bridge for traffic [to] pass without inviting his friends to cross it in the first train."8 Accordingly, at one o'clock in the afternoon, as the mercury dipped to minus 26 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly a thousand prominent citizens of Montreal

- members of the government, the military, the business community and their respective wives - crowded the platform at St. Charles Station on the island of Montreal. There, a locomotive was standing by, waiting to whisk the eager excursionists across the newly constructed bridge. The engine, transformed with an extensive ornamentation of flags and evergreens, had fourteen passenger cars in tow. On board, the correspondent for the

Montreal Gazette penned his account:

In two or three minutes the Bridge was reached, and we plunged into the twilight which reigns in the interior of the great tubes, rendering the lighting of lamps necessary within the carriages. Nine minutes were consumed in crossing from abutment to abutment. On arriving at the St. Lambert side the train paused, to allow the people to examine the end of the structure, and enjoy the view of the city the embankment there affords, and again at the crossing over the Champlain Railway. Over the entrance to each abutment wall is engraved: Erected MDCCCLIX: Robert Stephenson and A. Mc.K. Ross., Engineers.9

8 Montreal Gazette (Montreal, Canada East), Vol. 74, No. 3000, Monday, December 19th, 1859.

9 Ibid.

10 Aware of the significance of this inaugural crossing of a locomotive over St. Lawrence

River, Charles Legge remarked: "...the embodiment of the idea in stone and iron enabled a thousand souls to be wafted with the speed of the wind across the great river, high

above its conflicting and angry elements."10 It was as if an immense physical barrier thus

overcome by ingenuity and engineering proficiency signalled the entrance of a new type of British North American, one whose future was limitless and whose abilities were the envy of the world.

Following the inaugural trip across the bridge, the excursion train returned its list of notable passengers to the north side of the St. Lawrence. There, the massive stone entrance had been roofed over and was the site of the banquet hall for the occasion.11 The band of the Royal Canadian Rifles served as an orchestra for the gala festivity. Speeches were made and glasses raised in celebration of the grand engineering accomplishments.

Mr. Hodges opened the gathering. "I have much pleasure in proposing to you Her

Majesty's health," he announced, "standing as we do in this tremendous structure, the strength of which has been tested by having to withstand the pressure of millions of tons of ice, such as no structure in the world has to resist." He continued: "The health of Her

Majesty has been drunk in many an extraordinary place, but I question if it has ever been drunk in a place like this."12 The majesty of the monument to engineering skill was thus

10 Charles Legge, A Glance at the Victoria Bridge, as cited in Bruce Sinclair et al, (eds), Let Us Be Honest and Modest: Technology and Society in Canadian History (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 93-95.

11 Montreal Gazette, Vol. 74, No. 3000, Monday, December 19th, 1859.

12 Ibid.

11 linked to the emotive symbolism of strength associated with the English monarch.

Complementing Hodge's statements, the significance of the occasion was remarked upon by the Anglican Bishop, who challenged the audience to think of the social implications and the collegial spirit involved in the construction of the massive project.

In viewing the great and gigantic work this day inaugurated, whatever politicians may say of disunion, I cannot but think that this great iron road is clasping the country closer together, and is proof and pledge of the unity of the interests of this great country, whatever politicians in their party squabbling may say to the contrary.13

The Victoria Bridge symbolized for people within the United Canadas more than mere engineering proficiency. More than technical skill, the project and its overwhelming success was tantamount to the validation of the Canadas as a viable society in a volatile industrial age. Mused Charles Legge:

In speaking of its future success, who can estimate it, being intimately connected with the prosperity of Canada! We have endeavoured to sketch this, in dwelling on the country's rapid progress in material wealth, during the past few years, and may well form sanguine anticipations of its future; indeed, but few minds are capable of estimating the enormous increase in population and wealth yet to be in our Western World, when Canada will extend to the confines of the Pacific Ocean and be covered with a network of railways all converging to this point of crossing the St. Lawrence. Then, and not till then, must be left - to the unborn millions - the rendering of the verdicts as to the full measure of success which will attend the Victoria Bridge.14

To many Canadians, the Victoria Bridge, the flagship of their enterprise, required a ceremonial opening as august as the river which flowed beneath it, and the engineering accomplishments it displayed. This minor celebration was merely a prelude. To preside over the consummation of Canadian skill and material achievement, to wed the colony

Ibid.

Legge, A Glance at the Victoria Bridge, p. 153.

12 and its people to a new imperial role on the continent and an auspicious future, a representative of the British crown was invited to journey to Montreal to cut the ribbon on the bridge over the St. Lawrence. The Victoria Bridge represented to Canadians their arrival as a significant player in the new economic and political climate of the mid- nineteenth century. Ceremony and pageantry, meant to commemorate the completion of the Victoria Bridge, also marked the beginning of the creation of a new identity. To recognise local industrial accomplishment, the community appropriated the symbols of

Empire and Monarchy. In so doing, the Canadas reflected a tendency towards a pan-

British North American identity which held as its medium of expression the vocabulary of Empire and Monarchy, though the message was one of industrial accomplishment.

Left to react to this Canadian initiative, the balance of British North America would soon follow suit.

Interpreted against the backdrop of imperial free-trade, railway and canal construction during the 1840-1860 period, the celebrations surrounding the completion of the Victoria Bridge, and the arrival of the Prince of Wales to open it formally, take on a heightened meaning. The new liberal fiscal-theory which inspired the imperial government in the United Kingdom created a new reality for the self-governing colonies in British North America beginning in the 1840s. Beginning under the Conservative government of Robert Peel, the old mercantile system of preferential trade regulations was rapidly dismantled. In its stead emerged a new imperial policy buttressed by the mind-set of laissez-faire economics; the competitive forces of Free Trade became the rule-book for both colony and mother country alike. Navigation Acts, Corn Laws and

13 timber duties were no longer in place to support the British North American colonial

economies. Such policies were considered anachronistic within the new economic

climate of the mid-Victorian age. Where goods and services were available at a lower

cost to producer and consumer, so the market forces would dictate spending. Within this

atmosphere of competition, British North American producers were no longer afforded

the secure and guaranteed access to British markets former mercantile tariffs and regulations had ensured. "The colonies," suggests one Commonwealth historian, "had become friendly trading communities, nothing more."15 Such developments could not

come to pass without having a significant impact upon colonial minds. Given the central

importance of the Navigation Acts, timber duties and Corn Laws in the development of the early colonial economies, it is understandable that contemporaries concluded that the elimination of the mercantile economic framework was going to prove ruinous to their livelihoods.16 In 1846, William Ewart Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer for the

Imperial Government, felt the need to respond to the resulting mood of fear and anxiety which accompanied the introduction of laissez-faire principles into imperial economic policy.

It would be a source of the greatest pain to Her Majesty's Government if they could share in the impression that the connexion between this country and Canada derived its vitality from no other source than from the exchange of commercial preferences. If it were so, it might appear to be a relation consisting in the exchange not of benefits but of burdens; if it were so, it would suggest the

15 Nicholas Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience: The Durham Report to the Anglo Irish Treaty (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), p. 53.

16 Kenneth Norrie & Doug Owram, A History of the Canadian Economy (3rd Ed.) (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jananovich, 2002), p. 146..

14 idea that the connexion itself had reached or was about to reach the legitimate term of its existence. But Her Majesty's Government will augur for it a long duration, founded upon a larger and firmer basis, - upon protection rendered from the one side, and allegiance freely and loyally returned from the other, - upon common traditions of the past, and hopes of the future, - upon resemblances in origin, in laws, and in manners, - in what inwardly binds men and communities of men together, as well as in the close association of those material interests which, as Her Majesty's Government are convinced, are destined not to recede but to advance, not to be severed, but to be more closely and healthfully combined under the quickening influences of increased commercial freedom.17

Many colonials remained unconvinced by such arguments.

James Dixon, a leading British Wesleyan preacher, visiting the Canadas in 1848, wrote of the general sentiments expressed within British North America as imperial policies increasingly seemed to sideline the interests of the colonies. According to Dixon,

"Their fortunes were wrecked, their commerce destroyed, their agriculture, the sinews of the colony, enfeebled, ruined. Of course all blamed the home-government." Further:

"There is a pretty general belief, indeed, that England has virtually given them up."18 It was difficult for many British North Americans to comprehend the motive of the imperial government as it related to economic policy. It appeared almost treacherous to cast off the colonies into the turbulent waters of economic uncertainty, to coldly deny protected access to British markets. The temper of the Canadians, captured by Dixon, was grounded in the belief that the connection between Britain and the colonies had become

17 "Dispatch from Gladstone to Cathcart (June 3rd, 1846) [extract]" in Kenneth L. Bell & W. P. Morrell (eds.), Selected Documents on British Colonial Policy: 1830-1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 345.

18 James Dixon, Personal Narrative of a Tour Through a Part of the United States and Canada, (New York: 1849), as published in Gerald Craig (ed), Early Travellers in the Canadas: Extracts from the Writing of Thirty Visitors to British North America, 1791- 1867 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1955), p. 168.

15 nothing more than a formal, political relationship - clinical and without a soul. Ensuring civil administration and fielding an army "at prodigious expense to keep them in order" was what Britain did for the British North Americans. Dixon noted that such opinions were those of

many of the best subjects of the British crown in America; men of intelligence, of integrity, of honour, of loyalty, of religion; and these men are beginning openly to propose the question, "What are the advantages of English connexion?" and to weigh and discuss those of annexation}9

Such observations on the part of the English traveller record the highly charged grumbling that characterized the emotional reaction to recent political decisions. It may very well be the exceptional nature of such remarks that prompted Dixon's documentation; nonetheless, these colonial perceptions deserve attention. "It was not

...the colonies that had separated from Britain, but Britain that had broken away from her own Empire."20

At the same time, it is important to point out that the great forebodings of economic collapse and stagnation as a result of economic abandonment on the part of

Whitehall ultimately did not materialize. Public perception did not correspond to the reality of the situation. Because the effect of the imperial connection on the economic viability of the colonial economies was overrated in the minds of contemporaries, it followed that the effects of the removal of protected access to British markets would similarly be overstated. Writes Nicolas Mansergh: "The severance of exclusive trading

Ibid., p. 169.

Nicholas Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, p. 52.

16 ties in itself rendered timely reconsideration of the purposes of Empire."21 Free trade and the repeal of the Corn Laws meant, for colonials, a radical reconceptualisation of the nature of their position within the British imperial polity. Therefore, the loosening of economic control by Whitehall thrust to the fore the cultural element in the imperial relationship, while at the same time forcing colonial governments towards greater independence.

As Gladstone predicted in 1846, the bonds of Empire transcended mere economic relations. However, appreciating the more intangible bonds of Empire required a level of sophistication few colonials could muster when faced with the very immediate threat of an impending economic crisis. Ultimately, the shift in Imperial policy precipitated the transformation of a British North American economy principally based on the protective schedule of British tariffs and mercantilist policies, to one increasingly engaged in

American money markets and commercial networks. As the adjustment took place, not only were the worst fears forgotten, an increase in prosperity became evident. If population figures were any measure of the healthy state of colonial society, the trends were impressive: Canada West grew from just under 500,000 in 1842 to approximately

1.4 million people twenty years later.22 Commercial relations with the United States gradually assumed a new prominence, even as trade with Britain recovered. Clearly, the initial panic within the colonies generated as a result of London's alienating Free Trade policies was ill-founded; the industrial activity in the United States allowed for an

Triggs et. al, Victoria Bridge: The Vital Link, p. 23.

17 increase in the markets and outlets for Canadian staple products such as timber and wheat.23 In the mid-1850s the export trade heading south across the border from the

United Canadas nearly doubled in the space of a year.24 The ratification of the

Reciprocity Treaty between British North America and the United States in 1854 cemented this new continental orientation. Canadians had established a place for their commerce and industry in the two major markets which concerned them the most, the

British and the American.25 It is against this backdrop of economic change and confusion over the nature and purpose of Empire that the railway and railway construction became a national fixation and an economic backbone for the new industrial development of the

British North American societies.

Recent scholarship has noted that an understanding of the character of Canadian development in the mid-Victorian age cannot solely be based on the introduction of the railway economy.26 "It may be enough to see railways not as the cause but as a part of the larger development process, playing a role that would continue for decades."27 The cultural impact of steam technology, however, must be treated as a phenomenon distinct

23 R. Douglas Francis et. al., Origins: Canadian History to Confederation (3rd ed), (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Canada, 1996), pp. 303-4.

24 William Menzies Whitelaw, The Maritimes and Canada Before Confederation (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 108.

25 Francis et. al, Origins, p. 303.

26 Douglas McCalla, "Railways and the Development of Canada West," in Alan Greer and Ian Radforth (eds), Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 202.

18 from that of its material role in colonial development. The new 'psychology of railroads' within British North America developed in tandem with a number of emerging realities: the diminishing of the British economic connection in the 1840s, a growing economic integration with the United States, and the increasing level of industrialization in the age of steam. British North America was effectively casting an image of itself as an imperial society in its own right, set to carry the banner of Empire across the North American continent.

Canadians entered the 'railway age' in the 1830s. The first of the chartered companies in Upper Canada were established in this decade, when state money was yet pouring into extensive canal building schemes, such as the Rideau, the purpose of which was to provide a life line into the interior in case of American attack from the south. The

London and Gore, later to be renamed the Great Western Railway, was granted a state charter in 1834 to connect the nascent interior communities of London and Hamilton.

The Erie and Ontario initiative was given leave to build a line between these two respective bodies of water in 1835; the City of Toronto and Lake Huron line was licensed a year later.28 Such initiatives, however, were not extensive, mark no departure in existing economic or political thought, and appear much more significant on paper than in reality. In Lower Canada, railway development was not any more rapid in its development. The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, chartered in 1836, gave

British North America its first functional railroad; its wooden rails connected the City of

McCalla, "Railway and the Development of Canada West," p. 193-4.

19 Montreal with the water route and commercial highway of the Richelieu River.2 The marked impact of the railways in British North America would be left to the succeeding generation, and would grow in tandem with the arrival of British free trade. By the end of the 1840s, only about sixty miles of track were in operation in the Canadas, none in

Canada West.30 As British North America entered the 1850s, estimates place the length of actual rails laid to be about lOOkms.31 During the 1850s, however, there would be an explosion of charters, schemes and initiatives as the level and pace of railway construction grew exponentially. By the time the Prince of Wales arrived in the summer of 1860 the network of rail lines had extended a distance of close to 2,900 kms, had linked the major urban centres in Canada West, and was giving a tremendous economic surge to a host of newly energised communities.32

By 1850 popular sentiment and enthusiasm for the railway was reflected in the perceived changes to colonial society illustrated by Thomas C. Keefer in the Philosophy of Railroads (1850). United by "the iron bond of a Railway," a 'Sleepy Hollow' is

29 Francis et. al, Origins, p. 306.

30 Ibid., p. 194.

31 Michael Bliss, Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. 1987), p. 179., and Francis et. al, Origins, p. 306. Bliss states: "as late as 1849 there were still only sixty-miles of railway in all of British North America." Francis et. al., write that as the colonies entered the 1850s "only 105kms of track existed in all British North America." In A Conjunction of Interests: Business, Politics, and Tariffs, 1825-1879 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), p. 11, Ben Forster writes: "From 1850-1860, railway mileage in the provinces had grown from 66 miles to 2065." Given the above figures, the approximate number of lOOkms is used in this thesis.

32 Francis et. al, Origins, p. 306.

20 transformed.

A town has been built ...land rises rapidly in value - the neglected swamp is cleared and the timber is converted into all sorts of wooden 'notions' - tons of vegetables, grains, or grasses, are grown where none grew before - the patient click of the loom, the rushing of the shuttle, the busy hum of the spindle, the thundering of the trip hammer, and the roaring of steam, are mingled in one continuous sound of active industry. While the physical features of our little hamlet are undergoing such a wonderful transformation, the moral influence of the iron civilizer upon the old inhabitants is bringing a rapid 'change over the spirit of their dreams.'33

In the culture of the day, progress meant the railway. Progressive individuals looked to the new technology as a means of transforming British North American society economically and socially. In 1849 the United Province of Canada had backed the Grand

Trunk initiative with its Guarantee Act. Succeeding legislation further secured the government resources and the willingness to underwrite such capital intensive projects, signalling a new direction in colonial economic and political thought. Four years before the Prince of Wales arrived to celebrate and publicise the great achievement signalled by the opening of the Victoria Bridge, Montreal and Toronto were connected by rail. The entire Grand Trunk, the industrial backbone of the United Canadas, which was first open to traffic in the fall of 1859, was completed ahead of schedule.34 Therefore, the 1850s marked the decade in which the majority of the trunk railway lines were laid and opened for operation in the United Canadas. Toronto, Montreal, Hamilton, Kingston, Berlin,

London among other newly vibrant communities were now connected, linking their economies and societies to each other, the United States, Great Britain, the Empire and

33 Thomas C. Keefer, The Philosophy of Railroads (Montreal: 1850), pp. 6-9. - as reprinted in Sinclair et al, (eds), Let Us Be Honest and Modest, p. 75.

34 Bliss, Northern Enterprise, p. 183.

21 the world.

The hallmark of railway development over the two decades which preceded 1860 was the Victoria Bridge at Montreal. To recognise and give credit to the skill and abilities of the engineers, workers and financiers, the Prince of Wales was invited to give the new phase in the colony's development an imperial coronation. The Victoria Bridge signified to Canadians their arrival as a progressive and dynamic British dominion within the new economic and political climate of the mid-nineteenth century. As Canadians sought to construct a consciousness and unique identity, they married Old World institutions with New World realities. Though the nature of the imperial relationship had changed, Empire and the imperial attachment did not retreat in importance. Rather, through the new optimism about the present and future of British North America, Empire and Monarchy became a means of fashioning a new consciousness within colonial society at the outset of the decade of the 1860s.

These changes in imperial economic policy, industrialization and railway development were not experiences unique to the Canadas. The Maritime colonies, similarly, were engaged in this mid-Victorian adjustment; railway development initiatives began in the Lower Provinces in the 1840s, gained speed and momentum during the

1850s, and were considered a major means of future economic, social and political development for the decade of the 1860s. In the railway age, it was becoming increasingly apparent to British North Americans, from Nova Scotia to Canada West, that the colonies needed to pool their resources and, though retaining their colonial autonomy, realise a British North American polity and economic unit bound together through the

22 commercial sinews of an inter-colonial railway. As the Victoria Bridge ceremonies

foreshadowed, the heart of the British North American economic and industrial

development would be Montreal. Provoked by the completion of the Victoria Bridge at

Montreal, an overt recognition of Canadian railroad development, the royal tour

illustrates the broader tendencies of an emerging pan-British North American experience.

As anticipated by Thomas Keefer in 1850, a railroad to nowhere was not the aim of construction; by its very nature, a railway must link communities and transform relationships within and among the societies it connected. Thus, the Prince of Wales arrived in the midst of a shifting cultural landscape, in a British North America which was increasingly realising its common experience as it responded to the new imperial realities in the mid-Victorian empire.

23 - Chapter 2 - A Half-Century of Readjustment: New Brunswick's Relationship with Empire, 1810-1860

Ceremony, ritual, parades, processions and choreographed public events: all have

been the focus of academic study as the 'new cultural history' takes note of human

actions on a collective level, from the mundane to the spectacular. As noted by Clifford

Geertz in his analysis of the Balinese cockfight: "cultural forms can be treated as texts."1

In this cultural approach to the study of history the objective of analysis is "the

deciphering of meaning, ...rather than the inference of causal laws of explanation."2 The

royal tour to New Brunswick in the summer of 1860 is just such a 'text'. The historical

context in which phenomena exist, however, must also be factored into any attempt to

read meaning into a specific cultural display. Though forms and expressions of cultural

performance may remain constant across time and space, it would be inaccurate to

assume that the purpose and meaning of the performance is equally static. In an analysis

of the ceremony and ritual surrounding the British Monarchy throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, David Cannidine argues the need for a 'thick description' of a cultural event as a foundation for analysis. Cannidine notes: "depending both on the nature of the performance and the context within which it is set, the 'meaning' of what is

1 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1975), p. 449.

2 Lynn Hunt, The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1989), p. 12.

24 ostensibly the same ceremony might fundamentally alter."3 Accordingly, the 'thick

description' associated with the analysis of specific cultural texts is more than a survey of the historical background; it is the very basis for generating an explanation of the meaning and significance of the cultural display. "No analysis restricted to the text, which ignores both the nature of the performance and the 'thick' description of context, can hope to offer a historically convincing explanation of the 'meaning' of ...[the] ritual and [the] ceremonial."4

In the celebrations and public performances that greeted the arrival of the Prince of Wales in New Brunswick in the summer of 1860, there were grand protestations of

'loyalty' to the Crown, 'attachment' to the Empire and a strong sense that 'Greater

Britain' included the frontier communities, political capitals and commercial ports of the colony, however small or distant. A superficial analysis would seem to argue that a strong imperial identity and affection for the Monarchy was a constant element within the colonial culture of New Brunswick; after all, the colony was founded by Loyalist refugees fleeing the Thirteen Colonies for the rump of British North America following the

American Revolution. It would only follow that a strong imperial attachment endured from that point forward, a sentiment captured and displayed upon the arrival of the Prince of Wales. Such an interpretation, however, fails to take into consideration the imperial relationship and colonial realities as they evolved during the quarter century before the

3 David Cannidine, "The British Monarchy, c. 1820-1977," in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (ed), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 106.

4 Cannidine, "The British Monarchy," p. 106.

25 crowds gathered for the royal tour. The decades immediately preceding the grand

spectacle in the summer of 1860 are not noted for a constant or particularly strong

attachment to Empire, nor warm sentiment for the Monarchy. As the history of the New

Brunswick timber industry illustrates, attitudes towards the Empire in the early to mid­ years of the nineteenth century were hardly static and unchanging. Just as the boom and bust patterns in the timber economy reflected a shifting imperial economic policy, the culture of New Brunswick mirrored these changes. As New Brunswick's timber industry negotiated the new environment of imperial Free Trade in the 1840s and 1850s, the arrival of railway technology presented an enormous challenge to imperial and colonial decision makers. The size and scope of railway development in the colonies necessitated imperial involvement. Financial backing, as well as the technical and professional expertise necessary to build the lines, was found only within the metropolitan centre of

Empire. Reflecting the technical and financial requirements of railway construction, New

Brunswick's cultural relationship with Empire evolved in significant ways in the years leading up to the Prince's visit. This half-century of adjustment and readjustment in the imperial relationship meant that the 'attachment to Empire' proclaimed by the generation of 1860 had little in common with the 'attachment to Empire' of their Loyalist forbearers who had founded the colony in 1784. The attachment to Monarchy and Empire witnessed in the celebrations accompanying the Prince of Wales' visit to New Brunswick in 1860 is cultural text which reflects a colony buoyant with optimism, increasingly distant from former imperial cultural identifications, and growing ever-more integrated into the nascent pan-British North American mind-set emerging in the mid-Victorian age.

26 Changes in imperial economic policy and the development of railroads - which provides the setting for the 'thick description' underlying the cultural display

accompanying the Prince of Wales' visit to the United Canadas in 1860 - similarly

shaped the political and economic context within which New Brunswick's cultural responses must be viewed. The history of the Maritime region and its respective colonies during the first half of the nineteenth century determined that the impact made by changes

in imperial economic policy affected these communities differently than the United

Canadas with their continental orientation. The proximity of the Maritime British North

American colonies to the ocean determined an eastward and imperial focus. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the Atlantic colonies, which stretched from the islands in the Carribean to British North America, became integrated into the British metropolitan economy through the export of the chief natural resource commodities - sugar and timber.5 Indeed, it is the timber trade in North America which most clearly illustrates the dependence of the Empire's commerce on political power.6 As context for generating an analysis of the colonial cultural understanding of monarchy and Empire in the mid-nineteenth century, a survey of the New Brunswick experience within the Empire during the half century of readjustment before the arrival of the Prince of Wales is necessary.

The development of the timber trade in New Brunswick effectively marked its

5 P. J. Cain, "Economics: The Metropolitan Context," in Andrew Porter (ed), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. Ill: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 33-34.

6 Ibid.

27 transition from a Loyalist settlement to a dynamic and growth-oriented colonial society.

From the final decades of the Hanoverian monarchy, into the early years of the Victorian period, radical expansion and development marked the history of New Brunswick.

Britain's supply of timber, especially for use in the construction of Royal Navy vessels, and in the growing industrial sector of the metropolitan economy, was seriously endangered during Britain's contest against the Napoleonic Empire in Europe. The main supplies of British timber in the Baltic came under threat when the French succeeded in blocking British ships from carrying on truck or trade with the ports of Europe. Fearing that the economy would be starved of vital supplies of timber, the British ushered in a tariff schedule for foreign wood so prohibitive that it made timber from British North

America competitive in the British marketplace despite the exorbitant costs of shipment.7

"By 1808, timber shipments from the Baltic were a small fraction of their 1805 levels,

British wood prices soared, and for strategic and economic reasons, the British government turned to its North American colonies for vital supplies of wood."8 The adjustment was to be so extensive that in a quarter of a century the timber stands of

British North America serviced well over sixty percent of British demand.9

In the quarter century which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the colony of New Brunswick experienced a period of growth unlike any other chapter in its history.

7 Ibid.

8 Graeme Wynne, Timber Colony: A Historical Geography of Early Nineteenth Century New Brunswick (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), p. 4. 9 Arthur Lower, Great Britain's Woodyard (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1973), p. 51.

28 The colony's nascent, scattered communities in the early decades of the nineteenth century have been characterized as "a pre-industrial hinterland with a few modest urban centres."10 The impact of timber harvesting and processing industries was so extensive that by mid-century every aspect of life in the colony had been affected by the exponential growth in the forest economy. In the period before the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, "two- thirds to four-fifths of her entire export trade" was comprised of timber and forest- products.11 When analysis is extended to take into account timber deals and wooden ships, New Brunswick's timber related-exports approached 90 percent, most destined for the markets of the United Kingdom.12 Due almost solely to development of the timber industry in the colony, during the first half of the nineteenth century "the province was transformed from an undeveloped backwater of 25,000 people to a bustling colony of

190,000 with a 'reputation for commerce and enterprise."13 By the time the Prince of

Wales landed in the province in the early 1860s, the population of the colony was approaching a quarter of a million inhabitants.14 As the total number of settlers making

10 Scott W. See, Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), p. 15.

11 S.A. Saunders, "Maritime Provinces and the Reciprocity Treaty," in George Rawlyk (ed), Historical Essays on the Atlantic Provinces (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967), p. 163.

12 T.W. Acheson, "The 1840s: Decade of Tribulation," in Phillip A. Buckner & John G. Reid (eds), The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press and Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1994), p. 313.

13 Wynne, Timber Colony, p. 33.

14 T.W. Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 4.

29 New Brunswick their home increased exponentially during the early decades of the nineteenth century, the city of Saint John came to reflect the rapid economic and social development of the colony as a whole. From its approximate population of 5000 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the port city grew to roughly 20,000 in 1840, and to just

short of 40,000 at the time of the Prince's visit in 1860. At mid-century, Saint John was thus the largest urban centre in the Maritime region, ahead of Halifax, and ranked third, behind Montreal and Quebec, among the major urban centres within all of British North

America.15 So critical to the growth and development of New Brunswick and its timber industry was imperial economic policy, that when the politics within Whitehall changed, the consequences to the colony were dramatic. At least as significant as the economic relationship, contemporaries believed the imperial cultural connection was in jeopardy.

The removal of British trade preferences occurred during the 1840s, with the full impact of the policies in place by 1846. For the British consumer the economic costs of the mercantilist economy were enormous: with respect to the timber of the British North

American colonies, nearly eighty percent of the cost price was due to the system of preferential tariffs in 1840.16 With the penalties on British manufacturers and processors of timber so high, it was only a matter of time before the restrictive schedule of tariffs and duties on foreign timber commodities would be challenged. When, in 1846, the tariffs were scrapped, the economies of British North America experienced a direct impact.

Effecting a radical change in public policy, the introduction of Free Trade raised the fear

15 Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community, p. 5.

16 Acheson, "The 1840s: Decade of Tribulation," p. 308.

30 of disaster in the Maritime British North American colonies. New Brunswick's dependence upon a single, previously protected commodity fuelled fears still further in that colony. The colony's timber exports plummeted by half between 1840 and 1846; the apprehension and panic which followed saw a flood of wood dumped into the British market, which lowered the commodity prices on the markets even further.17 Though no doubt materially devastating to those adversely affected, the psychological impact of the apparent 'abandonment of empire' by Britain during the 1840s was a more damaging phenomenon for the colony than the actual economic costs.

Given New Brunswick's relationship with the Empire before the mid-1840s, the new requirement that British North American communities succeed or fail on their own initiatives challenged the imperial bonds of even the most loyal of subjects on the western side of the Atlantic. Contemporaries had no doubt as to the source of their misfortune.

"In 1842 the commercial and political interests of New Brunswick were in a state of great disquietude," wrote George Fenety.18 Trade within the colony was drastically diminished.

Large fires in Saint John, waves of recent immigrants, a reduction in agricultural productivity, combined to leave large segments of the population close to starvation.19

Through the hardship and privation, however, it was condemnation of imperial policies

17 Ibid.

18 G.E. Fenety, Political Notes and Observations; A Glance at the Leading Measures that have been Introduced and Discussed in the House of Assembly of New Brunswick Under the Administration of Sir William M.G. Colebrooke, Sir Edmund Walker Head, Hon. J. HZ Manners-Sutton, and Hon. Arthur H Gordon, Extending over a Period of Twenty Years (Fredericton: S.R. Miller, 1867), p. 29.

31 which was the common chorus.

The daily expectation of a change in the Imperial timber duties - the dread and apprehension that in consequence of such action the timber from the Baltic and other Foreign Ports would drive our staples from English Markets, contributed in no small degree to paralyse the energies of our merchants and ship builders... The prospects were dim and everywhere shadowy. It was a night of Stygean darkness everywhere. When capitalists had no prospects of a return on the investment of their money, in any branch of trade, where were mechanics to obtain employment? In the language of a late writer, 'there was no stimulus to enterprise, for there was no field in which it could be exercised. Business in all its branches, was all but dead. Old, middle-aged and young were alike unemployed. There was, then, an excuse for idleness, for there was nothing to do. Nor was there any reasonable hope for a change in circumstances.'20

It was as if with the removal of each brick in the tariff wall, so fell the future prosperity of

New Brunswick society. Imperial legislation thrust the colonies into open competition with the remainder of the North Atlantic world in the carrying trade; any privilege New

Brunswick may have had in servicing the British West Indies was eliminated, and any advantage in the British markets, the lifeline of colonial economic livelihood, was to be erased altogether by the year the Prince visited British North America.21 Fear, in itself, created a crisis of confidence within investors, and an economic depression ensued during

1842 and 1843.22 It is no small wonder that the decade of the 1840s was a time of social unrest within Saint John, the largest and most heavily commercialized community in the province and in the Maritime region as a whole. How could the imperial attachment be viewed in a positive manner, if the Empire itself was to blame for such misery and misfortune? The mood in the 1840s could not be more stark in comparison to the great

Ibid.

Saunders, "Maritime Provinces and the Reciprocity Treaty," p. 162.

See, Riots in New Brunswick, p. 17.

32 spectacles of loyalty to the Crown and affection for Empire during the royal tour summer

of 1860.

As was the case with the impact of the move to Free Trade on the timber industry

within the province, the challenge of integrating railroad technology into the political,

economic and social debate within New Brunswick caused promoters to revisit the

relationship between British North Americans and the Empire. The very nature of

railway construction, with its need for vast capital investment, required that colonial projects be connected to the money markets within the City of London and meet with the

approval of the imperial government of the day.23 As railway development in New

Brunswick demonstrated, the needs of all local communities within the colony were not the same; as well, the needs of the colony as a whole were not always consistent with the political requirements of the policy makers at the helm of Empire. Railways reinforced existing relationships and interests; but the possibilities railways suggested to contemporaries also created exciting new opportunities. The mid-Victorian penchant for railway construction therefore thrust to the fore complex and fundamental questions about intra-colonial, inter-colonial and colonial-imperial relationships. Even more so than the building of the lines, it is the cultural dimension of railway construction that is an important consideration in writing the 'thick description' behind the Prince of Wales' celebrations within the colony of New Brunswick.

The development of railways, and the accompanying impact on relationships

23 P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914 (London: Longman, 1993), p. 258-273.

33 within New Brunswick, British North America and the Empire, began to emerge in the third decade of the nineteenth century. The first "agitations" for rail construction within

New Brunswick came as early as 1827, a mere two years after the first railway venture in

England had been completed. The proposed route involved a rail link connecting Quebec to St. Andrews, New Brunswick.24 Such a development was intended to provide a commercial and communications link for the Canadian provinces with the Atlantic ocean, circumventing the ice-bound St. Lawrence River during the winter months. The initiative stayed on the books for a number of years; in 1836 the New Brunswick Legislature passed an Act creating the St. Andrews and Quebec Railway Company, line surveying beginning in the same year. Objections by the United States to the proposed route, however, resulted in the mothballing of the project until the border issues between Maine and New Brunswick could be resolved.25

The decade of the 1830s saw continued discussion of railway construction in the

Lower Colonies. Early in 1836, advocates for the industrial interests of the port-city considered proposals to develop the first railroads in the colony: the Saint John and

Quebec Joint Stock Steam Boat and Rail Road Company, and the Shediac Rail Road

Company.26 The aim behind both of these schemes was to provide the populous southern

New Brunswick with commercial access to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, thereby both

24 Reginald George Trotter, Canadian Federation, Its Origins and Achievement: A Study in Nation Building (Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1924), p. 149.

CM. Wallace, "Saint John Boosters and the Railroads in the Mid-Nineteenth Century," Acadiensis, Vol. VI., No. 1. (Autumn 1976), p. 78.

34 avoiding the need for the sometimes hazardous waters around Nova Scotia7 and

connecting the port-city with the interior of British North America.

The 1830s witnessed similar proposals for rail construction from imperial sources

in the United Kingdom. Eager to extend the opportunities afforded by the first steam- powered sailing vessels to cross the Atlantic, the British Government explored the possibility of an over-land mail route connecting the ice-free port at Halifax to Quebec

City. This would be used in conjunction with a proposed trans-Atlantic mail service to

Halifax from the United Kingdom.28 Such a line was not considered principally for colonial commercial development, but was to serve as an imperial communication link - for despatches and troops moving between the interior of British North America and the

Atlantic. Given the rebellions of the 1830s in the Upper and Lower Canada, the imperial government was increasingly conscious of the need to move troops quickly into the interior of British North America, and to ensure regular and timely communications.

Accordingly, given the strategic value to the Empire of any line built for these purposes, it would be imperative that the route not run too close to the American border, especially since the exact northern boundary of Maine had yet to be established.29 Despite the ostensible value of the proposed route to imperial interests, these railroad initiatives remained an exercise on paper only. Though by the end of the 1830s no track had yet

27 Ibid.

28 William Menzies Whitelaw, The Maritimes and Canada before Confederation (Toronto: Oxford University Press. 1966), p. 90.

29 Ibid.

35 been laid, discussions raised awareness in both the colonies and the United Kingdom on the particulars and advantages of such rail initiatives involving the colony of New

Brunswick.

Imperially inspired projects were rejuvenated in the 1840s as the new decade ushered in a different era in imperial and international relations. The union between

Upper and Lower Canada corresponded with increased efforts to improve shipping, navigation and canal construction along the St. Lawrence and inland water routes.30

During this decade, relations with the United States also created a more favourable environment in which to explore railway projects in British North America. The

Ashburton Treaty of 1842 settled the boundary between Maine and the border areas of

British North America; by the middle of the decade, the Oregon Boundary dispute was also resolved. As well, American advocates of an expanded railway infrastructure were increasingly in favour of using the north-eastern United States' position between the interior of British North America and Europe to its commercial advantage; accordingly, construction of transportation links between the principal economic centres north of the border with the ports of New York, Portland and Boston received much attention. Such a shift in outlook was a source of frustration for railway enthusiasts in New Brunswick and the Maritime colonies. The American ports proved more advantageous as commercial outlets to the Atlantic, and rail lines much easier to construct and operate than an intercolonial project linking the Maritimes to the Canadas. Railroad speculators in the Canadas were also much more eager to explore the possibility of a trunk line

30 Ibid., p. 91.

36 stretching westward from Montreal through Kingston, to Toronto, London, Sarnia and

Detroit. In Upper Canada, attention was paid to the development of an east-west route between Windsor and Niagara Falls to tap into the emerging commercial carrying trade between Chicago, Detroit and the Atlantic coast.31 Given the promise of these schemes to the Canadas, the Maritime colonies had a hard time keeping the prospects of an intercolonial railroad relevant. However, enthusiasm for the railway did not wane across the region; to the Victorian mind it was a symbol of progress. Maritimers believed that the region's untapped resources and commercial potential could be harnessed if the railway connected the undeveloped areas and the economic centres within the regional economy.

Despite the reluctance of the Empire to finance the construction of massive infrastructure projects between the British North American colonies, railway development did take place in New Brunswick. Unabated by the diminished prospects of any larger scheme, New Brunswickers' commitment to railway construction within the colony is evidenced by the initiation of construction on the St. Andrew's railroad in

1844.32 A year later, a prospectus was issued advocating the merits of a line connecting

Saint John to Fredericton and Grand Falls.33 It was intended that the latter railroad would

31 Ibid., p. 92.

32 Alexander Monro, New Brunswick; With a Brief Outline of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Their History, Civil Divisions, Geography, and Productions (Halifax: Richard Nugent, 1855), p. 75.

33 Prospectus of the New Brunswick Railway, from the City of Saint John to the City of Fredericton, and Thence to the Grand Falls of the River Saint John (Saint John, New Brunswick: 1845), CIHM no. 52432. then connect to the railroads in Canada East along the south shore of the St. Lawrence

River as part of an inter-colonial infrastructure. Though the first tracks were laid during

the 1840s, and new schemes were tabled, the most successful projects remained the

servicing of local interests. New Brunswick, potentially the keystone in British North

American and Imperial railway ventures due to its geographical location between the

Canadas and Nova Scotia, was abandoned by the Empire to develop its internal railway

infrastructure unaided, and with no foreseeable plan to integrate New Brunswick lines

into larger British North American infrastructure initiatives.

In 1846, the year Britain abandoned imperial preference, the Legislatures of New

Brunswick and Nova Scotia petitioned the Queen to construct a railway between Halifax and Quebec - "one of the most gigantic plans of inter-colonial railways ever yet proposed."34 On the 25th of March, noted G.E. Fenety, "on motion of Mr. Partelow, the

House went into Committee of the whole, on a Bill to facilitate the building of a Railway between St. John, Fredericton, Woodstock, the Grand Falls, and the Canada line."35

Further: "Every member who spoke in support of the Bill drew largely upon his fancy in regard to the great benefits that were to accrue to every interest in the Province, so soon as this great 'feeder,' as it was called, should be open to traffic."36 The proposed inter­ colonial railway would cut through the heartland of the colony, connecting the colonial

Monro, New Brunswick; with a Brief Outline of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, p. 75.

35 Fenety, Political Notes and Observations, p. 171.

36 Ibid.

38 capital and the commercial entrepot of the province to the emerging infrastructure of the

continental interior of British North America. With the value-added to the colony obvious to the legislators, the Bill was carried.

As the decade of the 1840s continued, imperial interest in inter-colonial railway

construction did not abate. William Ewart Gladstone, then Secretary of State for the

Colonies, responded to a request by the Governor of Nova Scotia for a survey of a

Halifax-Quebec route, and dispatched the Royal Engineers to the Maritimes in 1846.37

The result of this round of investigations was the report presented by Major Robinson in

1848. Robinson had as his mandate the task of determining the route for an inter-colonial railway, running through portions of the mainland British North American colonies involved in the discussions. The Saint John - Fredericton - Grand Falls - Riviere du Loup route, which was forcibly argued in a published prospectus in 1845 and adopted by the government of New Brunswick in 1846, was rejected outright by the surveyor investigating on behalf of Whitehall. According to Major Robinson:

passing through New Brunswick on the right bank of the St. John River, as it must do, to the Grand Falls, it would for a considerable distance, both before and after the reaching of that point, run along and close to the frontier of the United States. In case of War, therefore, or in times of internal commotion, when border quarrels or border sympathies are excited, this line, when most needed, would be the most sure to fail, for no measures could be taken which would at all times effectually guard it from an open enemy and from treacherous attack.38

The difficulties of crossing the Bay of Fundy by steamer to connect the line to Halifax

37 Trotter, Canadian Federation, Its Origins and Achievement, p. 152.

38 William Robinson, Report on the Proposed Trunk Line of Railway from an Eastern Port in Nova Scotia (Ottawa: 1868), p. 7, CIHM no. 25244.

39 were similarly held by Robinson to be an argument against the Saint John terminus for a

proposed inter-colonial line.

For railway promoters in Saint John, the commercial port situated to receive

greatest benefit from the proposed route, the determination of the imperial surveyor was a

devastating blow. Saint John commercial interests were no doubt antagonized by

Robinson's comment that "it is not supposed that Halifax, the capital and great

commercial city of the Province, would ... allow itself to be excluded from the benefits of the proposed Railway."39 The Imperial Government, it seemed, had no difficulty

consciously excluding Saint John from similar advantage. In the end, Robinson

recommended to the Colonial Office that an inter-colonial Halifax-Quebec railway travel up the east coast of New Brunswick, following the "Bay Chaleurs Route."40 This route would provide the dual purposes of servicing the commercial interests of the United

Canadas with an eastern terminus for the Grand Trunk railway at an ice-free, British port, as well as allowing the line to be used for military deployment, as it was far from the

American border. "Such an uninterrupted length of railway," wrote Major Robinson,

"with such facilities at its termini, will be, it is believed, unequalled in the world."41 The

Empire's focus on the 'termini' was perceived to be at the expense of the interests of the colony through which a major portion of the inter-colonial line would run: New

Brunswick. While the interests of the United Canadas, Nova Scotia and even the wishes

Ibid.

Ibid.

40 of the north-east coast of New Brunswick appeared to be well served by the Robinson

Report, Saint John boosters were strong in their condemnation.

In the spring of 1849, John Wilkinson of the New Brunswick Surveyor-General's office issued a brief to the House of Assembly advocating a connection between Saint

John and Shediac, "a Line of Railway 108 miles in extent; connecting three of the most important Harbours in the province."42 Based on his survey, Wilkinson pronounced that the particulars were so favourable that it would "place this Road in the first class of working Lines."43 The advantages pointed out by Wilkinson had been overlooked by

Major Robinson in his brief to the Colonial Office, for provincial and imperial interests did not coincide; the colony's commercial interests were secondary to the defence and communication requirements of Empire. The Wilkinson Report put the interests southern

New Brunswick, particularly, back on the discussion table. Connecting Saint John to

Shediac was to have much benefit.

The convenience and sufficiency of Shediac as an entrepot for the object in view is not questioned. It is within 60 hours communication by steam from Quebec. It nearly equally divides the great arch of coast which forms the western boundary of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, extending from Cape North to Cape Gaspe, a distance of about 450 miles, embracing in that extent a soil of acknowledged excellence; and fisheries, the ultimate commercial value of which, to these Provinces, would perhaps be dearly exchanged for the more dazzling treasures of other coasts. The fertile Island of Prince Edward lies almost in view of the Harbour, and the coal mines of Pictou within a few hours sail. Indications of coal also every where surround this important locality; and from Saint John to Shediac, in addition to lumber and most descriptions of farm produce, limestone, freestone, gypsum, salt and iron, in abundance, will eventually become tributary

42 John Wilkinson, Preliminary Report on the Proposed Line of Railway Between The City of Saint John and the Harbour of Shediac (Fredericton: 1849), CIHM no. 50125, p. 4.

41 to the traffic of the line.

The Robinson Report and the recommendations by John Wilkinson were not mutually exclusive; the two reports could have complemented one another, as the ideal

situation for New Brunswick railway advocates would, no doubt, have involved positive

action on both of these initiatives, as well as construction of a line up the St. John River valley to Fredericton and Grand Falls. Particularly in the view of Saint John interests, the Robinson route missed the point of constructing the inter-colonial; there would be little benefit to the commercial centre of the colony should the line not link the port city with the railway economy of the United Canadas and Nova Scotia. Commercial interests in Saint John sought to expand the metropolitan hinterland through railway construction, and any line connecting the Maritimes to the Canadas which did not address this fundamental consideration was viewed as spurning the southern New Brunswick economic engine.

Though on the surface the differences which emerged between the Robinson and

Wilkinson reports during the late 1840s were interest-driven negotiations over where the tracks were to be built as the inter-colonial railway cut its way through New Brunswick, viewed in another light, the two reports illustrate an important development in the cultural makeup of New Brunswick society in the late 1840s, and New Brunswick's cultural relationship with the Empire. While the Robinson Report was intended to serve the interests of imperial defence and communication, with a secondary view to economic development of the colonies, the Wilkinson Report had as its focus the industrial

44 Ibid., p. 6. development of New Brunswick, and the port city of Saint John in particular. The contrast between the reports clearly establishes that a commercial elite within the colony, conscious of the new imperial realities of free trade and colonial self-government, were taking issue with views of infrastructure development more closely associated with a culture of paternalism and the imperial mind-set of a pre-industrial age. Individuals within the Saint John booster community held the view that Whitehall could salvage the imperial cultural ties which were increasingly under strain. An indication from the

Colonial Office that it was prepared to invest in New Brunswick railway development favouring the port city's industrial interests was needed. Thus, from its beginnings as an unlikely speculation in the 1830s, the railway debate took on a more urgent tone at the outset of the 1840s, only to become a highly charged issue by the end of the decade.

Railroad development became a question of competing interests both within the colony of

New Brunswick and within the Empire, as well as a cultural catalyst around which communities forged an identity and achieved a sense of purpose. In many ways, by the end of the 1840s, negotiation over the role of the Empire in facilitating economic development within the commercial centres of New Brunswick was the litmus test of the imperial connection itself.

Evidence of the force and extent of the emerging culture surrounding railway development can be seen in the work of the Railway League, formed in Saint John in

1849. In the ongoing debate over the role of the Empire in developing the railway infrastructure in the colony, imperial policy was seemingly having a negative impact on advancing 'civilisation' within the province. "It is now an established principle," it was

43 stated in the Tract No. 1 of the Railway League, "that no country can properly develop its resources, or keep pace with the progress of the age, without the aid of railways."45 The work of advocating railway construction within New Brunswick was no ordinary occupation, for one who strove to realise this end was "working for humanity - for progress, and for the highest good of his race."46 Where was the Empire in the advance of the British race in New Brunswick? Far from being considered a tool for human activity, the railway was a measure of a people, a culture and a separate class of human beings. Railway boosters within Saint John believed

that the Locomotive Railway system has become the great necessity of man - the great instrument of civilization and progress - the great idea of modern times; and that it has done more to relieve the burthens of labour - to minister to man's wants and necessities - and to elevate him in the scale of being, than any other agency that has ever been exerted.47

New Brunswick possessed almost unlimited, but untapped, resources. Agricultural land, fisheries, forests and mineral wealth - all served as the basis for future development of the colony. "But all these bounteous gifts which have been so lavishly bestowed upon this favoured land, remain to be developed, and rendered profitable, by the energy, the industry, and the intelligence of man."48 The only way to realise the future potential of the colony was in the development of the railway. Any hesitation towards such an end was a frustration in achieving a higher order of being, and an abandonment in the 'war against

45 Tract No. 1: Address of the Committee for Organizing the Railway League (Saint John, New Brunswick: April 1849), p. 3, CIHM No. 22181.

46 Ibid., pp. 3-4.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

44 the wilderness'.49 Imperial policy, however, was hesitating.

As the decade of the 1840s passed into the 1850s, economic equilibrium returned to New Brunswick. The dark foreboding in reaction to the imperial government's abandonment of preferential duties proved largely unfounded. Nevertheless, the progress of railway construction remained slow. The necessary surveys and assessments had been performed, studies conducted, and reports written; despite the ostensible benefit to be accrued by the respective colonies within British North America, by the end of the 1840s no inter-colonial railway appeared likely for years to come - due entirely to the policies of the Empire. To construct the inter-colonial "all that New Brunswick could do to help would be to grant to the British government the Crown lands on each side of the line for a distance often miles and to requisition private property necessary for the construction of stations and other railway facilities."50 Investment capital was scarce in British North

America. As a result, the colony's dependence upon British taxpayers' money and the imperial government's credit rating was a requirement for any observable movement towards construction. In 1849, the New Brunswick House Committee on Railways, noted MacNutt, "took the stand that the continued connection with the mother country depended on the construction of the inter-colonial."51 Failure to realise the entrance of

New Brunswick into the railway age was blamed on the reluctance of Whitehall to

49 Ibid., p. 17.

50 W.S. MacNutt, New Brunswick, A History (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1963), p. 328.

51 Ibid.

45 guarantee the necessary investment capital needed for construction. In the colony's march towards civilisation and progress, the Empire was causing it to falter.

It was against the backdrop of frustration and perceived obstruction of New

Brunswick railway initiatives by Whitehall that attention began to shift to an alternative opportunity for the colony's economic development. Proposals for a "European and

North American Railway" were tabled at a conference held at Portland, Maine, in 1850.

At this gathering of American and British North American notables, the prospects of developing a connecting line between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Portland, Maine were discussed. Though the first object of railway advocates in New Brunswick and Nova

Scotia was an imperially backed inter-colonial line connecting the Maritimes to the interior of British North America, this new opportunity deserved careful consideration, owing to the fact that it could be built with the majority of investment capital originating within the United States. It appeared as if Britain had left the Maritime colonies no choice but to develop industrial infrastructure with the aid of foreign capital. If the construction of railways meant a stronger cultural tie with the United States, the imperial attachment appeared to have an increasingly questionable role in the future development of the colony.52

In September 1852, at the time Britain shut the door on the last-ditch proposals for the construction of an inter-colonial, the government of New Brunswick was "under contract by those rich and enterprising capitalists, Messrs. Jackson, Peto, Brassey & Co.

52 A.G. Bailey, "Railways and the Confederation Issue in New Brunswick, 1863- 1865," in A.G. Bailey, Culture and Nationality (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972), pp. 76-91.

46 of England"53 for construction of the 'European and North American Railway.' Grand hopes for the railway were noted by G.E. Fenety, "one of the first to link the commercial future of Saint John to the railroad."54 It was to be

the means of providing business in every shape for the industry of the country. The depopulation of St. John, going on so rapidly, would be stopped, the moment it was known that this work was to proceed. All eyes were now turned towards Fredericton as the 'Tadmor in the desert,' the Eldorado of our hopes; and to Mr. Ritchie as 'the coming man' who was to lead us out of darkness into business life.55

Thus, with commencement of work on the European and North American Railway in

1853, the decade of the 1850s witnessed an energetic spirit within the colony of New

Brunswick markedly different from the mood of the 1840s. "Men and materials poured into the province, concentrating at the three points where construction was to commence:

Shediac, the Bend, and Saint John."56

With the clamour of construction across the southern portion of the province, the culture of the colony had undergone a dramatic change as the railway age dawned upon

New Brunswick. A quarter of a century before the Prince of Wales sailed into Saint John harbour to begin the royal visit to the province, the colony was a small and distant timber harvesting community propped up by tariff walls around the British Empire. The removal of those tariff walls had sent the colony into a disastrous downward spiral. But, less than

53 Monro, New Brunswick; with a Brief Outline of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, p. 76.

54 Wallace, "Saint John Boosters and the Railroads in the Mid-Nineteenth Century," p. 77.

55 Fenety, Political Notes and Observations, p. 291.

56 MacNutt, New Brunswick: A History, p. 338.

47 a decade before the royal tour, New Brunswick was a rebounded, healthy and optimistic society, supported by an industrial economy consciously connected less to the political economy of Whitehall, and more integrated into the emerging commercial networks of the North American continent. As foreshadowed by Thomas Keefer, the railway "was bringing sections of the Province more closely together."57 As the people of New

Brunswick came together, they did so with a new understanding of their society; led by the progressive, liberal-minded members of the Saint John business community, New

Brunswickers saw themselves as an energetic and capable people, increasingly tied to their North American realities, and a society exercising an increasing level of autonomy within the corporate entity of the British Empire.

As text documenting this emerging mid-Victorian cultural phenomenon, an

"imposing demonstration"58 took place in September 1853, which marked the turning of the sod for the construction of the line connecting Saint John to Portland, Maine.

"Steamers from every quarter" brought spectators and participants to take part in the pageantry and spectacle commemorating New Brunswick's dramatic arrival at a new level of civilisation. On September 14th, 1853, the peace of early dawn was shattered by a salute fired from Fort Howe by Militia Artillery. As the morning progressed, "members of the different trades and other bodies were seen hurrying to their place of meeting to

57 Ibid., p. 380.

58 John Willet, "How Saint John Celebrated in the Good Old Times: When the First Sod Was Turned for European and North American Railway Construction - Proceedings of September 14, 1853 Recalled," in Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, No. 11 (Saint John, New Brunswick: Barnes and Co. 1927), p. 238. join in the procession which had been arranged..."59 In uniform, and under banner, the procession was led by the High Sheriff of the City of Saint John, the Grand Marshal,

President and Directors of the Mechanics' Institute and the Band of the 76th Regiment.

Thereafter followed the trades in procession, comprised first of house carpenters and joiners, whose ceremonial props consisted of a portable model workshop "fitted up on a large wagon, drawn by four horses," in which carpenters were "busy in their various occupations of the craft."60 Next came the ship carpenters, consisting of men from the numerous Saint John shipyards, bearing emblems and wearing uniforms. "Models of vessels in various stages of construction were drawn on wagons, suitably decorated," including the prominent Marco Polo and Guiding Star.61 Blacksmiths and founders followed, flying the banners and mottos of the trade. "This body," it was reported, "made a fine showing and mustered about two hundred strong."62 At about a quarter of the number, followed the corps of painters. Masons and stonecutters numbered around one hundred and fifty men marching in procession. Representing the trade, their props showed "the brickyard ...hard at work throwing off bricks. The stonecutters plied the chisel and mallet busily, and on one car was borne barrels of cement, plaster, etc. Their banner showed an arch with a railway train passing over it."63 Next, ninety bakers

59 Ibid.,>P - 238.

60 Ibid., V-243. 61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.,• p. 244. advanced in procession, followed by the printers. As the printers marched, printed lyrics to a song were tossed into the crowd, capturing the significance of the moment.

....While we turn the railway Sod Let us give due thanks to God! God, who gives to active man Hands to work and skill to plan, Means to guide o'er earth and ocean, With amazing locomotion; Places lightening in his hands, Bids it fly at his commands; Light the streets, outrun the mails Through the seas and terra's vales...64

Next came two hundred and fifty cordwainers followed by one hundred and fifty tailors.

The millers marched behind, accompanying a cart carying a model mill in full operation, working "by the motion of the wagon on which it was drawn."65 One hundred riggers and sailmakers from the shipyards moved before nearly as many cabinet makers marching beneath their respective banners and mottos. Next came a procession of approximately seven hundred uniformed men from the many fire companies of Portland (New

Brunswick) and Saint John, and even Fredericton, "with their engines, hose carts and tenders fitted up with the greatest taste and care."66 Farmers from the Parish of

Westfield and Kings County came next. Numbering approximately one thousand, marched the millmen, "those to whose labour and energies and powers of endurance the country owes so much," it was reported. Representatives of 'Reed & Wrights's Black

Ball Line of Saint John and Liverpool' advanced beneath banners and mottos reading

64 Ibid., p. 245.

65 Ibid., p. 247.

66 Ibid., p. 248.

50 "Speed and Safety", "Trade and Emigration", and "Onward: Age of Enterprise." On the banners was the representation of "a locomotive called 'Robert Stephenson' ...seen in the foreground, with a Black Ball packet ship and a screw propeller in the distance."67

Twenty-five harbour pilots and three hundred Freemasons closed the procession. In total,

it was estimated that nearly five thousand members of the trades marched through the

streets of the city to mark the occasion of the opening of the European and North

American Railway - the entrance of the city and colony into the new industrial age. The birth of a new civilisation was thus commemorated.

But, behind the ceremony and pageantry was the realisation that the desired venture of an inter-colonial line had been derailed by the policies of Great Britain. Rather than secure the financing and facilitate the construction of a line incorporating the port- city of Saint John, the Empire was prepared to permit the city, and colony, to move ever closer into the strengthening orbit of the Republic to the south. The British Empire was to remain a material and cultural force upon and within the people of New Brunswick following the mid-nineteenth century; it was, however, a force markedly altered by this half-century of readjustment.

When the Prince of Wales arrived in New Brunswick in August 1860, he was presented with a copy of Alexander Monro's synthesis of the colony's history over the half-century leading up to 1855, the year of the book's publication.68 This volume

67 Ibid., p. 249.

68 John Livingston to S.L. Tilley, (Saint John, August 4,1860), Leonard Tilley Papers, MG 27,1D 15, National Archives of Canada.

51 detailed New Brunswick's railway initiatives, the full effect of which was to lay a

commercial and economic network not only within the colony, but well beyond it,

connecting New Brunswick to other British North American colonies, and to New

England. A total of 425 miles of track were "in progress and in completion" in New

Brunswick by 1855: the St. Andrew's and Woodstock Railway (90 miles), the Shediac

and Miramichi Railway (70 miles) and the railway from Saint John to Fredericton (55 miles).69 Further to Monro's history, the The European-North American Railway (210 miles) was completed in stages over the half-decade which followed its commencement

in 1853. "The first section from Pointe du Chene to Moncton was opened in August 1857, the second from Saint John to Rothesay70 in June 1858. The Project was completed in

August 1860, when the first train ran from Saint John to Shediac."71 Conveniently, the completion of the line occurred at the very time the Prince landed in the colony. The colony's elevation to a new, higher stage of civilisation could thus be marked with an imperial coronation. It was not a Victoria Bridge, but it proved New Brunswick was cut from the same cloth as the United Canadas.

As in the United Canadas the perceived impact of the move to free trade had proved to be different from the real experience that unfolded over the course of the decade of the 1850s. The forebodings of economic ruin and social collapse did not

69 Monro, New Brunswick; with a Brief Outline of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, p. 78.

70 Nine Mile Station was to be renamed Rothesay after a title possessed by the Prince of Wales, in honour of his visit in 1860.

71 MacNutt, New Brunswick: A History, p. 380.

52 materialize. In fact, the decade after the introduction of laissez-faire imperial economic policy proved among the most prosperous years in the Maritime region's history.

Alexander Monro captured the mood of the times in his 1855 history of New Brunswick:

It is fully understood, by the few who have studied the resources of the Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, that they possess all the elements necessary to their elevation in the scale of nations: a healthy climate; an excellent soil for agricultural purposes; inexhaustible forests of valuable timber, accessible by an extensive sea-board, and by navigable rivers; immense mineral resources, and an unparalleled coast and river fishery; - all of which, when developed, are highly calculated to enable the inhabitants of these Provinces to compete with those of any other country, of equal extent, on the American continent.72

Monro's assertions, though a clearly exaggerated assessment of the region's potential, reflect the prosperity and optimism characteristic of the period. One historian notes: "if any decade in Maritime history qualified as a 'golden age', it was the 1850s."73 Presented with the challenge of preserving the vitality of their economies and societies, the

Maritime colonies responded effectively, but not without impact on the imperial relationship. Throughout the decades of the 1840s and 1850s, it became clear that the colony could not depend on the Colonial Office to act in its interests; in many instances, as demonstrated by the impact of imperial policy on the colony's timber trade and frustrations to railway building initiatives, the Colonial Office provided significant challenges to which the people of New Brunswick had to adjust. The Empire had ceased

Monro, New Brunswick; With a Brief Outline of Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, (Introduction).

73 Ian Ross Robertson, "Maturity and Reform: The 1850s," in Phillip A. Buckner and John G. Reid (eds), The Atlantic Region to Confederation: A History (Toronto and Fredericton: University of Toronto Press and Acadiensis Press, 1994), p. 333. With specific reference to the city of Saint John, New Brunswick, the 1850s signalled the city's "entry into the 'golden age'" - Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community, p. 9.

53 to be a political and economic sanctuary for the colony in comparison to the situation a quarter century earlier. Left to manage their own affairs economically and politically, the population of the colony underwent a culture shift.

The 'thick description' provided by the colony's imperial history during the first half of the nineteenth century is the basis for analysis of the cultural attitudes towards

Empire within New Brunswick on the eve of the arrival of the Prince of Wales in the

summer of 1860. As noted in an analysis of the British Monarchy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, changes in royal ritual and pageantry which took place as the Queen was "swiftly transformed from petulant widow to imperial matriarch"74 can be attributed to the decline in actual royal power. "Continuing royal power made grand royal ceremonial ...'unacceptable.'"75 David Cannidine concludes:

it is in this context that the actual performance and popularity of the royal ritual and ceremonial during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century needs to be understood. Clearly, in this first period, ceremonial did not exist to exalt the crown above the political battle, to that Olympus of decorative, integrative impotence, which it was later to occupy, or to that earlier peak of picturesque power which it had once scaled. The abiding political influence which the monarch wielded made it dangerous; the real power of the nation made it unnecessary; and the localized nature of society, reinforced by the provincial press, combined with the lack of a sufficiently splendid metropolitan setting, made it impossible. For the majority of inhabitants, local loyalties still took precedence over national allegiance.76

The retreat into an 'olympian' detachment from influencing political outcomes allowed for the invention of royal tradition. Writes Cannidine:

74 John M. Mackenzie, Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1986), p. 3.

75 Cannidine, "The British Monarchy," p. 108.

76 Ibid., pp. 115-116.

54 in such an age of change, crisis and dislocation, the 'preservation of anachronism', the deliberate, ceremonial presentation of an impotent but venerated monarch as a unifying symbol of permanence and national community became both possible and necessary. In the 1860s, Walter Bagehot had predicted that 'the more democratic we get, the more we shall get to like state and show, which have ever pleased the vulgar.' And he was proved correct.77

This observation can readily be transferred to the colonial situation in British North

America in the year 1860. As the role of the Colonial Office in directing the day to day operation of the colonies began to retreat under the auspices of the liberal mantra of

'responsible government', and with the implementation of Free Trade, old cultural foundations attaching the British North American colonies to essentially the social atavisms of an eighteenth century empire no longer applied. Not only was the time right for a reconsideration of the imperial cultural attachment, it was required.

By the time the Prince of Wales arrived in the colonies in the summer of 1860 the difficult adjustments in the imperial relationship that had begun in the 1840s had worked themselves out. The fears over Britain's 'abandonment' of its Empire owing to the influences of the urban, commercial middle class in London did not prove warranted. By the late 1850s colonial society appeared to have turned a page in its history. New

Brunswick had begun its transformation from a protected, mercantile timber colony to one which saw Saint John as the metropolis for the eastern region of British North

America, connected to its hinterland by a network of railroads and steamship lines, and operating within the culture of the new laissez-faire, economic liberalism. In fact, observers have remarked that the year 1860 was the period of the province's 'greatest

Ibid., p. 122.

55 activity'.78 No longer questioning their ability to sustain themselves economically,

socially and politically, colonies in British North America were beginning to develop a new cultural awareness. New ideas about societal roles and relationships were taking

shape, and the new liberal tendencies towards mid-nineteenth century state-formation were taking root as old notions about colony and empire were increasingly anachronistic.

This was the context into which came the royal tour of 1860; timed accordingly, it permitted the colonies the opportunity to debate their social, economic and political realities and to consider the role the Monarchy and Empire played in their cultural make­ up.

78 Lillian M. Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," in The Maritime Advocate and Busy East, vol. 37, no. 12 (July 1947), p. 5.

56 — Chapter 3 — City, Colony and Empire Defined: Cultural Negotiation In the Planning Phase of the Royal Tour in New Brunswick

"There's economy mixed up with loyalty after all." - Morning News, March 21,1860

On Monday, March 19th, 1860, the question of the Prince of Wales coming to

New Brunswick was formally raised in the New Brunswick Legislature. Approximately

ten months after the discussion of the issue in the Canadian House of Assembly, Attorney

General and member for York, Charles Fisher, rose to his feet in the New Brunswick

Legislature "looking more than ordinarily grave,"1 and began a speech which would last three quarters of an hour.2 In that speech, Fisher laid out the argument in favour of New

Brunswick following the lead of the Canadians, and moved that the Legislature formally petition the Crown requesting that the colony be included in the upcoming royal tour.

Perhaps in anticipation of his critics' likely response, he estimated that the financial costs would not be so large as to minimize the direct and indirect benefits which might result from the royal visit. The press reported that Fisher had announced "that the fitting up of

Government House, and other contingencies, would not amount to more than the cost of a quarter mile of Railroad, while much of the expense would remain a permanent benefit."3

1 Religious Intelligencer (Saint John, New Brunswick), March 23, 1860.

2 The Morning News (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21, 1860.

3 Religious Intelligencer, March 23, 1860.

57 David Tapley, a liberal member for Sunbury,4 seconded the address.

The response to the address by the members of the House was divided. "Some very eloquent speeches were made in favour of the address by Hon. members from St.

John and York particularly."5 However, soon after the motion was presented the proposal was challenged, particularly by members representing the counties other than York,

Sunbury and Saint John, on the basis of the costs it was believed the province would have to incur. The Surveyor General and member for Charlotte County, James Brown, a conservative, but a member of the Smasher government,6 was first to challenge Fisher's motion. In Brown's estimation, the public purse could not absorb the cost of financing the royal visit. It was not the idea of the invitation, in principle, which he challenged; rather, Brown stated his intention to cast his vote in support of the resolution, but only if the funds to cover the costs were raised by subscription.7 Representing the other end of the province, the member for Gloucester, William End, echoed the sentiments voiced by

Brown. In rebuttal, Fisher asked his fellow members to take another view of the colony's financial interests.

He asked how they would look if they found it necessary to go to London in the course of a few years to ask for another loan to have it thrown in their teeth. 'Oh. you belong to that Province that was too poor to entertain the Prince of Wales when he passed close to your shores! Who will lend you money?'8

4 Graves Papers, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick [PANB]

5 Religious Intelligencer, March 23, 1860.

6 Graves Papers, PANB.

7 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21,1860.

8 The Head Quarters (Fredericton, New Brunswick), March 21, 1860.

58 Thus, to Fisher, entertaining the Prince could improve the image of the colony in Britain; an image of an energetic and industrializing colony, he believed, would increase its leverage in negotiating financial packages for further railway and infrastructure development.

Samuel Leonard Tilley, Smasher member for the city of Saint John, rose to support Fisher. Considering the scheme from a financial point of view, Tilley articulated the benefits which would accrue from a royal tour. "His Highness would be invited to open the Railway, and this fact being made known thousands upon thousands would flock to see him, and it would be impossible to calculate the indirect benefit that would result from the visit."9 Just as Fisher tied the visit of the Prince to the colony's larger economic interests, Tilley argued that the many thousands of travellers making use of New

Brunswick's railways to congregate in the places the Prince would visit "would lessen the sum to be provided for interest upon the Railway debt at the next session, and thus actually relieve the Province from the expense of the visit."10 With the population of

Saint John augmented by the many visitors from other areas of the province and beyond,

Tilly argued, "there would be a loyal demonstration, such as was never witnessed in the

City before."11 Perhaps conscious of how his hypothesizing on the spectacle within the port city would sound in the ears of those distant from the mouth of the St. John River, he

9 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21., 1860.

10 The Head Quarters, March 28, 1860.

11 The Morning News, No. 22, Vol. 34, March 21. 1860.

59 laid before the House his vision of the Prince visiting Miramichi, and making the

Government House in Fredericton his headquarters.12 He concluded by stating his certainty that such an occasion would entice "thousands of American subjects [to] come to our Province to embrace this opportunity of seeing the future Sovereign of the British

Empire."13 Tilley furnished the House with a vision of an entire colony united behind and standing to benefit from a royal tour. As the debate took shape, then, a clear division in the members' respective positions for and against the motion emerged. In favour were the representatives of the counties of York, Sunbury and Saint John - counties the Prince was sure to visit; against were members from Charlotte, Kings, Westmoreland, Albert,

Gloucester, Restigouche and Queens. Opinion within Carleton, Northumberland, Kent and Victoria counties was split.

The liberal member for Albert county, Abner Reid McClellan14 checked Tilley's optimism by revisiting the financial liabilities that would necessarily be assumed by the colony should the initiative be pursued. He proposed that the Assembly should thank the

Crown for visiting British North America, but stop short of issuing an actual invitation to visit New Brunswick. Such a gesture would absolve the colony from the responsibility to entertain royalty with costly pomp and pageantry, without calling into question its attachment to the Crown. Further, he put forth an amendment to the initial resolution requesting that the House of Assembly requisition a detailed estimate of the expenses to

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Graves Papers, PANB.

60 be incurred before any invitation was issued.

The finances were low, Railroads were taking all the funds, the duties already burthensome, and in the absence of any instructions from the people on this subject there was no necessity, and it would be improper thus hastily to pass a resolution which would ultimately involve the Province an additional £10,000 or £15,000 which amount is more required to open roads to poor settlers who are suffering for the want of the accommodations and comforts of life, than for this purpose - which can be of no general benefit whatever outside of Fredericton, St. John, and perhaps King's.15

Following James Brown's lead, Joseph Wilson Lawrence, liberal representative for Saint

John City,16 and Daniel Hannington, a conservative Member of the House for

Westmoreland,17 also stood to indicate their support for a proposal to invite the Prince,

provided the cost of the celebrations be incurred by private individuals and not by the public purse. Hannington argued that "his constituents would prefer the £10,000 [be]

spent upon their roads and schools, for the visit would benefit few, and glorify only the members of the Assembly and a few others."18 John Hamilton Gray, conservative member for Saint John County and City, however, defended Fisher's proposal, and stated

"his objection to handing over the future sovereign to the 'tender mercies of a subscription list'."'9

The debate continued, with McClellan stating that New Brunswick should not allow itself to be strung along by the initiatives of the United Canadas or any other colony

15 Religious Intelligencer, Vol. 7, No. 12, March 23, 1860.

16 Graves Papers, PANB.

17 Ibid.

18 The Head Quarters, April 14, 1860.

19 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21, 1860

61 in British North America, as was appearing to be case in the issue of the royal tour.

"Canada did not consult sister Colonies in the original invitation," he argued,

and if Hon. members wished to have this matter treated as a Provincial rather than a great Colonial matter, we ought not now permit ourselves to assume a subordinate position to any other Colony ... and the separate Colonies ought not, and probably would not, so subordinate their policy and their interests.20

Finally, George Kerr, a conservative member for Northumberland,21 and fellow conservative for Kent, Francis McPhelin,22 rose to challenge the Attorney-General's proposal by questioning the benefits of the royal tour to their constituents. Just as

McClellan challenged the notion that New Brunswick should allow its government policy and expenses to be controlled de-facto by Canadian initiatives, Kerr similarly argued that certain regions within New Brunswick should not have their interests controlled by an agenda clearly not their own. "The north was quite as loyal as the south,"23 but he could see no propriety in taxing people who would never see the Prince.24 Fredericton and Saint

John, which would benefit from the visit of the Prince, should bear the cost of the visit.

To this issue Gray responded.

Hon. members have raised the question whether the reception which should be given the Prince of Wales in this Province should be a reception by the several localities which he visited, or a reception by the whole people. I think that upon that point there should not be a doubt whatever. The invitation should come from the whole people, and the Prince, while in New Brunswick, should be the

20 Religious Intelligencer, Vol. 7, No. 12, Friday, March 23, 1860

21 Graves Papers, PANB.

22 Ibid.

23 The Head Quarters, April 4, 1860.

24 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21, 1860

62 guest of the whole people.

Gray further argued that neither the colonial capital nor the port city had the right to

confer upon itself the sole privilege of representing the whole of New Brunswick to the

Crown. "This is not a matter merely for the south or the west," he continued.

The north and the east should have their part in it; the men of Kent and of Westmoreland, of Northumberland and of Restigouche, should have the credit of invited [sic] him here and of having entertained him, as much as the man of York and St. John; they should feel that their voices were heard in the invitation and their means spent in the entertainment equally with those of any other portion of the Province.26

Thus, the proposal to host the Prince was intended by its advocates to be a colonial

undertaking and not an affair to be passed off either to specific cities or communities

within New Brunswick, or to prominent, wealthy individuals who would cover the costs through voluntary subscription.

As the debate closed following three and a half hours of discussion, "the amendment of McClellan was put and lost, the vote being yeas 16, nays 20. The resolution was then put and also lost, being yeas 16, nays 20."27 An analysis of the vote reveals that the major influence deciding positions for and against the motion was the geographical location of the constituencies represented by the members of the House.28

25 The Head Quarters, April 4,1860.

26 Ibid.

27 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 34, March 21, 1860

28 "It appears," writes Ian Radforth, "that New Brunswick was the only place where there was any opposition to the idea of inviting the prince to visit British North America." (Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 23.) Radforth makes no attempt to account for the actions of the House of Assembly.

63 Both liberal and conservative members from the Saint John area appeared on the lists in favour of extending the invitation to the Prince of Wales; the same held true for members from York and Sunbury counties. Outside of these areas, there was a slight leaning of liberal-minded members to favour the address.29 However, it was irrespective of political affiliation that members from Charlotte, Albert and Westmoreland counties cast their vote against the invitation. Somewhat curiously, given the proximity to Fredericton and

Saint John, liberal members from King's and Queen's counties voted against Fisher's motion. Overwhelmingly, therefore, it was the representatives based within Fredericton and Saint John who determined the invitation to the Crown to be in the interest of their constituents.30

But the debate was far from over. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the Fredericton

Head Quarters made its opinion on the outcome clear, naming the vote against Fisher's motion "one of the meanest we ever witnessed in our very loyal House of Assembly."31

Such sarcasm reveals the extent to which the Fredericton press was scandalized by the

'disloyal' response of the House. In contrast, the Religious Intelligencer of Saint John took the high road, reporting an apparent feeling among the members of the House of

Assembly that prior notice should have been given before such an important and high-

For example, in favour were Botsford of Westmoreland, Disbrisay of Kent, Mitchell of Northumberland.

30 Such a lack of unanimity of opinion on the issue at the outset reveals the ability of the tour to create as well as reflect the culture of the colony as support for the Prince's visit would grow over the days and months to come.

31 The Head Quarters, March 21, 1860

64 profile proposition was put before the members for debate. Following the vote it appeared that many second guessed their earlier decisions. "Several Hon. members complained they had not given to the whole subject that attention which its importance demanded, and consequently were compelled to vote against the whole as the only resource to gain time for greater reflection."32 Following an evening of protest and demonstration against the outcome of the vote in the streets of Fredericton, the next day's meeting of the House brought an 'expunging' of the journals and an opportunity for the legislators to recast votes. 'Greater reflection', it would appear, was necessary; upon reconsideration, the address carried: "yeas 23, nays 16."33 The earlier division between the representatives of York, Sunbury, Saint John and the rest of the colony did not substantially shift; the votes which tipped the balance in favour of the resolution came principally from the representatives of Queen's and King's Counties, with Vail, McLeod,

Scovil and Gilbert changing positions in the debate.34 Opposition remained strong within the corps of representatives from Charlotte, Albert, Westmoreland and the other counties outside the St. John River valley. Demonstrating the shared perspective in support of the tour, the Sussex Times wrote:

we are glad that the members of the House of Assembly saw the error of their

Religious Intelligencer, Vol. 7, No. 12, Friday, March 23,1860

33 Journal of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick, From the Ninth Day of February to the Ninth Day of April, 1860, Being the Fourth Session of the Eighteenth General Assembly (Fredericton: John Simpson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, 1860).

34 Sussex Times (Sussex, New Brunswick), Vol. 1, No. 4, Thursday, March 22, 1860.

65 ways, and turned to that which is loyal and right. It is shameful to think that they would, in the first place, allow it to become a question before the House, and to make it a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. What favour or sympathy can we expect from Great Britain, when we shew coolness towards the Prince of Wales, the noble youth, the first born of our ...sovereign. We only hope we will not be dealt with according to our just desserts.35

Upon the passing of the resolution in the House of Assembly the issue was moved to the

Legislative Council; after its approval36 in that body two members of the Legislative

Council, Botsford and Steeves, accompanied Fisher, Gray and Tapley from the Assembly to present the Address to the Lieutenant-Governor, John Henry Thomas Manners-Sutton.

A month later, in April 1860, the Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, confirmed the receipt of the Address in a despatch to the Lieutenant-Governor.

Sir: I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 13 of the 22nd of March last enclosing a joint Address from the Legislative Council and House of Assembly praying that the Province of New Brunswick may be honoured by the presence of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales during the Prince's intended visit to B.N. America. I have laid this Address before the Queen and Her Majesty was pleased to receive very graciously the expressions of loyalty and attachment which it contains. The Queen has commanded me to instruct you to assure the Legislative Council and House of Assembly that it will afford the Prince of Wales great satisfaction to include New Brunswick in the tour which H.R.H. is about to make through British North America, and that it was from the first intended that his visit should embrace all the Provinces of British North America.37

35 Ibid.

36 Journal of the Legislative Council of the Province of New Brunswick, From the 9th February to the 9th April, 1860, Being the Fourth Session of the Eighteenth General Assembly (Fredericton, New Brunswick: John Simpson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, 1860) p. 94. (PANB, RS 2, RG.4).

37 Newcastle to Manners-Sutton, 19 April, 1860. Colonial Office: Entry Books of Correspondence, Vol. 20 New Brunswick January 31, 1856-December 20, 1863. Letters from the Secretary of State, Despatches (CO. 189, Vol. 20) p. 257-258, (National Archives of Canada [NAC], Reel B-2330).

66 Ironically, the controversy elicited by the debate in the House of Assembly appeared to have been moot, as the Prince was scheduled by the Colonial Office to land in New

Brunswick from the outset.

Though the Colonial Office had already decided that the royal tour would include

New Brunswick, the debate in the House of Assembly in March raised a number of issues which were further discussed during the spring and summer of 1860. New Brunswick's relationship to the rest of British North America was immediate to the minds of New

Brunswickers; the debate about whether to invite the Prince was, in the first place, entirely a reaction to the initiative taken by the United Canadas without the consultation of the other colonies within British North America. What was becoming evident to New

Brunswickers, however, was the extent to which their own interests increasingly overlapped with those of the other colonies, and the degree to which an increased participation in the decisions was desirable. Therefore, while the royal tour through

British North America unified the various colonies by eliciting discussions about shared interests and a common culture, the progress of the Prince from Newfoundland through to

Canada West also served to divide; a clear colonial hierarchy was evident, in which the

United Canadas had achieved an imperial sway in their own right over the Maritime colonies - albeit as first among equals. Within New Brunswick, the tendency of the issue to clarify political interests was immediate; divisions would have to be overcome, and political, economic and cultural negotiations needed to take place before the prince made landfall within the colony in the beginning of August of that year.

The position of New Brunswick in the larger British North American polity was

67 an important issue, especially in the age of railway construction. The fact that New

Brunswick was in the process of costly railroad building schemes which placed heavy strains on the public purse made the issue of the prince's entertainment much more difficult to pursue. Yet the development of railroads and the prospect of extending industrialization within the province could also be viewed as an incentive to participate in the royal tour. The link between 'loyalty' and aid for financing of costly industrial infrastructure projects surfaced frequently in the discussions. Cognizant of the fact that the Prince was coming to North America to open the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, members of the Assembly argued that the visit of the Prince, though expensive, could equally serve to showcase New Brunswick's achievements in similar areas of economic development. Smasher leaders such as Tilley, Fisher and Gray believed that the increase in travellers seeking to witness the arrival of the Prince would generate much needed revenue for the newly opened New Brunswick Railways. It was further argued that the publicity the Prince's tour would give the railway schemes in the province could enhance the chances of securing much needed credit and guaranteed loans for construction of other colonial and inter-colonial lines. Thus, the province's finances and the issue of the royal tour to New Brunswick were integrally connected.

Historians who study pageantry and spectacle view these events as reflections of the world in which the celebrations take place. Considered "politics by other means," social structure, community values and the process of shaping these values are turned into

68 "performance art" which can be analysed as 'text'.38 Through a careful examination of the months of planning for the arrival of the Prince in New Brunswick, in the period

March through August 1860, the politics behind the pageantry was revealed. A number of topics appear to have been of critical importance for those concerned with orchestrating the tour at the colonial and municipal levels: first, the proposed itinerary of the prince through British North America; second, the internal route within the colony of New

Brunswick; third, financial responsibility for shouldering the cost of, and thus taking a high degree of ownership over, the tour celebrations. An analysis of these topics reflects a schism within the culture of New Brunswick at the outset of the 1860s; a new liberalism, reflected in the industrial and commercial centre of Saint John, emerges in contrast to a more traditional paternalism within the colonial capital. Editorials in the Saint John press provide the text of a progressive culture which drove the debate in the city; G.E. Fenety of the Morning News was by far the leading voice in this chorus of opinion.39 Saint John was viewed as the industrial heartland of the Maritime region by advocates of the new progressive civic identity. They sought to export its energetic vision to include the other regions within the colony of New Brunswick. They purposefully juxtaposed similar undertakings in the principal urban centres of British North America with those in Saint

John to cause debate on the state of the port-city in relation to its civic peers within the

H.V. Nelles, The Art of Nation Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), p. 12.

39 CM. Wallace, "G.E. Fenety," The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 313-314., and CM. Wallace, "Saint John Boosters," Acadiensis, Vol. VI., No. 1 (Autumn 1976), pp. 71-91.

69 United Canadas and the Lower Provinces.40 This new progressivism was, at best, a qualified cultural tendency within Fredericton at the time; there, deference, rank, title and the importance of religious conformity were the cultural operatives in place. The passion for, if not the obsession with, railway development in Saint John was ridiculed within the

Fredericton press. Thus, an analysis of the politics behind the pageantry during the spring of 1860 reveals the contested nature of the colonial identity, as paternalism and liberalism struggled to achieve primacy within the body politic of New Brunswick.

Debate over colonial identity and its reflection in the Prince of Wales' celebrations can be seen in the issue of arranging the itinerary of the royal tour. Concern over the itinerary first focussed on the wider scheduled path the Prince would travel through British North America - which colonies and locations were to be on the royal schedule, in what order and for what purpose. Where the Prince went and what he saw when he was there, as well as who controlled such key decisions - the colonies or the

Colonial Office - were all of critical importance as colonial society sought to invent and articulate its image during the spring of 1860.

Speculation abounded as the press and public attempted to gain information on the travel arrangements of the Prince through British North America. At the time the

New Brunswick House of Assembly debated the motion to extend the formal invitation in

March 1860, it was already known that Nova Scotia had joined the United Canadas in

40 For an analysis of boosterism and civic rivalry in Saint John and Halifax on the occasion of the Royal Tour see Bonnie Huskins, "A Tale of Two Cities: Boosterism and the Imagination of Community during the Visit of the Prince of Wales to Saint John and Halifax in 1860," Urban History Review, 28 (October 1999), pp. 31 -46.

70 petitioning the Crown, and that a larger tour through British North America was thus in the works. After it was reported on April 11,1860, that "the Legislature of P.E. Island has passed an address to invite the Prince of Wales to visit that Colony,"41 questions began to

arise over the route the Prince would take in his travels. Two weeks later an article ran

simultaneously in two Saint John newspapers which reported: "...the Prince of Wales will land at Halifax and after 'doing up the people there' he will proceed to St. John [New

Brunswick]; then to Prince Edward's Island; and should there be anything left of him after that, the Canadians will come in for a slice."42 Whether the Maritime colonies were to entertain the Prince and his entourage before or after the United Canadas was of importance. The initial context of the Prince's journey was the opening of the Victoria

Bridge over the St. Lawrence River; as this ceremony was certain to be an enormous spectacle of industrial development, a trip eastward into New Brunswick and the other

Maritime provinces - areas which offered technological achievements of their own, but which lacked the symbolism of the Victoria Bridge - might have seemed rather anti- climactic for the royal travellers and the international press in tow. A more favourable impression could be achieved if their accomplishments were viewed before the Victoria

Bridge and the spectacles of Canadian industry had prejudiced opinion.

This speculation on the itinerary of the Prince of Wales was subsequently confirmed. At the beginning of May, a letter dated March 10,1860, from the Duke of

41 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 42, April 11, 1860.

42 The Temperance Telegraph (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. XVI, No. 13, April 20, 1860, and The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 47, April 23, 1860.

71 Newcastle to the Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland was reprinted in the Saint John press. The Colonial Office confirmed the inclusion of the island colony in the larger

British North American tour. "It has probably become known in Newfoundland that the

Prince of Wales will pay a visit to Canada this year. I think he will most likely visit St.

John's on his way out, and if so it will be on some day towards the end of July."43 Soon after, the Head Quarters informed the people of Fredericton: "On the third instant the

Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia informed the legislature, officially that he had received a despatch authorizing him to state that the Prince would visit that Province early in

July."A* On May 9th, citing an account from the Montreal Gazette, the Saint John

Morning News published the Prince's planned itinerary.

The date of his departure from England is to be the middle of July - the 15th, with a fleet... His port on this side of the Atlantic will be St. John's Newfoundland. The Lieutenant Governor of that Island... has received a letter informing him of the intention. Thence he will proceed to Halifax; and thence cross over the country and visit St. John N.B., and Fredericton. If practicable he will thence cross over to Shediac, where his fleet will go around to meet him, and proceed up the river to Quebec. If he finds difficulty in getting to Shediac, he may cross to Portland and come over the Grand Trunk Railway to Quebec or Montreal. From this he will go to Kingston, and thence to Ottawa. From Ottawa to Toronto; thence across the lake to the falls, and back by rail to Hamilton. He will then go to Sarnia to see the Grand Trunk works there, and travel over the western States incog. Go to Washington and be the guest of the President; thence visit the Atlantic cities and have the fleet meet him at Portland...45

With the route finally established, the larger context for the New Brunswick celebrations became clear. Subsequently, minds were cast towards the implications the wider British

The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 53, May 7, 1860.

The Head Quarters, Wednesday, May 9, 1860.

The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 54, May 9, 1860.

72 North American route might have for the upcoming spectacles within New Brunswick; the cultural performance created therein would be compared by Prince and press to similar displays in the Canadas and even the United States. Every effort must be made to ensure that New Brunswick would be viewed favourably when juxtaposed against the more prominent and populous societies on the itinerary of the royal tour.

Questions about the itinerary involved more than the route itself, however. The attention given to the participation of the other British North American colonies stirred up an interesting controversy. At issue was a despatch from the Duke of Newcastle to Sir

Alex Bannerman published in the Morning News. From the correspondence there emerged a question about the extent to which the itinerary for the Prince was to be directed from Whitehall, versus the colonial societies themselves assuming responsibility for deciding on the nature and scope of the celebrations. "It would seem from the tenor of this letter," wrote the editor, "that 'England expects every man to do his duty' in

Newfoundland."46 Lavish celebrations were anticipated,

even though the visit should only last for a day. If, therefore, so much is expected from a colony which has not extended any invitation at all, what will be expected from the Duke of Newcastle from one that has, by joint action of its Legislature, called upon the Queen to allow His Royal Highness to Honour it in so signal a manner?47

Newfoundland, it was argued, had the demand of royal pageantry forced upon it by the wishes of the Duke of Newcastle orchestrating the royal tour from England, in collaboration with the Lieutenant Governor's office in St. John's. This 'top down',

46 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 53, May 7,1860.

47 Ibid.

73 paternal style of colonial administration was criticized in the pages of the liberal Saint

John press. Thinking of the implications for New Brunswick, the editor revisited the arguments for and against extending a formal invitation to the Prince to visit the province.

"The Colony of Newfoundland is, by this letter of the Duke, placed in a most uncomfortable position - one that, by the same standard set up by our sentimentalists, will sadly put their loyalty to the test."48 The perceived imposition of the tour and the accompanying formal reception of the Prince on the people of Newfoundland was scandalous to the editor of the Morning News as such an act questioned the purpose behind the forthcoming pageantry. Should the local community engage in discussions about its identity and the proper means of projecting that identity through the celebrations and ceremonies, the entire process was held to be consistent with the liberal values of self-determination and colonial autonomy. However, if orchestrated and dictated by the

Colonial Office, in collaboration with the Lieutenant Governor of the colony, the message received by British North Americans was that the paternalism that had characterized the

Empire in a previous age had not disappeared, and that the ideal of colonial self- determination was by no means entrenched in the governing principles of the imperial system.

In an era increasingly dominated by liberal-minded reform movements, such as the Smasher movement in New Brunswick, perceived Colonial Office "expectations" for costly pageantry and spectacle proved a lightning rod which drew the concentrated focus of the new liberal progressive culture within the colony, strongly rooted within Saint

74 John. Wrote the Morning News:

The Duke of Newcastle's letter is a fair indication of the expectations raised in England touching the Prince's visit to America, and of the extravagant notions that prevail in high places. John Bull is famous for his love of substantial splendour. Nothing with him is too costly when royalty stands in the way .... When ever the blood royal moves about from place to place in England, it is upon velvet pile carpeting, and the richest silk brocade. Nor will our fatherland consider that British America has done her duty - is a right stem of the parent stock - unless the same extravagant notion manifests itself here...49

Such discussion about the Colonial Office's demand for pageantry revisited the earlier debate about the costs to be assumed by the colonies. Even if the colonies did control the nature and extent of the festivities without interference or pressure from the Colonial

Office, it was realised once again that appearing as a poor, financially troubled or backward society was to be avoided at all costs if New Brunswickers were to prove they were the 'right stem of the parent stock'. The larger itinerary of the royal tour would weave together a tapestry of the cumulative achievements of the British 'race' in North

America; the respective contributions of each colony towards the sum of the whole would provide a measure by which to form an evaluation of the various colonial societies.

Wrote the editor of the Morning News:

But we allude to this affair more particularly with a view to appraising our own government and people, what they make up their minds to - what is expected of those who give an entertainment to royalty. It must be remembered that the Province is now a competitor beside comparatively wealthy countries; and , therefore, it must show off to the best advantage, without reference to cost - for it will not do to say that it is not to be expected that a poor country like this can make a display like a rich one, because we have placed ourselves in the foremost ground upon a footing with 'the most favoured countries' and must not spare expense, even if our revenues run out at the toes for the next two years.50

Ibid.

Ibid.

75 It cannot be known for certain whether the Colonial Office required such outlay of money and energy in the colonies as was suspected by the Morning News, or whether the

Duke of Newcastle held such extravagant expectations of the British North Americans.

In his communications to the Queen on his arrival in British North America, the Colonial

Secretary displayed a surprise at the energy and excitement he witnessed;51 therefore, it is doubtful that the Morning News was correct in its assertions regarding his 'expectations'.

However, in New Brunswick, civic leaders did more than rally against the perceived imposition of the tour and its crippling expense. Their response on this point was to appropriate the royal tour for colonial purposes, and to focus the process of identity construction on the defence of Smasher values of liberalism and colonial autonomy.

Saint John boosters, in particular, cast New Brunswick society as a "competitor" - in the words of the Morning News - in the laissez-faire, free-trade economic climate which existed within the Empire and North Atlantic world. To be successful in this endeavour, they were prepared to shoulder great expense in the process. The cultural displays upon the arrival of the Prince in Saint John, therefore, can be seen to represent the tie between economic competition and the manner in which the symbols of Monarchy and Empire were appropriated to confirm the colonial identity. Given the certainty that the Prince would land in New Brunswick before heading towards the United Canadas, the Saint

John boosters were pleased with arrangements which would permit the showcase of New

Brunswick industry and commerce. With the wider itinerary of the tour then fixed,

51 Duke of Newcastle Papers, Colonial Office Letterbooks: 1859-1864, Vol. CI, "Newcastle on Colonial Matters," MG 24 A 34, Reel A-307, NAC.

76 attention could be focussed on the more immediate arrangements taking shape within the colony of New Brunswick itself.

"We really cannot imagine who is answerable for the really stupid arrangement in the telegram received at the News room from head quarters on Monday," wrote the

Morning News.52 The 'really stupid arrangement' was the Prince's scheduled route through New Brunswick, which saw him arrive by steamer from Windsor, Nova Scotia on Friday August 3rd, and leave for Fredericton on the following morning. After a two day stay in the New Brunswick capital, he was to exit the colony through the port of Saint

John, without making an overnight stay, bound by steamer for Windsor and Pictou on his way to Prince Edward Island. Indignant at the apparent snub of the commercial port city, the Saint John Morning News reported:

St. John, it appears, is to be treated in the 'cold shoulder' fashion, as if it were a very small place, compared with Halifax or Fredericton. According to the above programme, the finest part of our Province is to be cut out of the line of travel altogether - viz. from St. John to Shediac by Railway.53

The editor proposed instead that the royal party progress from Nova Scotia to Saint John,

New Brunswick - there to remain a number of days before boarding a steamer bound for

Fredericton. One day in Fredericton was considered plenty for the Morning News. "The idea of imprisoning his royal highness in Fredericton for two days is a cruel piece of business."54 The notion that New Brunswick's railway accomplishments should be

The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 75, June 27, 1860.

Ibid.

Ibid.

77 showcased upon the arrival of the Prince was not new to the debate. Six days before the debates in the New Brunswick House of Assembly in March, J. Robb communicated his support of the idea to S.L. Tilley. He wrote:

The Prince of Wales it is said will open the Victoria Bridge in August next, and our R.R. [railroad] line will be ready for opening in July, as I understand. My opinion is that if proper representations were made H.R.H. might be induced to open our great R.R. line as well as the R.R. bridge of Canada, at about the same time. If this could be effected, he would see N. Brunswick at its best, as his visit would probably do more as an advertisement for N.B. than many other things that might be derived.55

Tilley was cautioned again by John Boyd, who warned that the people of Saint John "are hurt at the short stay of the Prince."56 Saint John boosters sought to capture and display the culture of their society through images of industrial and economic progress, and give it formal recognition by the Prince of Wales. The plan for the colonial capital to occupy centre stage for multiple days during the New Brunswick portion of the tour, with the port-city used merely as an entrance and exit to the province, would handicap efforts to present the colony as a centre of forward-thinking and progressive commerce and industry. Outside the St. John River valley, however, the programme of the Saint John boosters was not favourably received. A.J. Smith, Smasher House of Assembly

Representative for Westmoreland, cautioned the Provincial Secretary: "I think I am safe in saying that the Prince & his Suite have all seen Railways and to see one will not be a

55 J. Robb to S.L. Tilley (Fredericton, March 13,1860), Leonard Tilley Papers, MG27,ID15,NAC.

56 John Boyd to S. L. Tilley (St. John, June 26th, 1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75, Fl, 30 (1), New Brunswick Museum Archives [NBMA].

78 matter of wonderment to them."57 For Smith, the financial costs to be imposed on his

Westmoreland constituents to showcase industry within the port-city was "going to be a bad business for the country."58 Since the initial debates in the Assembly, his opinion had not changed.

By way of comparison, in Fredericton - the other area from which the House of

Assembly representatives consistently voted in favour of extending an invitation to the

Prince - the issue of the progress of the royal tour through the colony was given remarkably little coverage in the local press. A brief mention of a public meeting of the citizens of Fredericton, held on May 31,1860, noted that the mayor had been named as chairman of the Prince of Wales organizing committee in that city. As well, the Head

Quarters reported that a "grand public ball" was to be held on the occasion. In total,

"three hundred pounds [had] been voted by the inhabitants for the occasion, and it is said the government will give £1,000."59 No discussion over the image and identity of the city or colony, as was found in the Saint John papers, can be noted in the Head Quarters. In the colonial capital, loyalty was not equated with the conspicuous showcase of industrial energy; instead, an extravagant ball, the fitting up of Government House, the volunteers and regular infantry, and the opening of a new park were activities placed on the royal agenda. Thus, as the community of Fredericton appropriated the symbols of Monarchy

57 A.J. Smith to S.L. Tilley (Dorchester, June 4th, 1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75,F16,21(1),NBMA.

58 Ibid.

59 The Head Quarters, Wednesday, June 6,1860. and Empire to reflect their civic identity, a culture with a different emphasis to that at

Saint John was revealed. In the capital, the paternalism of a former age of Empire still held sway. Though in both communities the desire to host the Prince was strong, the reasons for and the meaning behind the visit were markedly different.

Critical of the apparent throwback within Fredericton to the paternalistic days of an imperial structure characterized by deference, rank and order, in place of material accomplishment and industrial energy, the Saint John press sought to clarify how loyalty should be defined and articulated on the arrival of the Prince. "This important fact should be borne in mind that the Prince comes here, not so much to see the people and to hear protestations of lip loyalty," writes the Morning News, "as to see the country and what it can produce; and to this end whatever celebrations we have should tend."60 Embodying the Saint John culture, the enthusiasm for the Prince to open the railway became evident at the end of June, 1860. It was reported that

the Railroad will be ready for a formal opening all the way to Shediac by the day the Prince of Wales arrives, 3d August, and it is put down in the Programme for his Royal Highness to 'open the road'. He will go in the train as far as nine mile station, and there take the steamer for Fredericton. This will hold good unless some other arrangements are made in the meantime, and the Prince can be induced to go all the way to Shediac. We understand that a deputation will proceed from our Government to Halifax to meet the Prince, and try to effect some change in the Duke of Newcastle's arrangements.61

The internal route the Prince would take through the colony was thought to be of crucial importance; organisers sought to control the image of their society which would take shape in the minds of imperial decision-makers and members of the foreign press. A

60 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 75, June 27, 1860.

61 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 75, June 29,1860.

80 chance to showcase the results achieved in New Brunswick's railroad development before the creditors and investors abroad, as well as interested parties within the British government, offered an opportunity to secure future investment. The difference between the civic debates taking place in Fredericton and Saint John concerning the meaning of appropriated symbols of Monarchy and Empire was significant.

The booster culture, however, was taking root in areas beyond the harbour communities of Saint John. The "astonishing change" which had taken place in 'Sussex

Vale' since the arrival of the Saint John-Shediac railway in November of 1858 illustrated the spread of this perspective. Thomas Keefer's "iron civilizer" had transformed the community. An extensive array of new houses dotted the community, their inhabitants filling the streets with "life, bustle and business activity." The railway economy gave life to new hotels, public houses, tanneries, carpenter shops, blacksmith shops, wheelrights, all carrying on "with animation," and reminding some of "similar places in England and the United States."62 The cultural perspective associated with the changes wrought upon the settlement with the arrival of the railway was clear to observers at the time:

The old houses, the remnants of the last century, are going to ruins; a wonderful change is presented in the contrast between the old and new structures - thus pointing out the vast difference there is to a place between the post road and the rail road.63

The railroad represented the future of the north Atlantic economy; as captured by the developments in Sussex, New Brunswick had a bold and bright future in the vanguard of

The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 77, July 2, 1860.

Ibid.

81 progressive British North American society - or such was the vision of G.E. Fenety, editor of The Morning News, and other Saint John boosters. This evidence suggests that the industrial and commercial leaders of Saint John saw their vision of progress and development extending well beyond the bounds of their own city, to encompass the province; even if they did not represent Fredericton, they perhaps believed themselves to embody the 'spirit' of progress that had its counterparts throughout the colony.

As the nature of the image to be presented to the Prince and the world crystalized in the minds of the Saint John boosters, and as it appeared that the city would not be provided the necessary stage and time required to effect the necessary programme, they sought to gain a greater level of influence in determining the internal route of the royal tour in the province. While the exact preparations were not decided at the initial public session of the Saint John Prince of Wales Organizing Committee on June 26,1860, the extent to which the citizens of the port-city wished to showcase before the Prince and the press the industry and accomplishments of their community was evident.

Mr. Lawrence made a few remarks upon the necessity of the meeting endeavouring to take some steps to have the route laid down in the programme changed. It was preposterous that the Prince, in order to get to Prince Edward Island, should retrace his steps, and have a second time to cross the Bay of Fundy.64

Accordingly, the following resolution was passed:

And whereas, it is understood that the Railway from this City to Shediac will be completed by the 1st August next, and it would afford much satisfaction to the inhabitants of this Province, if His Royal Highness would formally open the same for traffic, and embark at Shediac for Prince Edward Island, - Therefore resolved, that the Committee take such action as may be necessary, to secure an

The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 75, June 27,1860.

82 alteration in the proposed arrangement, so as to effect this desirable object.65

The route taken by the Prince of Wales once in New Brunswick was of significant

importance to the citizens of Saint John who hoped to showcase select aspects of their

society. When confronted with a programme and route which did not allow for their industrial and engineering accomplishments to be displayed before the Prince and the press, they determined to try to effect changes in that programme.

As more information concerning the internal route through the province was released, the contest between the vision of Saint John boosters and the culture of the colonial capital once again assumed centre stage. It was revealed at the same public meeting of the Saint John Prince of Wales Organising Committee, on the 26th of June,

1860, that the choice of the route, which so disturbed the Committee, "was not the result of any action on the part of either Governments of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. It was based on the contents of a private note from the Duke of Newcastle to the Lieut.

Governor, who stated that this would be the route."66 The meeting was further informed

"that the Government was as anxious as the citizens of St. John that the Prince should see more of the Province than was now proposed."67 Commented the editor of the Morning

News:

we cannot very well understand how the Duke of Newcastle (3,000 miles off) can, from his own knowledge, direct the course the Prince should take in travelling through these Provinces. Common sense suggests that the Duke has had some instructions from America - and not from very disinterested parties

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

83 either - or we are greatly mistaken.

Writing from the Railway Commissioner's Office, Charles Watters warned Tilley that to rectify the situation, the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick "had better enclose [a letter] to the Duke of Newcastle on his arrival at Newfoundland by which he can see the absurd arrangement made for the route so far as New Brunswick is concerned."69

Whoever controlled the scheduled route of the royal progress through the colony also controlled the image colonial society could project not only to the audience abroad, but also to itself. To the Saint John boosters, the Colonial Office and the provincial executive in Fredericton embodied the same cultural atavism perceived to be holding back the advance of the new progressive spirit taking shape within the port-city - unless the colonial executive could demonstrate otherwise.

The impression within Saint John that the culture of paternalism in Fredericton was a liability to the creation of a progressive image for the colony was borne out when, on July 4,1860, the Fredericton Head Quarters launched an attack against the ambitions of port-city advocates. Saint John programme organisers were chastised in the

Fredericton press for their protestations that the Prince should travel by rail from the

Fundy coast to the strait en route to Prince Edward Island. While the Fredericton Head

Quarters conceded that should the prince travel by way of the European and North

American Railway between Saint John and Shediac, the benefits were "not only that he

68 Ibid.

69 Charles Watters to S.L. Tilley (Saint John, June 27th, 1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75, F20, 9 (2), NBMA.

84 may enjoy the fine rural scenery, but that he, and the distinguished noblemen accompanying him, may witness the results of New Brunswick enterprise," the editor expressed serious doubts that the line could be completed and operational in time.

Possible delays, problems with track, bridges, or engines, and the relatively slow pace at which the train would inevitably travel in comparison to similar operations in England, he argued, would instead leave the Prince, press and public with negative impressions of

New Brunswick enterprise; this would be all the more damaging as it would be realised that the funds used in the construction of the second-rate line were raised in London.70

Clearly, an analysis of the politics involved in deciding the route for the royal tour in New

Brunswick highlights not only the traditional rivalry between Fredericton and Saint John but also the contrasting outlooks and attitudes of the two cities. Saint John was articulating its civic identity as the industrial heartland of the Maritime region, and its desire to export its energetic vision to include the other regions of New Brunswick. This new liberalism was not a shared culture with Fredericton, which did not place similar emphasis on the showcase of industry and commercial 'forwardness' present in the colony. As the celebrations took shape in the minds of programme organisers at the colonial and municipal levels, the cultural schism between Fredericton and Saint John grew wider.

The issue of deciding financial responsibility for the cost of the royal programme similarly reveals the cultural dialogue taking place within New Brunswick society. With budgetary control came ownership over important decisions. Advocates of the new

70 The Head Quarters, July 4, 1860.

85 liberalism within the port-city were concerned that appropriate financial resources would not be forthcoming. They feared that the proposed Fredericton pageantry would not only present a conflicting image to that of Saint John, but would also divert the provincial funds needed to secure a magnificent showing at the Prince's point of entry into the colony. Tensions and conflict soon emerged between Saint John and the colonial government. As the debates in the House of Assembly in March 1860 bore witness, costly expenses for Saint John city celebrations, financed by the colonial government, and paid for through taxation of all New Brunswickers - including those members of the population distant from the St. John River valley, in places the Prince would never see - were not politically expedient. Nor had the opinions of Assemblymen James Brown,

Abner Reid McClellan, Daniel Hannington and George Kerr changed with respect to this issue. To such members representing constituencies outside of York, Sunbury and Saint

John counties, provincial money should not have been forthcoming at all. As the days and weeks advanced, the pressure mounted to finalize the arrangements within the port- city. J.W. Lawrence advised Tilley towards the end of June: "Our constituents [are] beginning to feel anxious relative to the visit of 'The Prince'."71 As the time to arrange the Prince of Wales' celebrations grew short, from the perspective of increasingly nervous programme organisers in Saint John, provincial funds were slow to come, if at all. Unless the provincial executive aligned itself with the liberal culture of Saint John through positive financial action, it would be perceived as holding back the port-city in

71 J.W. Lawrence to S.L. Tilley (Saint John, June 23rd, 1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75, F10,13 (2), NBMA.

86 realising its desired programme, perpetuating a paternal apathy towards progress.

Few within influential political and financial circles in Britain knew much, if anything, about the Atlantic colonies.72 Even within the Colonial Office, "Englishmen who had actually heard of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick usually thought they were parts of the United States."73 Competing with other economies in the North Atlantic world required investment capital and infrastructure development; this Saint John boosters realised, and embraced the opportunity of the royal visit as a means of making positive impressions at home and abroad which might generate material gains for the city and colony as a whole. To this end, they concluded that the reception ceremony must be extensive, expensive and purposeful in order to communicate the desired civic image to audiences within the city, colony, Empire and nations abroad. In May of 1860, three months before the arrival of the Prince of Wales, the Saint John Common Council held a meeting in which the subject of raising money to host the heir to the throne was discussed. £1,500 was the sum given as the amount necessary to raise from public taxes within the city. In the plan to generate the budget, city officials were reminded that earlier arguments had been made which cautioned against burdening financially struggling citizens with a large bill; accordingly, the levy was not to apply to households whose taxes were less than £5 per year. The method devised to allow the corporation to meet budget, while at the same time avoiding a political backlash, was a creative solution.

Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837-1867 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1995), pp. 137-138.

73 Ibid.

87 Private citizens were to advance the city government money to pay for the celebrations; at a later date, these individuals would be reimbursed from tax money raised over a longer period. Though this was not the 'subscription list' which had been dismissed in the

House of Assembly debates in March, nonetheless, it did not prove to be a workable solution. Two weeks after this initial meeting, "the Recorder stated that there will be a difficulty in raising the money for the Prince of Wales celebration on the order passed at the last meeting of the Council - whereupon it was resolved that the Mayor be requested to proceed to Fredericton for the purpose of conferring with the Government on the subject of the means necessary for the purpose of the celebration."74 Given the reluctance of members of the House of Assembly to use provincial funds to offset the cost of celebrations held in Saint John and Fredericton - celebrations the people of Charlotte,

Westmoreland, Gloucester, Albert counties, among others, would never see - it was not with a great deal of hope that the request was made. As expected, alarm was sounded to warn against the requests for money coming from Saint John. "[F]or heavens sake, let us act rationally," wrote A.J. Smith, Smasher House of Assembly Representative for

Westmoreland; "It seems to me the citizens of Saint John should have the expense of any demonstrations they may make."75 Requiring the whole colony to finance the grand ambitions held by programme organisers in the city of Saint John, wrote Smith, "I don't

Saint John, New Brunswick: Common Council Minute Book XXIV, NAC, pg. 358.

75 A.J. Smith to Samuel Leonard Tilley (Dorchester, June 4,1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75, F16, 21(1), NBMA.

88 hesitate to say meets my most decided disapproval."76 However, on the other side of the argument, David Wark wrote Tilley from Richibucto:

...in relation to the celebrations... I think it very desirable if the Railway can be got ready in time that the opening should take place on the occasion of the Prince's Visit. And if the Corporations and Citizens of Saint John and Fredericton are willing and desirous to contribute and cooperate in giving him and his suite a cordial and hearty welcome I think it will be the most judicious course for the Gov't to fall in with and assist them. Were we to decline I think it might place yourself and the Atty General in a very undesirable position as regards your respective constituencies. On the other hand by taking a lead in the movement, if the Gov't does not gain I have no fear of its losing popularity. I am disposed to be as careful of the public money as most people, but I think the present is an occasion on which the bulk of the thinking people of the province will expect the Gov't to act liberally.77

As debate circulated within the Colonial Government, W.H. Steeves warned the

Provincial Secretary of the many sacrifices outside Fredericton and Saint John which would have to be made should substantial Colonial funds be spent on the Prince of

Wales' celebrations.

There are quite a number of things in addition to those mentioned by you that require immediate attention, among which are the Bathurst Bridge, Dalhousie Wharf, Grand Falls Bridge &c, &c. ...And you know Mr. Williams' eagerness to have the work immediately proceded with, and I presume as soon as His Excellency receives an answer respecting the proposed visit of the Prince (if favourable) he will want the steam got up forthwith, by way of preparing, by July. I found that while at Saint John that parties there expect the province's funds to contribute for Prince glorification at that place as well as at Fredericton. I give no opinion as I thought the matter better be looked over by the ministers of the government before doing so.78

Taking a global view of the financial picture of New Brunswick, it seemed, the costly

76 Ibid.

77 David Wark to Samuel Leonard Tilley (Richibucto, June 5th, 1860), Tilley Family Papers, S75, F 20, 5 (2), NBMA.

78 W.H. Steeves to S.L. Tilley (Killiboro, April 25,1860), Leonard Tilly Papers, MG27,ID15,NAC.

89 expenditure on the Prince of Wales celebrations would exact a heavy price on other aspects of life in the colony. Any request by Saint John city politicians for provincial funds to offset the municipal expenditures was therefore going to run up against political opposition from other areas of the province.

Undeterred by the slim chances at a successful remittance for provincial funds, the

Saint John organising committee drafted a petition "to the Governor in Council for a loan of £1,500 to meet expenses of giving a welcome to the Prince of Wales."79 The reply came from the Provincial Secretary on June 23rd, "...stating that the Government could not accede to the request."80 It was thereupon decided "that the Mayor be requested to call a public meeting of the citizens at the Court House and submit the communication now received from the Provincial Secretary.81 A public meeting followed, held in the City of

Saint John at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, June 26, 1860, "for the purpose of making arrangements respecting the visit of the Prince of Wales"82 Thomas McAvity, Mayor of

Saint John, read the letter from the Provincial Secretary to "a large and respectable attendance." The contents of the letter stated that while the Government would not pledge the Provincial funds for any particular locality, "they would give liberally of the means at their disposal for the purpose of ensuring to the Prince a credible reception."83

79 Saint John, New Brunswick: Common Council Minute BookXXIV, p. 358.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid., p. 370.

82 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 75, June 27, 1860.

83 Ibid.

90 This was not what the assembled crowd wanted to hear. The Executive Council minutes for June 25th, 1860, reveal that £750 "from Provincial funds [was] to aid in the decoration and general arrangement, and that if [the] programme includes a ball, use of railway buildings will be given, and £250 to fit them up, (in addition to the £750)."84 The total of

£1000 matched the sum reported by the Head Quarters that the city of Fredericton would be granted by the colonial government for the reception ceremonies in the capital. While the provincial figures were equal for both the major stops within the Prince's travels through the colony, the Saint John boosters believed that the amounts were not equitable.

More was to be done, it was thought, in the port city, and, in their view, there was far more to be gained by investing in the Saint John celebrations instead of diverting valuable resources away from the port-city spectacle for the opening of a park and redecorating

Government House in the capital - neither of which, even if reported by the foreign press, would effect the desired image of New Brunswick abroad. Thus, as the citizens of Saint

John were to own the financial burden for much of the celebrations they were to arrange for the reception of the Prince of Wales, control over the medium and message of pageantry was also uniquely their own.

The discussions and debate surrounding the preparations for the royal tour indicate a contested colonial identity within the body politic of New Brunswick at the close of the decade of the 1850s. The arguments in the House of Assembly which began the debate in the province in March 1860, carried on through the spring of the year, up

84 Executive Council Minutes & Orders in Council, June 25th, 1860, p. 178., R.G 2, RS 6A, Volume 36 (1857-1866), PANB.

91 until the arrival of the Prince in early August. Strong support for the tour existed within

York, Sunbury and Saint John counties; the reasons behind the advocacy for the tour, however, were not consistent between the port city and the capital. An energized policy

emanating from the Saint John booster community set the tone for the debate, as attention was directed to many issues within the programme preparations - such as the royal

itinerary in the travels through British North America, the internal route through New

Brunswick, and the challenges and ownership over financing the pageants to mark the

landing of the heir apparent in Saint John and the colony as a whole. Driven by the

culture of progress, the Saint John boosters took issue with the vestiges of paternalism which they considered remained in place in Fredericton; illustrating the cultural schism which existed between the two main communities within the colony, the Fredericton press was quick to respond, ridiculing the port-city's obsession with industry, progress and the railways which, in various states of construction, were to be the main attraction promoted by the Saint John boosters. The areas outside the St. John River valley were careful to defend their own interests, chiefly financial, distancing themselves from the costly expense of the royal reception in either Fredericton or Saint John. In as much as the competing cultural visions were taking root within the rest of the colony, the developments along the Fundy coast, and in communities such as Sussex, show that the booster culture extended well beyond the limits of Saint John. Progress and paternalism, the competing cultural visions operating within the colony on the eve of the Prince's arrival, would thus serve as the messages in the medium of pageantry at Saint John and

Fredericton. - Chapter 4 - Progress, Pageantry and Community Formation: The Prince of Wales in Saint John

The pageantry which transformed the streets of colonial capitals throughout

British North America in the summer of 1860 provides examples of historical text upon which the 'new cultural history' seeks to analyse past human experience. The royal tour of 1860 was conducted in the tradition of statecraft rituals1 in Western European history.2

Much of the conceptual framework useful in studying the royal tour of 1860 comes from a body of literature analysing the ceremonial history of Early Modern Europe.3 Within these topical works, attention has been given to the patterned, royal rituals of the

'progress' and the 'entry'. As a ritual genre, the 'progress' was a ceremony in which a monarch, visiting head of state, or religious leader travelled through a cultural community, creating and reflecting bonds which existed between ruler and subject. By

Renaissance times, the ceremonial 'progress' had "evolved from [a] medieval custom of kingship in which kings and queens enjoyed the hospitality of their subjects, moving from

1 "Statecraft rituals" is a term borrowed from Barbara Wisch and Susan Scott Munshower (eds), Triumphal Celebrations and the Ritual of Statecraft: Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University (Vol. VI), Part I (University Park, Pennsylvania: Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania, 1990).

2 Writes Graeme Wynne: "At base, this conceptualization rests upon an essential distinction between 'the state' as an instrument of government or power and 'the state' as 'the overall social system subject to that government or power,' or in other words, between the state as an administrative apparatus and the wider 'civil society' of which it is a part." "Ideology, Society and State in the Maritime Colonies," in Alan Greer and Ian Radforth, Colonial Leviathan State Formation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 316.

3 Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 12.

93 castle to castle making their power known across the land." When a ritual progress was staged, host communities throughout the royal tour received their guest with pomp and ceremony; elaborate ceremonial welcomes were staged, illustrating local traditions and cultural exigencies. Though unique elements of each community were showcased, more emphatically the ritual progress created a similar experience to be shared by each of the communities on the royal itinerary. Through the physical presence of the sovereign, the progress linked together disparate corners of the realm; diversity was overshadowed by unity.

Akin to the Renaissance statecraft ritual of the royal progress, the royal tour of

1860 to British North America saw the prince travel to each of the British North

American colonies. At every stop along the route there was great celebration of unique civic achievement on the local level; the tour's origin in the completion and promotion of the Victoria Bridge at Montreal bears witness to this fact. But in addition to the

'Montreal climax' of the royal progress through British North America, the Prince was received in St. John's, Halifax, Saint John, Fredericton, Charlottetown, Quebec, Ottawa,

Belleville, Cobourg, Toronto, Hamilton, London and Sarnia and many other stops in between; each stop on the Prince's schedule issued explicit and implicit text of unique local culture. But from the perspective of those who travelled with the Prince's entourage, there was an over-riding cumulative effect - that of a unified British North

America, characterized by its energy and its attachment to the Empire and Monarchy, and

4 Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 245. driven by its ever increasing industrial and commercial development. Providing evidence of this message of a cultural 'unity in the face of diversity', the Duke of Newcastle conveyed to Lord Palmerston his observations of the royal progress.

In the four Lower Provinces the inhabitants are almost exclusively of British origin, but have been much divided into factions by religious differences and the other causes and loyalty of a great many of them has often been more than questioned. On the present occasion the only rivalry has been which should be most permanent in display of their attachment to the Queen and the Prince as her representative. The effects made by each community to honour the Prince have been really extraordinary and the expense to which they have put themselves must have been very great. I never saw in any part of England such extensive or beautiful [...] demonstrations of respect and affection to the Queen or to any private object of local interest as I have seen in every one of these colonies, and what is more important there have been circumstances attending all of these displays which have marked their sincerity, and proved that neither curiosity nor self-interest were the ruler or the ruling influences.5

Similar sentiments were echoed by others accompanying the Prince on the royal progress throughout British North America. As a result of his observations of the cultural drama staged throughout the royal progress, royal physician Dr. Henry Acland openly mused about the eventuality of British North American federation.6 In the summer of 1860,

British North Americans shared the spotlight and experience of the royal tour, consciously and openly, as British North Americans - a pan-colonial community with shared values and common experiences. The ritual genre of the royal progress helped to make this pan-cultural dialogue and identity construction possible.

As a statecraft ritual, the effect of the royal progress within the colony of New

5 Newcastle to Palmerston, September 2, 1860, Letterbook Vol. CI: "Newcastle on Colonial Matters," Duke of Newcastle Papers, MG 24, A 34, (Reel A-307), National Archives of Canada [NAC].

6 Dr. Henry Wentworth Acland, Letters from North America (unpublished: 1860), MG 40 Q 40, NAC.

95 Brunswick is also noteworthy. The strong regional tendencies which existed across the colony, as reflected in the divisive debate over extending a formal invitation to the Crown in March 1860, were, by August, overshadowed. As the Prince travelled from Saint John to Fredericton and back via the St. John River, the many signs and ceremonies of welcome created a common experience out of the local celebrations. Through the ritual of the royal progress, New Brunswick became more than the sum of its parts; local cultural expressions assumed secondary importance, as the presentation of a singular colonial cultural identity took shape. In the spring and summer of 1860, one can see, however, the extent to which the expressions of liberalism and paternalism, in particular, contested for primacy as the singular cultural identity of New Brunswick.

Further to the royal progress in the study of Early Modern statecraft rituals is the ceremonial 'entry' of a prince, pope, or other authority figure into a cultural community.

Until the early Renaissance period, the entry ritual remained relatively straightforward, with the various political and spiritual elites receiving the distinguished visitor at the city gates; once met, the guest was ushered through the walls into the city beyond.

By the close of the fifteenth century, however, the entree had developed into a ritual which embraced the whole of the society concerned, together with its institutions. It incorporated in one gigantic spectacle its judicial, economic, political, religious, and aesthetic aspects in a format which reflected vividly not only the rise to prominence of the urban classes but also the increasing power of the prince.7

In Early Modern Europe it was characteristic for the royal entry to take place in a city

7 Roy Strong Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450-1650 (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK: St. Edmundsbury Press, 1984), p. 7.

96 fortified by impenetrable and imposing walls.8 Given the physical characteristics of late

Medieval / Early Modem cities, the ritual entry as a ceremony could achieve stunning effect. The massive walls provided security; however, "cities were physically and symbolically vulnerable at their gates."9 Thus, a spectacular pageant through this space was provocative. The powerful visitor exploited the weakness in a city's defences as the entry procession passed through its gates; the protective bulwark against the outside was visibly breached and access gained to the city behind its walls. Anthropological analysis has cast the ritual aspects of the generic royal entry to function as "a rite of passage marking the spatial separation of the foreign visitor from the outside world, the dangerously liminal stage of the visitor's passage across the threshold of the town gate, and the reaggregation of the visitor with the outside world when he or she left."10

Given any minor variation to the pattern, the ritual act of passing through a gate, beneath a temporary or permanent arch, or traversing a physical barrier, was a cultural gesture loaded with meaning and significance for spectator and participant alike.

The entry procession itself emphasised mutual obligations, for in one mighty sweep the onlookers saw pass before them, in microcosm, the whole of society as they knew it: the king beneath a canopy attended by his principal officers of state, the nobility, the gentry and knights at arms, the clergy in the form of bishops, priests and the religious orders, the third estate made up of officials and representatives of the guilds and confraternaties.11

8 Victor Graham and W. McAllister Johnson, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX and Catherine de 'Medici: Festivals and Entries, 1564-6 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 8.

9 Muir, Rituals in Early Modern Europe, p. 239.

10 Ibid., p. 241.

11 Strong, Art and Power, p. 7.

97 The cultural perception which was created in the act of staging and observing such rituals was purposeful and deliberate. Albeit, the purpose and meaning of a ceremonial entry depended upon circumstance; despite the patterned nature of the ritual, there was not a single, uniform message conveyed in each instance a distinguished visitor presented themself at the gate of a Renaissance city. "No way of communicating can be understood from formal stylistic characteristics alone, and dramatic production must be seen as particular to and developed to suit the context in which it is performed."12 The genre of the ritual entry, however, was familiar to participant and spectator in the Early Modern period, and as a patterned mode of communication, carried with it certain broad understandings.

It is first and foremost loyalty to the monarch in the national and local context, but it is also an expression of civic pride designed to attract his favour through his ancestors, his immediate forebears, his family, his coat-of-arms, and his Magentas is central to the decorations and, in his person, provides the focal point and climax of the procession which is its very raison d'etre.13

Thus, Renaissance royal entry ceremonies were patterned modes of communication, with a message, purpose and audience behind them. Along with the royal progress, the entry was a highly engineered, formal pageant, "the most successful of these demanded the talent of artists, architects, musicians, Latinists, dramatists, and ceremonial specialists";

As cultural spectacles, these rituals were "a form of outdoor public theatre, which was

12 Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), p. 12.

13 Graham and McAllister Johnson, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX and Catherine de 'Medici, p. 22.

98 witnessed by far more people than any other artistic production of the age."

The 1860 royal tour bears a marked similarity to such earlier expressions of the

Renaissance ceremonial entry. The towns and cities of British North America were subject to very different processes and influences in their urban development; the imposing walls of the late Medieval / Early Modern European city were simply not found anywhere across the frontier of the British Empire in North America. The urban centres into which the Prince entered were not designed for grand, royal pageants.15 Yet a similar effect was achieved. In the absence of towering stone walls, disembarking for the shore from the royal yacht lying at anchor, or passing under a ceremonial arch could provide the liminal state16 which marked the transition of the Prince in a physical state between royal space and the spatial realm of colonial society. In the case of Saint John, the image to be cast in ritual form was the product of more purpose and passion than that of Fredericton; the consequences of appearing as the commercial and industrial heartland of the Lower

Provinces was of critical importance to those parties with a vested interest in its economic

1 Muir, Rituals in Early Modern Europe, p. 246.

15 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, p. 49.

16 "[Victor] Turner argued that ritual universality involves a dialectic between 'structure' and 'anti-structure'. By organising and managing the passage of persons from one set of normative positions, roles, rules, and social states to another, ritual serves social order and continuity. At the same time, when ritualists enter the state of liminality, all manner of unexpected, dangerous, or potentially creative things may happen. This embeddedness of ordering, disordering, and reordering in the same performance process is what makes ritual so apt a vehicle for the making of social dramas." in John J. MacAloon, "Introduction: Cultural Performance, Cultural Theory," in John J. MacAloon (ed), Rite, Drama, Festival Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984), p. 3.

99 success. Though Fredericton and Saint John were united in the ritual of the royal progress through New Brunswick, the two cities were still charged with the task of negotiating the complexities within the preparation of a royal entry ceremony with their respective locales. From the historian's perspective, the point at which the respective royal entry ceremonies intersect with the message of the royal progress ritual in New

Brunswick reveals the degree to which the culture of boosterism within Saint John was assuming primacy as the principal cultural expression for the colony as a whole. As a cultural phenomenon, the old-world ritual of the royal entry was used to project the cultural identity of a new world community in a period of rapid societal change.

In the field of cultural history, the study of statecraft ritual has been energized by work on other forms of public drama which help to decode the cultural pageantry staged within New Brunswick on the arrival of the Prince of Wales in 1860. Considered public performance ritual, parades "figure in the history of European vernacular or popular culture as the symbolic, expressive modes of communication developed among and transmitted by peasants and common people."17 It is, perhaps, not in the Early Modern

European context that the study of parades, as statecraft rituals, are most illustrative; the non-feudal, egalitarian nature and emerging political state-structures of North American society in the nineteenth century has proven fertile ground for influential studies of the affective and effective capabilities of the parade genre.

Parades were an important form of communication in nineteenth century North America. As public events that passed by the doorsteps of households, shops, and manufactories in compact nineteenth-century urban spaces, they were

Davis, Parades and Power, p. 8.

100 intended to convey powerful symbolic, largely non-literate messages about appropriate social and political values and acceptable social relationships.18

Parades were "performance in motion through space," notes Peter G. Goheen, and "set apart from routine movement through the streets by such distinctive elements as costume, music, and movement patterns that 'present symbols which are basic to the procession's meaning.'"'9 In contrast to the participatory exclusivity surrounding the royal rituals of the progress and entry, the parade as a form of cultural expression is noted for its

"informal and interactive" nature.20 Based on analysis of San Francisco, New York and

New Orleans in the period 1825-1880, Mary Ryan has argued that, as a "coordinated pageant," the parade appeared "much like the social world in which it germinated - mobile, laissez-faire, and open. Like a civic omnibus, the parade offered admission to almost any group with sufficient energy, determination, organisational ability, and internal coherence to board it."21 The parade captured aspects of cooperation between various groups within society, and also between popular society and government authorities. In Ryan's research, governments were present in the planning, preparation and execution of parades in these three nineteenth century American cities. Even parades

18 Craig Heron and Steve Penfold, "Craftmen's Spectacle: Labour Day Parades in Canada, The Early Years," Histoire Sociale /Social History, Vol. 29 (1996), p. 364.

19 Peter G. Goheen, "Symbols in the Streets: Parades in Victorian Urban Canada," Urban History Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (February, 1990), p. 237.

20 Davis, Parades and Power, p. 15.

21 Mary Ryan, "The American Parade: Representations of the Nineteenth Century Social Order," in Lynn Hunt (ed), The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 137.

101 which had their origin in private citizen initiatives usually had an arrangement committee to both communicate with government authorities and issue an open invitation for wider public participation. As is often the case with open civic forums, discussion involved a number of conflicting interests and viewpoints; the parade brought focus and expression to such social and political discord. It was, however, because of, and not despite such contention, that "political institutions both tolerated and actively promoted this democratic procedure for creating public culture."22 As means of capturing and promoting an emerging democratic culture in a period of rapid societal change and state formation, the parade was an instrument in the toolbox of nineteenth century American democracy. Not all cultural historians studying parades as a ritual genre, however, have reached the same conclusions as Ryan.

The parade as a means of reflecting and creating mid-nineteenth century democracy is challenged by Susan G. Davis' work on parading history in pre-Civil War

Philadelphia. Consistent with Mary Ryan, Davis argues that the emerging patterned ritual offered a means of projecting the will of a collective to its civic peers on an intimate, local level. "This accessible mode of broadcasting required only shoe leather, and did not rely on literacy for effectiveness."23 As with all other forms of communication, parades and public spectacles implied that an audience and a message existed; it was the purpose and function of the ritual to connect one to the other. "Observers and performers had

Ryan, "The American Parade," p. 138.

Davis, Parades and Power, p. 16.

102 ways of knowing what was intended by performances."24 Agreeing on the effective nature of the parade as a mode of communication, however, Davis departs from Ryan in her interpretation of the significance of this form of ritual performance. Particular to her study of Philadelphia in the middle of the nineteenth century is the observation that groups of individuals were on parade in one of two prominent ways - "orderly and disorderly, or respectable and anti-respectable."25 Central to her analysis is the conclusion that street performances "are both shaped by the field of power relations in which they take place, and are attempts to act on and influence those power relations."26

Finding evidence of a Marxist superstructure within the text of the parades, Davis divides

Philadelphia's paraders into two categories: "Following the class lines, these groups consisted of men who owned property and men who did not."27 In this context, parades were used as a means of

self-promotion and the legitimation of private interests through patriotic, military, and historic ritual; legitimation of the power of the propertied, and challenges to that legitimacy; and mockery of institutions and politics, and delineation of the traits of outcasts and inferiors. At its heart, the repertoire of parades and ceremonies framed questions about power and legitimacy.28

Echoing Davis, Craig Heron and Steve Penfold note: "Parades, however, were a privileged mode of communication with urban populations, since not everyone could

Ibid., p. 7.

Ibid., p. 159.

Ibid., p. 6.

Ibid., p. 156.

Ibid., p. 159. have this kind of access to the streets. They began as spectacles of pageantry designed by the dominant classes to legitimize their class rule."29 Thus, to these historians, the nineteenth century North American parade served as a medium to draw into the open the social, political and economic undercurrents in place as class conflict simmered beneath the surface.

The analysis of the public pageantry performed in the streets of Saint John or

Fredericton, whether considered as part of a royal progress, entry or parade, is challenged by the complexities involved in deciphering the method through which meaning is conveyed in ritual form. The popular acts of statecraft rituals involve "communication of a complex nature" explains Patricia Fortini Brown; "indeed, every spectacle was a multivalent affair. Messages were sent, and perceptions formed."30 Through the highly engaging nature of the pageantry, the powerful appeal of the drama and decorations, and the very deliberate, purposeful, and, in some cases, highly engineered nature of the message to be communicated, "the ephemeral festivals, ceremonies and theatrical spectacles wilfully blurred myth and reality."31 With reference to this dichotomy within ritual displays, Robert Darton writes: "For as a perception of reality, it shaped reality

29 Heron and Penfold, "The Craftsmen's Spectacle: Labour Day Parades in Canada, The Early Years," p. 364.

30 Patricia Fortini Brown, "Measured Friendship, Calculated Pomp: The Ceremonial Welcomes of the Venetian Republic," in Barbara Wisch and Susan Scott Munshower (eds), Triumphal Celebrations and the Ritual of Statecraft: Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University (Volumn VI), Part I (University Park, Pennsylvania: Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania, 1990), p. 137.

31 Barbara Wisch, "Introduction," in Wisch and Scott Munshower (eds), Triumphal Celebrations and the Ritual of Statecraft, p.xv.

104 itself."32 Care must be taken when studying such cultural forms that the image created by the spectacles not be confused with the reality it purports to represent. "If the real appeared so illusory, then what are we to make of the spectacle? - an imaginary construction by its very definition."33

The relationship between the 'imaginary construction' involved in statecraft rituals and the cultural landscape as it existed outside such ceremony has been the subject of extensive debate. The current interpretive paradigm has been largely forged by the landmark theories of Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger.34 According to the 'invention of tradition' paradigm,

'Invented tradition' is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.35

Further, invented traditions are "responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition."36 To appreciate the highly constructed nature of the 'invented traditions' state

32 Robert Darton, "A Bourgeois Puts His World In Order: The City As Text," The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), p. 140.

33 Fortini Brown, "Measured Friendship, Calculated Pomp," p. 138.

34 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

35 Ibid., p. 1.

36 Ibid., p. 2. An effective example of 'invention of tradition' within the cultural history of New Brunswick has been documented in Greg Marquis, "Celebrating Champlain in the Loyalist City: Saint John, 1904-10," Acadiensis, XXXIII, 2 (Spring, 2004), pp. 27-43.

105 ceremony and public rituals must be studied, not in isolation, but against the larger backdrop of historical context. In effect, situating ritual, and the alleged time-honoured tradition purposefully attached to it, within its larger temporal setting allows historians within the 'invention of tradition' school to show how an instance of cultural awareness has first been constructed, and then mobilized, through the use of cultural forms, by a powerful, societal elite. In other words, in a two step process, the elite first invent the means through which a message can be communicated, and then send the message they wish to instil in their target audience. The clever and manipulative aspect appears in the subtle nature of the act; the apparent 'time-honoured' aspect of the ceremony disguises the actual 'newness' of the cultural display - all the while concealing the construction of the false consciousness within the target audience.

In the emergence of the new nationalisms 'state, nation, and society converged', and the elite which promoted this convergence created new rituals, a whole range of invented traditions and cults through which it could be communicated to the public. Architecture, statuary, public ceremonies, parades, displays and all manner of publications were bent to these ends.37

People are told their place in a societal view projected upon them by the few within the establishment with sufficient resources and enough will to carry it through. This preconceived notion of the purpose behind statecraft ritual, however, generates further questions.

Is spectacle the handmaid of power, is it the other way around, or is it something altogether more complex and subtle? Are ceremonial occasions consensual examples of'collective effervescence', or conflictual instances of'the mobilisation of bias'? Do such pageants reinforce community, or hierarchy, or

Ibid., p. 2.

106 both?:

Thus, through the interpretive lens of the 'invention of tradition' school, ritual pageantry is text of a very different phenomenon than that which it may appear to be with only a quick, cursory glance.

As scholars have reconsidered the merits of the invention of tradition model, conceptual difficulties have come to light. Phillip Buckner notes that the actual point at which the 'invention' of a tradition occurs is not always easy, nor possible, to determine.

When and where such a feat of historical research appears to be possible, the mere act of

'invention', alone, does not account for the "imaginative appeal of a symbol nor its subsequent mutations over time."39 Thus, the mere act of the message being sent did not pre-determine that it was received, nor did it prohibit change and modification of that message if and when it was accepted by its respective audience. Writes Buckner:

Moreover, it is easy to assume that the public plays little part in the evolution of successful traditions and can be manipulated more or less at will by elites. One arrives at this conclusion telelogically, by emphasising the traditions that are successfully 'invented' while ignoring those efforts at the conscious invention of tradition that fail. The 'invention of tradition' approach also glosses over the ways in which different groups may support the same tradition for different - indeed, diametrically opposed - purposes. In fact, the 'invention of tradition' approach cannot really answer the question of why certain traditions can be invented (or re-invented) while others cannot.40

38 David Cannidine, Rituals of Royalty (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. 1987), p. 4.

39 Raphael Samuel, "Introduction: The Figures of National Myth," in Patriotism: the Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, Vol. 3: National Fictions (London: 1989), xxix., as cited in Phillip Buckner, "Casting Daylight Upon Magic: Deconstructing the Royal Tour of 1901 to Canada," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31:2 (2003), p. 160.

40 Buckner, "Casting Daylight Upon Magic," p. 160.

107 Notes H.V. Nelles, "Hegemony and resistance can be acted out in the same public space, and there is room for quite a lot of dissonant activity in between."41 A balanced approach is therefore required, considering the formal, 'orchestrated' cultural displays, as well the informal, spontaneous celebrations. To complement the study of the formal ritual programme, investigation must travel down the streets and alleyways which no member of the royal entourage would have travelled in order to help bridge the distance between the 'imaginary construction' of the 'invented' elements of pageantry, and the more genuine reflections of popular culture as it existed beyond the formal, ritual programme.

With traditions either 'imagined' or 'invented',42 the pageantry and spectacle associated with the royal tour to New Brunswick was prepared with a conscious idea of the image it was designed to communicate. Those concerned with arranging the royal entry festivities consciously took the opportunity to shape the perceptions of participants and spectators with reference to the meaning of the occasion. However, it is impossible to argue that the royal tour celebrations provide a clear example of the manipulation of the masses through invented tradition and the creation of a false consciousness. The richness of the cultural displays extended well beyond the formal programme arranged by the colonial or imperial elite, and the determinism involved in such theorizing fails to take into account the spontaneity which erupted within the crowd on many documented

41 H. V. Nelles, "Historical Pageantry and the 'Fusion of the Races' at the Tercentenary of Quebec, 1908," Histoire Sociale/Social History, Vol. 29 (1996), p. 395.

42 According to Phillip Buckner, "Terence Ranger, one of the inventors of the 'invention of tradition' concept, now prefers to talk about 'imagining' (rather than 'inventing') traditions." Buckner, "Casting Daylight Upon Magic," p. 160.

108 occasions.

Across British North America, there was great continuity within the pageantry and spectacle associated with the royal tour. Arches, flags, mottos, public addresses, the showcasing of industry and the articulation of imperial sentiment - all were part of the common dialogue throughout the British Dominions visited by the Prince. With such carbon-copy text throughout British North America, one might suspect an administrative directive or political orchestration of the ceremonies to advance a Colonial Office, or other imperial political agenda; this, however, cannot be substantiated. Beginning in the

1840s, local leadership took on a heightened prominence against the traditional lines of imperial authority manifest in the office of the lieutenant governors in the colonial capitals. Any attempt to impose a programme or agenda through administrative channels was vigorously attacked within the pages of the liberal-minded, colonial press. Though there was a remarkable similarity both in the message and the medium of pageantry from

St. John's Newfoundland, through to Sarnia, Canada West, the preparation and construction, as well as the execution, of the many ritual entries and parades comprising the royal progress appear to have been the authentic product of the local communities, acting collectively and collaboratively. Thus, the public demonstrations, the pageantry and spectacle which transformed the work-a-day streets of Saint John, New Brunswick, in the early days of August 1860, represent a snap-shot portrait of a community which had responded successfully to the sweeping challenges of a half-century of readjustment: the abandonment of imperial preference, the introduction of free trade, the introduction of responsible government, the technological developments of railways and the emerging

109 economic and political ascendency of the United Canadas within the British North

American community. The cultural text on the occasion of the royal entry into Saint John,

New Brunswick, defines the cultural construction of a progressive and dynamic port-city community consciously projected by the booster elite, the extent to which that awareness was already the dominant expression within the population of Saint John and Carleton, and the degree to which the symbols and vocabulary of Monarchy and Empire were the functional ritual modes and vehicles of communication of both.

"While the 1860 visit had its commemorative aspects," writes Ian Radforth, "the tour was not mainly about looking to the past nor about using history for nationalistic purposes. In the spirit of the mid-Victorian decades, the 1860 visit looked resolutely ahead to further commercial expansion, industrial transformation, moral and social progress, and nation building."43 This observation about the larger tour through British

North America certainly applies in the New Brunswick context; however, one must not presume a universal cultural experience in all areas and in all corners of the Queen's

Dominions in North America. Such a message writ large by the statecraft ritual of the royal progress was more of a cumulative effect, and less orchestrated on the local level.

Richer cultural dialogue appeared in the entry ceremonies - the pageants which captured and projected the identity of the local participants in ritual form. Saint John, as it took part in the royal entry ceremony, considered itself a community which had not been eclipsed by the changes wrought upon British North America between 1840 and 1860.

Rather, through pageantry and spectacle the port-city demonstrated a clear vision, and

43 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, p. 14.

110 articulated an imperial role for itself within the colony, British North America, and the

British Empire.

The weather was favourable the morning of Friday August 3rd, 1860; the day began "with unusual splendour," reported the Saint John Albion.44 The Saint John papers took pride in the fact that the royal entourage experienced their first glimpse of sun in the

New World as the landing on New Brunswick shores was about to take place; with gleeful appreciation, the Morning News announced "had the choice of a day been given us, a fairer one could not have been chosen."45 At sunrise, cannon blasts pierced the tranquil morning air. Echoing off the hills which lined the harbour, "the reverberations of cannon in the stillness of morning had a splendid effect."46 The stage was set for a spectacular royal entry.

The signal given, the crowds began to stir with the bustle of last minute preparations. Following the sunrise artillery salute,

Banners and Flags were run up, a thousand newly erected staffs, and floating from Hilltop and Valley, Cathedral and Church spire, Castle and Cottage - everywhere - proclaiming New Brunswick's Loyal Welcome to the Prince of Wales - the eldest Son of Victoria our beloved Queen.47

The crescendo of hurry and excitement filled the streets as the citizens of Saint John turned out to meet the Prince, either as staged actors in the choreographed spectacle, or

44The Saint John Albion: A Family Paper Devoted to Literature, Amusement, and the News (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. II., No. 18, Saturday, August 11, 1860.

45 Morning News (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol.22. No. 92, August 6, 1860.

46 Ibid.

47 The Saint John Albion, Vol. II., No. 18, Saturday, August 11,1860.

Ill as individuals, freely stationing themselves as participant-spectators at opportune locations throughout the city. "Banners were seen moving in every direction, bands were playing, and the people began to take up their places though it yet lacked nearly two hours of the time appointed for the landing."48 The atmosphere was akin to that of a festival; the popular theatrics of a street drama troop gave colour and an exotic flair to the bustle in the thoroughfares. "The proceedings of the day were commenced by a turn out of the

Calithumpians,49 as grotesque an assemblage and performance as could be got up anywhere."50 With an hour remaining before the official ceremonies were to get underway, the "Volunteers, Fire Companies, Sons of Temperance, the Trades, National

Societies, and last but not least the Sabbath Schools, accompanied by bands of martial music" displayed more order and assemblage, marching through the streets to assume their designated positions along the Prince's procession route.51 Assuming their roles, affiliations and identities within the corporate body politic, the citizenry of Saint John were turning out to meet the prince.

48 Morning News, Vol.22. No. 92, August 6, 1860.

49 "The term 'Calithumpian' is a dialect word from west of England referring to Jacobins, radical reformers and 'disturbers of public order at Parliament'." Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: 1986), p. 98. - as noted in Bonnie Huskins, "The Ceremonial Space of Women: Public Processions in Victorian Saint John and Halifax," in Janet Guilford and Suzanne Morton, Separate Spheres: Women's Worlds in the 19th Century Maritimes (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1994), p. 146. Also see Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle, pp. 123-125.

50The Saint John Albion, Vol. II., No. 18, Saturday, August 11, 1860.

51 Ibid.

112 Artillery from 'five forts and one hundred guns'52 shattered the calm morning air at

10:30 a.m., August 3rd, 1860. At that moment "every eye turned towards the steamer."

Suddenly appearing from behind the Styx, a small, green landing craft, with the royal standard in the stern, carried the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Newcastle, Earl St.

Germain and their respective entourage towards the shore. Behind the landing craft, the royal steamer had the yards manned by sailors dressed in white; the scene, wrote the

Morning News, "was perhaps one of the prettiest sights in the whole ceremony."53

Thereupon, the "brazen guns" from the royal yacht "roared out thunder with the most stunning effect."54 The Lieutenant Governor received the Prince upon his landing, at which time the National Anthem was played by the Band of the 63rd Regiment and accompanied by the Volunteers presenting arms; the salute was acknowledged by the

Prince.55 As the train of carriages wound its way through the dusty, sun-baked streets the pace was slow and deliberate. The Prince, the Duke of Newcastle and the Lieutenant

Governor were in the first carriage, the Earl St. Germain and Major Bruce in the second; the remainder of the Prince's attendants who had travelled with him from England, came next. The imperial entourage was followed by

the Chief Justice, Judges and Members of the Executive Council, the President and Members of the House of Assembly, the Mayors of the other cities, the High Sheriff and Coroner, Stipendiary and other Magistrates, Heads of Civil

52 Acland, Letters from North America.

53 Morning News, Vol.22, No. 92, August 6,1860.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

113 Departments and Office Bearers of the National Societies.56

The mass of people who lined the procession route was unlike anything witnessed in the history of the city to date. "There was an acre of faces spread out to the view as closely compacted as was possible for them to be. It was supposed there [were] 15,000 strangers in the City, added to our own population."57 Visiting journalists took the opportunity to join in the crowd of local people who spontaneously added themselves to the ad hoc parade; Kinahan Cornwallis, for example, attached himself to the 'foot procession' passing from Reed's Point Wharf to the grounds of the Chipman residence.

The long street we had to tread was very dusty, and the sun was shedding his brilliant lustre with oppressive warmth over our heads, and the carriages containing the Prince and suite stopped suddenly at irregular intervals, which had the effect of damaging the shins of those nearest, and throwing all followers back in disorder, to the entire glee of the small boys who looked on from the windows and sidewalks.58

Following the completion of the tour through North America, Cornwallis, reflecting upon his experience, recorded the density of the crowd in the streets of Saint John as second only to that of the Japanese Ball at New York.59 The spontaneity displayed by the crowds supplemented the formal programme, such that the procession grew as it passed through the streets, with more and more of the population joining the royal entourage as it snaked its way through the ritual space transformed out of the streets of the port-city.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Kinahan Cornwallis, The Prince of Wales in America, or, Royalty in the New World (New York: M. Doolady, 1860), p. 53.

59 Ibid.

114 After winding through the streets, the procession arrived at the centre-piece of the early portion of the festivities. The grounds of the Chipman house had been transformed into the Royal Residence for the occasion at the expense of the Provincial Government.

An enduring landmark of a notable Loyalist family of Saint John, and one of the first prominent residences within the city, the site was thought appropriate owing to the historical significance as the house used by the Duke of Kent, grandfather to the Prince, during his stay in Saint John in the 1790s. As the carriages entered the Chipman grounds the Prince and his entourage of imperial and colonial dignitaries passed through a series of three arches erected especially for the occasion; a large arch stood in the middle, with two smaller arches flanking the more prominent, central span.

Over the centre rose a large Arch supported by two composite columns, the top being a sort of calves defrise work; in this arch was a gigantic figure of Britannia, and on top of one of the smaller gateways was a lion rampant with a shield, on the other a unicorn in a similar style. The whole affair was well trimmed with evergreens, and had a motto "Welcome! Prince of Wales, Welcome!"60

Here the celebrations and pageantry during the initial portion of the royal entry reached a zenith. The guard of honour from the sixty-third Regiment received the heir to the throne along with five thousand Sunday School children, representing all denominations, from the harbour communities of Saint John and Carleton; the latter signalling that the religious and sectarian divisions of the past would be consciously absent in the future.

As the first of the carriages passed beneath the central arch, the chorus of thousands of small voices broke into the anthem, as every head was uncovered. After the last verse was

Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6,1860.

115 sung, the Prince entered the Chipman Residence. The initial reception of the Prince by the people of Saint John and the colony of New Brunswick was complete.

The landing and procession within the royal entry ceremony captured in material form a cultural snapshot of New Brunswick at an important period in its colonial history.

In the crowd choreography and street drama can be seen the half-century of readjustment: the issue of responsible government, commercial realignment, industrial development and the advent of liberalism. "Filing neatly by in a parade," writes Mary Ryan, "the parade participants presented a compact documentation of how society takes cognizance of itself, its major classifications and categories."61 While not resembling a parade in a strict application of this definition,62 the parading elements on display in the streets of Saint

John that morning nonetheless fulfilled the requisite ceremonial function. Printed instructions ordering the paraders determined "the Line as formed will remain stationary, keeping its position, during the passing of His Royal Highness and Suite to his residence, and until the return of the Mayor and Corporation along the line to Reed's Point."63

Although these groups did not walk through the streets in procession along with the royal entourage as it proceeded from Reed's Point Wharf to Chipman Hill, their inclusion in the pageantry was such that they could be considered to have paraded from the sidelines.

"In the composition and order of the parade," notes Ryan, "historians can read both the

61 Ryan, "The American Parade," p. 138.

62 Ibid., p. 134.

63 Programme for the Reception ofH.R.H. The Prince of Wales, Printed Ephemera, F20-1, New Brunswick Museum Archives [NBMA].

116 vocabulary and the syntax by which social and cultural order was created out of urban multiplicity."64 The component groups which lined the procession path of the Prince communicated a cultural message on their own, but together achieved a larger effect, and a broader representation of the state-formation process within colonial society.

The formal programme was heavily influenced by the fact that although Saint

John was not the capital city of the colony, it was the landing site for the Prince of Wales as he first set foot in the colony. The ceremony fulfilled the dual purpose of staging the inaugural ceremony for the royal progress through the colony, as well as providing the conspicuous statecraft ritual pageantry involved in marking the royal entry into city of

Saint John. Given such dual ceremonial function, protocol required the political executive, in the person of the Lieutenant Governor, J.H.T. Manners-Sutton, meet the

Prince on his arrival. As the executor of the royal prerogative in the colony, Manners-

Sutton often found himself managing a difficult political evolution; the particular aspects of this historical development are found in the opening stages of the royal entry ceremony.

Manners-Sutton had a bumpy relationship with political reform in the colony of

New Brunswick. His term as Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick spanned from

1854-1861, an era characterized by political, social and economic change, as the colony wrestled with the issues of economic and political autonomy within the Empire, as well as the rise of a new liberal brand of politics. Manners-Sutton fought to preserve the office of colonial governor from pressures which advocated increased levels of responsibility

64 Ryan, "The American Parade," p. 139.

117 being transferred to local legislatures, a struggle made more challenging by his

"aristocratic upbringing and outlook [which] contrasted sharply with the egalitarian and colonial mentality of men like Charles Fisher."65 At the time of his arrival at Government

House in Fredericton, responsible government was still a work in progress in the colony.66

Thus, his tenure began with an immediate foray into an already heated contest with the rising Smasher party of liberal politicians. Not until 1857 was a resolution of this stormy issue achieved, when the Colonial Office enforced the requirement that legislation pass through the three branches of the legislature in order to take effect.67 Nevertheless, the contest between conservatism and liberalism continued on various levels; for instance, the ability of Manners-Sutton, as Lieutenant Governor, to communicate confidentially with the Colonial Office remained a point of contention between himself and the reform- minded liberals within the province, his ability to nominate members to the Civil List another. As Lieutenant Governor, his tenure was characterized by a constant oscillation between the cultural expressions of progress and paternalism. Therefore, as he stood, shoulder to shoulder with the Smasher politicians on the landing platform to greet the

Prince, the display was one of unity in the face of diversity - albeit a particularly 'New

Brunswick' unity in which liberal values had begun to gain ascendancy over the remaining expressions of paternalism. That the issue of responsible government was on

65 Richard Wilbur, "John Henry Thomas Manners-Sutton," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. X (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 493-495.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

118 the minds of the people of New Brunswick as the Prince landed in Saint John, and that there was a message to be read in the royal entry ceremony can be seen in the editorializing of the Morning Globe following the event.

This visit may be considered as an important event in the history of our country. Our interests will be regarded in the future by the home Government with more seriousness than formerly, because they will be cognizant of our position as a people; they will have learned that the Colonies fully understand what measures are best calculated to advance their own interests, and that they are fully competent to carry out the principles of Responsible Government.68

While there was, arguably, a great deal of subtlety in fashioning a cultural message by juxtaposing the Smashers and Manners-Sutton on a shared podium, the stationing of the Sons of Temperance as the first of the civic groups to line the procession route, immediately following the conservative-minded Lieutenant Governor, was perhaps an even stronger statement. The cause which energized the ranks of temperance organisations was the elimination of alcohol's ruinous effects on the social and economic interests of the colony. The movement had a thirty year history in New Brunswick;69 during this period it became more highly organised and disciplined, such that by 1860 it had found its voice as The Sons of Temperance, a global, temperance organisation which originated in New York City in 1842. The spread of this society was rapid, so much so that by the mid-1850s it was found throughout the eastern United States, in British North

America, the United Kingdom and Australia, and approximately 3,500 divisions

68 The Morning Globe (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. Ill, No. 8, August 7, 1860.

69 J.K. Chapman, "The Mid-Nineteenth Century Temperance Movement in New Brunswick and Maine," The Canadian Historical Review (Vol. XXXV, No. 1. March 1954), p. 43.

119 contained an estimated worldwide membership of 134,000.70 Within New Brunswick,

The Sons of Temperance "formed a kind of state within a state, a nucleus of the more respectable in small communities," writes W.S. MacNutt; "They possessed some of the mysticism of secret societies, but frequently they indulged in outward shows of their faith: processions with plumed horses, garish banners, and brass bands."71 The state formation tendencies within this movement can be seen in the composition of the leadership ranks of the Sons of Temperance for the year 1850. Notes T.W. Acheson: "it was an artisan/merchant movement, drawn from the traditional craft groups, and headed by a petite bourgeoisie of evangelical origins. Patricians, great merchants, major functionaries, lawyers - in short, the traditional leaders of the Saint John community - were almost entirely absent from the leadership of the Sons of Temperance. "72 The world view of temperance "was one that re-defined the very notion of respectability - replacing status, position, or class with attitude and behaviour."73 Temperance, therefore, reflected a tendency and perspective within New Brunswick society distinct from the established order and attitudes in the colony's paternal past.

In New Brunswick, the political impact of the temperance movement became manifest in the process of mid-nineteenth century state formation. While the rise of

70 T.W. Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 149.

71 MacNutt, New Brunswick: A History, p. 350.

72 Acheson, Saint John, p. 151.

73 Ibid., p. 159.

120 political parties broadly based on liberal and conservative policies was under way in the

New Brunswick electorate before 1856, the issue of temperance provided a catalyst for

debate about notions of responsible government.74 Temperance, notes Gail Campbell,

"was not a true party issue," as demonstrated by the fact that the architect of temperance

legislation in New Brunswick, Samuel Leonard Tilley, though the leader of the liberal

coalition, could only manage to introduce temperance legislation into the House of

Assembly as a private member;75 it was not a cause which united the emerging liberal political faction. Nonetheless, Tilley's liquor bill was passed, albeit narrowly. However,

New Brunswick's temperance legislation, which officially came into effect on 1 January

1856, proved unenforceable in practice. When the liberal government refused to either repeal or enforce the law, the lieutenant governor used his royal prerogative to dissolve the legislature. In the ensuing 1856 election, while divided on the actual issue of temperance, liberal political opinion was united on the issue of responsible government, and candidates campaigned on the issue of Manners-Sutton's use of paternalistic gubernatorial powers to strike down democratic legislation.76 Manners-Sutton's action thus served to solidify partisan cleavages; liberal supporters became colloquially known as the "Smashers", for their position on the use of the bottle, while their conservative

74 Gail Campbell, '"Smashers' and 'Rummies': Voters and the Rise of Parties in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, 1846-1857," Canadian Historical Association: Historical Papers (Winnipeg: Canadian Historical Association, 1986), pp. 86-116.

75 Ibid., p. 109.

76 Ibid. opponents became branded as "Rummies."77 The role of temperance in forcing a debate

about the political culture of the colony was an important, if unplanned, outcome.

Placing The Sons of Temperance in the premiere position on the Prince's procession

route in royal entry statecraft ritual was no doubt deliberate and represented a nuanced

cultural message. Conjuring the recent 1856 election debates about responsible

government as well as acknowledging its debt to the non-conformist, levelling values of

temperance, liberalism was seen to have edged out paternalism in the struggle to define

the path of development for New Brunswick society.

The non-denominational, broad-based, state-formation properties inherent within

the temperance movement on the procession route were similarly represented by the civic

groups which turned out in splendid fashion on the occasion of the royal entry into Saint

John. In accordance with Susan G. Davis' observation regarding the 'orderly or

disorderly' nature of parade participation in mid-nineteenth century North America, the turn out of the volunteer fire fighters provided a means for public participation wholly removed from more ancient tribalism of competing, and often conflicting, national cultural identities. Saint John, a community nearly torn apart twenty years earlier as old- world ethnic rivalries found a new home in New Brunswick, had, on the arrival of the

Prince of Wales in 1860, relegated these expressions of factional nativism to the dustbin as they collectively defined the present and anticipated their future. All accounts describe the corps of volunteer firemen as cutting a striking image on the occasion. Noted for a

77 MacNutt, New Brunswick: A History, p. 362. These labels did not reflect a definitive position nor an enforced party platform relating to temperance issues.

122 high level of discipline, organisation and training, they symbolized in thorough martial style the values driving the process of mid-nineteenth century state formation - democratic liberalism expressed through citizen responsibility and individual respectability.

The turn out of the trades organisations alongside the firemen reiterated the cultural message. Brewers, barrel makers, riggers, sail-makers, blacksmiths, founders, butchers, watchmakers, boiler-makers and many more representing their specialised crafts took to the streets as part of the royal entry celebration.78 Their lines contained an extensive display of banners, mottos, uniforms and tools-of-the-trade. Their martial-style ranks embodied a culture of order, personal discipline and the ability to regulate and self- govern in a quasi-state fashion. To the citizens of Saint John, their place in New

Brunswick society was obvious. At an important planning meeting held in Saint John at the end of July,

Mr. Gray, and indeed all the other speakers, urged the necessity of the Trades making as good an appearance as possible - not so much to be seen and make an impression upon the Prince, as upon the statesmen and gentlemen that will accompany him, as well as the numerous visitors that will be here from the Mother Country, United States, and sister Colonies.79

The trades "would exhibit the bone and sinew of the country. The men who created the material wealth and built up the country."80 In the half-century of readjustment, New

Brunswick society had been reborn, with Saint John as its commercial and industrial

78 The Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 88, July 18, 1860.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid.

123 heartland. In an era in which 'machines were the measure of men'81 the trades were the transformative element valued the most. Their presence along the procession route in the royal entry ceremony was therefore purposeful and effectively communicated the message of the Saint John booster community.

While such 'bone and sinew' imagery reflects the purposes of the pageant organisers, it does not necessarily capture and articulate the motivation of each member of the trades organisations which turned out that August morning for the Prince's arrival in Saint John. As Mary Ryan has noted, "public group identity was now a matter of voluntary choice between such alternatives as national origins, fraternal societies, and even allegiances to a particular personal code, such as temperance."82 The groups which dominated the procession route through the streets of Saint John, connecting Reed's Point

Wharf to Chipman Hill, were comprised of individuals who chose to articulate their cultural visions as members of Temperance, the Volunteer Firemen, or the Trades. Given the history of the port-city community, and the colony of New Brunswick as a whole, such self-identification is significant. Previous social divisions and cultural affiliations

— Catholic and Protestant, Irish and Bluenose — were temporarily supplanted by new cultural and social identifications. Connecting all of these new groups is the underlying perspective of mid-nineteenth century liberalism. Their presence reflects the evolution of democratic state-formation in an era of economic and political autonomy within the

81 Michael Adas, Machines As the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and the Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithica, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989)

82 Ryan, "The American Parade," p. 142.

124 British Empire. Further evidence of this phenomenon can be found in the noticeable absence of a prominent protestant fraternal society from the pageantry. Though the

General Committee organising the city's celebrations invited the Masonic Order to take part in the proceedings, it declined to participate, on the grounds that "some of the most active [members] being also connected with the Fire Department, the various National

Societies, the Trades, and Volunteers..."83 Other studies of the late colonial era have noted that more ancient ethnic affiliation, such as English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh, was assuming secondary importance as a new corporate identity emerged within mid- nineteenth century British North America, a cultural awareness expressed through identification with the British Empire.84 Documented in the ritual drama on the royal entry into Saint John in August 1860 was the cultural appropriation of monarchy and empire as colonial society defined its social, economic and political identities. The culture of liberal minded progress, stated explicitly in the formal programme, was also implicit in the choices made by the individual citizens of the port-city community as they formed along the procession route in roles they themselves had chosen and defined.

The transformation of the work-a-day streets of the commercial city of Saint John into ritual, ceremonial space, was similarly achieved through the use of an extensive array of decorations, of homes, parks, public buildings, businesses and monuments. The most prominent of the ritual displays erected throughout British North America in anticipation

83 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 89, July 30, 1860.

84 Phillip Buckner, "What Ever Happened to the British Empire," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, ns, 4 (1993), pp. 3-32. for the Prince of Wales' visit was the grand, civic arch. Far from being simply a New

Brunswick form of expression, the arch was a medium in the dialogue which took place throughout all of British North America in anticipation of the tour. At each major centre through which the royal progress passed, monumental civic arches spanned the major procession routes in order to ritually integrate the heir to the throne with the local community. Though this symbolic medium spanned the many ceremonies across an increasingly common cultural community from Newfoundland to Canada West, it succeeded in capturing and communicating the unique characteristics of each locale.

Instructive is the distinction of arches into three broad types: municipal arches financed and raised through government initiative; those raised through the efforts of voluntary societies; and the decorative structures constructed by private individuals.85 It was common that examples of all three arch classifications were involved in the decorations of cities to mark the royal entry. Those arches which drew on public funds, or through financing and construction involved a great many people, invariably were the catalyst for debate and discussion.86 If there was any argument over the construction of the ceremonial arches, it seems questions over the employment of the arch as a ritual form of expression were wholly absent. Far from showing evidence of an 'invented tradition', arch construction "was so much associated with civic festivities, so deeply embedded in the culture, that it was one of those many things that goes without saying."87 This

85 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, p. 58.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid., p. 68. observation is supported by the planning and preparation discussion for the royal entry at

Saint John.

Upon leaving Reed's Point Wharf, the train of horses and carriages carrying the assemblage of notables arrived at the Grand Arch as it entered Prince William Street.

This was an imposing structure erected specifically for the royal entry ceremony; it rose to a height of 80 feet, was 44 feet wide, and the inside curve of the centre span stood 50 feet - towering high enough to permit someone standing on Chipman Hill to survey the entire procession route as it snaked its way from Reed's Point through the streets of Saint

John.88 Like many of the temporary arch constructions throughout British North America, the centre-piece of the formal ritual decorations in Saint John was made to look permanent, and given the appearance of solid stone. The striking aesthetics were achieved by contrasting the dull grey with a great number of bright colours: a thick covering of evergreens was wrapped around the abutments; the colours of the Empire figured prominently, as "14 Ensigns in red, white, and blue" in addition to "a neat drapery gracefully drooped from the interior of the curve."89 The insignia of the city and the

Prince were ritually married at the top of the arch. On the south side was the coat of arms of Saint John, along with the message "New Brunswick Welcomes Thee"; on the north, the Prince's Coronet and Feather graced the arch with the motto "Welcome Prince -

Hope of our Nation." Striking the eye of the royal party as it approached was detailed ornamentation. Relief panels depicted "the figures of an Indian Warrior, a large Bear and

88 Morning News, Vol.22, No. 92, August 6, 1860.

89 Ibid.

127 a pair of Deer, emerging, as it were, from the forest." On the reverse of the abutment, a companion relief carried the date 'I860' ornamented with the feather and crown of the

90 prince.

As a mode of ritual expression, the arch articulated the civic identity within the port city in 1860. Conveyed in physical form was the transformation of Saint John and the

Colony of New Brunswick across the half-century of readjustment. This was the message read by the press upon reviewing the structure. The Morning News wrote: "the Prince as he passed along no doubt mentally contrasted the reception he met with on Friday from the thousands of well dressed people who cheered him at every possible point, with that he would have received had he landed in 1783, when the savage and the bear were the undisputed masters of the soil."91 This apparent contrast between the 'wild frontier' and the relative state of societal development was echoed by a foreign correspondent. Wrote

N.A. Woods of The Times of London: With such evidence of permanent and long-established prosperity before him, the traveller finds it difficult to believe that sixty-years have scarcely elapsed since the site of the town was covered with a dense untrodden forest. Such, however, is the fact, and some of the first settlers are still living at St. John who can well recollect the time when a log hut on the site of the present docks was a luxury, — when they had to pacify the Indians with rum and blankets, and band together during the long winter nights to save and keep their cattle from the wolves.92

Demonstrated by the common response provoked by the Grand Civic arch, its message was an obvious one, and was readily seen by the many eyes, local and foreign, which

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, p. 44.

128 viewed it upon the royal entry.

Given the attention paid to the formal arch display, it is obvious that such a decorative structure was more than a neutral, ephemeral construction; its role in the formal cultural dialogue which took place in the royal entry ritual was important.

Monuments can be considered "material signifiers of ideas."93 In the case of the prominent civic arches across British North America, the outlay of human and financial capital needed to realise such large projects required the support of municipal authorities.

The state financed construction of impressive, if temporary, public statuary, and in combination with "official monuments, the orchestration of ceremonies centred on them, and the public participation in them, transform [ed] particular places into ideologically charged sites."94 During the royal entry into Saint John, the procession passed along a prearranged path, the arch being a major focal point in the statecraft ritual. The decorations along this route were, for the most part, elaborate constructions organised well in advance of the occasion. In the process of mid-nineteenth century state formation, such ritual displays translated the mundane streets of the commercial port into a

'landscape of power'.95 According to Brian S. Osborne, "monumental public statuary attempted to render a public landscape in which the dominant ideology of the state could

93 Brian S. Osborne, "Constructing Landscapes of Power: The George Etienne Carrier Monument, Montreal," Journal of Historical Geography, 24(4) (1998), p. 434.

94 Ibid., p. 436.

Ibid., pp. 431-458. be institutionalized and immortalized."96 Memory, especially public memory, is a unique and powerful plain of social dialogue. "Memories help us make sense of the world we live in; and 'memory work' is, like any other kind of physical or mental labour, embedded in complex class, gender and power relations that determine what is remembered (or forgotten), by whom and for what end."97 Writes John R. Gilles: "National identities are, like everything historical, constructed and reconstructed; and it is our responsibility to decode them in order to discover the relationships they create and sustain."98 Through symbols, mottos and dates, the arch was a conscious attempt to create the image of dynamic transformation and societal development - the past, present and future of Saint

John; to achieve the effect, consciously constructed images of the past were appropriated by the port-city booster community and tied to the symbols of Monarchy and Empire through the person of the Prince. As with the use of arches in the royal entry ceremonies in the Early Modern Age, the ritual act of passing through the liminal state, in which one form of an ordered world is replaced with another, meant that as the Prince passed beneath the arch construction in his state capacity, the particular understanding of the ordered world as it was conveyed in the detailed reliefs on the arch abutments was ritually accepted, confirmed and married to the world-wide experience of the British Empire before the local and international audience. The 'British race' in New Brunswick, centred

96 Ibid, p. 434.

97 John R. Gilles, "Introduction: Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship," in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 3.

98 Ibid., p. 4.

130 in Saint John, had triumphed over the harsh adversities of its early, Loyalist founding, and with its industrious constitution and fortuitous energy, emerged into a progressive, industrialized community by 1860. Contrasting its humble beginnings with its present accomplishments, the message in the Grand Arch was conveyed.

Across the harbour in Carleton, at the head of King Street, a similar prominent civic arch stood as the centre-piece of the formally orchestrated display. It, too, was an imposing monument, in which public memory and space appropriation can be seen as instrumental in the mid-nineteenth century state formation process. "Intended to represent marble," the structure covered the width of the street, with a large centre span flanked by two lesser arches. The keystone of the centre arch, 42 feet high, carried the date 1762 on one side, 1783 on the other. Above, on the top of the large arch, a four foot high crown towered above the street below; while atop on the two side arches was the royal coat of arms. Colour was added to the marble-like facing; the "ladies of Carleton" reported the

Morning News, lined the arch "with blue material, united by gilt buttons or stars," and on many evergreen wreathes and garlands, had "transposed the following mottoes: 'Our

Royal Visitor - Our Future King,' 'Welcome Prince of Wales,' 'God Save the Queen,'

'Our Nation's Pride,' 'Long may she reign.'"99 As appropriated ritual space, the arch embodies the societal image articulated by the community's booster leadership.

Reference to the date 1762 was an acknowledgement of the arrival of first Planters from

New England who set up a trading post and fishing operation after the British built Fort

Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6,1860.

131 Frederick100; similarly, 1783 was the recollection of the date of the loyalist migrations to present-day New Brunswick. Both dates were deliberate references to an imagined past; clio was harnessed for symbolic value in an effort to showcase the community as a transformed and progressive cultural entity within the north Atlantic and British Imperial world. But as text of state-formation, the significance of the Carleton arch, as with other examples of formal, decorative pageantry, lay as much in the process as in the product.

Many in the community who may not have been represented any other way in the formal pageantry participated in its construction. It illustrates explicitly the roles played by various groups, including women, in the social dialogue and composite community drama in preparation for the Prince's visit. If not marching through the streets, the women of

Carleton certainly "engaged in a variety of activities on the sidelines."101 Responsible for the many finer decorations which hung on the arches, women, through their industry, integrated their experience into the collective consciousness of the community. Thus, through the medium of the Carleton Arch the broader community surveyed its past, and looked with optimism to its present and future.

The spatial transformation of Saint John on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales extended well beyond politically inspired cultural programming to include many instances of informal and unofficial decoration. This was an attempt by the public to take ownership over space, and to create the material means through which they could order their world, and communicate their own cultural message to an audience which was, most

100 Acknowledgement must be given to Dr. Greg Marquis for this information.

101 Huskins, "The Ceremonial Space of Women," p. 147.

132 likely, themselves. Taken as a whole, therefore, the decorations which graced private residences, neighbourhood volunteer firehalls, city parks and private businesses and storefronts confirmed the liberal vision of an engaged citizenry, not the engineered product of a political programme orchestrated by the societal elite. Like the elite, the common people of Saint John appropriated the symbols and vocabulary of monarchy and empire to capture and articulate their perception of their community's cultural reality.

Beyond the Grand Arch, other similar representations altered the street-scapes; collectively, these decorations provided material expression of the cultural foundations governing the process of state formation. The fire stations housing the corps of volunteer firemen, located throughout Saint John, Carleton and Portland, provided a focal point for citizen participation in the many neighbourhoods. Contemporary accounts convey the extensive use of evergreen ornamentation, wreaths, garlands, transparencies, flags and mottoes to convey an explicit message of cultural affiliation with Empire and Monarchy, in addition to the implicit documentation of an active process of community formation.

Royal insignia was a prominent subject for the decorative displays. The grounds of the fire hall housing the "No. 2 Engine Company" were fronted with a triple arch constructed of evergreens, graced with the Prince's feather standing prominently over the centre span, with the two smaller arches capped with a crown.102 Similarly, a large arch stood in front of the "No. 3" fire hall, buttressing a towering flagpole on which the royal ensign fluttered in the early morning breeze. This arch presented local and imperial symbols as part of a common cultural experience; transparency panels carried representations of the

102 Morning News, Vol. 22. No. 92, August 6, 1860.

133 Royal Arms, the insignia of various members of the Royal Family, along with the images of an Indian and Rothesay Highlander, a Moose head and wild duck; all things considered, to those who commented on the display, "it looked quite handsome."103 Fire hall "No. 4" erected an arch "not unlike an ancient gateway", on which the Gaelic motto

'Cead mille a Faiths' was accompanied by transparencies showing the Prince's coronet and feather, along with the coat of arms for England, Ireland and Scotland.104

Although it cannot be confirmed with certainty, it is likely that the decorations associated with the upwards of eight volunteer fire halls scattered throughout the city were the product of the neighbourhoods which corresponded with each engine house. The fire halls did not line the formal procession route down which the Prince passed during his stay in the city; therefore, the cultural text embodied in the fire-hall displays was aimed at the people most immediate to the buildings and decorations were constructed on an intimate, neighbourhood level. Like the turn out of the firemen along the royal procession route, the material decorations of the local volunteer fire stations reveal an orderly, voluntary, civic construction documenting the cultural principles driving the emerging expression of liberal democracy within Saint John, and the use of royal and imperial constructions in the formation and communication of the message.

Such public decorations were supplemented by the impressive efforts of private citizens in the decoration of individual homes and businesses. Among the private decorations that elicited comment in the local press, the estate of William Wright figured prominently. William Wright and his brother Richard were considered benchmarks of success in the Saint John shipbuilding industry throughout the 1840-1860 period.105 The firm W. and R. Wright and Company built the largest British North American sailing ships; in fact one of the Wright vessels, the Morning Light, noteworthy for its admirable performance "on the highly competitive emigrant run to Australia,"106 was touted as "one of the largest clippers afloat."107 As the Prince of Wales landed in Saint John, the perimeter of the Wright property was decorated with a thick stand of evergreens, on

"which hung pennons of every kind, many of them bearing the names of the different

Colonies, such as 'Nova Scotia', 'Prince Edward Island,' 'Australia'"; central to the display was raised "a beautiful St. George's flag in silk."108 Such a display not only reflected the healthy economic state of its owner, but also documented the role of empire in providing both opportunity to the ship-building industry of Saint John and promise to the future of the community.

It was, however, the civic participation of the great majority of residents of the port-city community, beyond the notable captains of commerce and industry, which contributed to the transformation of the streets into ritual space communicating the

105 Richard Rice, "The Wrights of Saint John: A Study of Shipbuilding and Shipowning in the Maritimes, 1839-1855," in David S. Macmillan (ed), Canadian Business History: Selected Studies, 1497-1971 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972), p. 325.

106 Richard Rice, "William Wright," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. X (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 718-719.

107 Rice, "The Wrights of Saint John," p. 325.

Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6, 1860. authentic participation of the people in state formation dialogue. Evergreens, arches, pillars, mottos, flags and colours were used to appropriate the visual character of every location across the city for the duration of the Prince's stay in New Brunswick. "Every person did his best to add something to the ornamentation of the City," reported the

Morning News; it was impossible to recount the full extent of civic participation in the dressing-up of private residences throughout the city. "Everywhere the eye could turn, however, something might be observed got up suitable for the occasion - houses, windows and gateways were enshrouded in evergreens, and such a display of these were made as would lead a person to think that the forest for miles around must have been denuded of its foliage."109 The Temperance Telegraph noted: "There never was such a display of bunting in the City before."110 The all-pervasive nature of the off-route decorations was, in essence, a different text than the dressing up of the parade route itself.

As it was doubtful that the Prince or any member of the Royal Suite which travelled from

England would have strolled through the back streets of Saint John, Carleton or Portland, the many decorations which graced the houses, businesses and streets across the neighbourhoods of the port communities must be considered product created by, and for, the local residents themselves. Granted, members of the visiting press would wander the streets of the city, exploring its hidden alleys and thoroughfares for instances of local life with which to grace their columns and publications. However, off-route decorations

110 Temperance Telegraph (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. XVI, August 6, 1860. illustrate how symbols of Monarchy and Empire were used by the local population to articulate an optimism regarding their collective present and belief in their future; the decorations were products of local design, and were aimed at celebrating from their own perspectives. Part of the Empire, Saint John was set to capitalize on its successes. Its population, excited by a new liberal spirit, would continue to realise its promising potential as a growth oriented metropolitan centre within British North America and beyond.

Following the brief recess in the royal entry programme as the Prince and royal entourage met with colonial officials in camera within the Chipman residence, the remainder of the day was spent enacting one ritual performance after another; in each case, the crowd choreography and decorative displays presented consistent evidence of the interplay between a strengthening liberal culture and an increasing diminishment of the atavistic remnants of paternalism. Just past noon, the Prince and entourage were in position on a raised review-platform erected in front of the newly refurbished Court

House. Estimates record a crowd of five thousand people assembled around the Prince.

Given the number of spectators, it is evident that the real audience was the people of

Saint John itself.

The march-past was composed of the same citizen groups which lined the route as the Prince passed on his way between the wharf and the Chipman Residence that morning. The New Brunswick volunteer artillery and rifle companies marched to the cadence set by the band of the imperial garrison drummers of the 63rd Regiment.

Approximately 800 members of the Sons of Temperance moved behind in lock step, dressed in their respective divisions' regalia and colours. Providing a message of generational solidarity, the Cadets of Temperance followed. The youth carried a large image of the Queen, "on the reverse of which were the red, white and blue stripes, emblematic of Love, Purity and Fidelity." Close behind, highly polished hose-carts and engines accompanied the rank and file formation of 500 volunteer firemen. "No. 5 made a great show - they were preceded by a small hose reel neatly trimmed, drawn by two

Shetland ponies, led by coloured boys in Turkish costume, and their hose reel was drawn by horses led by coloured men in the same costume, the engine and cart finely decorated."111

Next came the tradesmen marching in procession and conjuring memories of

September 14,1853, a day on which a similar ceremony marked the turning of the sod for the European and North American Railway in Saint John. As a symbol of New

Brunswick's industrial infrastructure development, the commencement of the railway had signalled New Brunswick's potential as an industrial society. On August 3,1860, that potential had been realised. Giving royal recognition to New Brunswick's birth as an industrial civilisation, the Prince reviewed the trades as they conducted their march-past.

The cordwainers led the way, "dressed in black coat and pants, with beaver hat, ...a blue sash ornamented with a crown, gilt and buff coloured apron, edged in blue with three rosettes." A diverse range of skilled craftsmen and trades represented the commercial and industrial sectors of the local and colonial economy. Shipbuilders, caulkers and spar- makers carried "handsome silk banners with appropriate mottos and devices." The

111 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6, 1860.

138 founders followed; on their banner was seen the image of a steam engine - the cultural icon which energized Victorian society throughout the Empire and beyond. The only documented instance of a bourgeois mill-owner parading at the head of his workers, John

Clarke of Carleton, led his whole workforce dressed in uniform, carrying a banner "one side representing the various stages in the manufacture of lumber, with the motto 'we do hard work,' on the other side was a representation of the falls with a raft of logs passing through, and the motto 'this is dangerous work.'" Thirty mounted and uniformed draymen closed the trades procession.

As the event wore on, the ranks of organised citizens passing before the Prince continued to document the cultural awareness of the citizens of Saint John. The members of the St. Georges's, St. Patrick and St. Andrew's Societies marched respectively, each beneath their banners and with members wearing the society's badges of distinction.

Curiously, "in a conspicuous place in the procession," an Indian Chief passed the Prince and dignitaries on the podium, in his full-ceremonial regalia, and flanked by "two of his braves." Overall, this long procession past the Court House captured the citizens of Saint

John defining their roles and establishing relationships within society. As individuals, they had to choose between a number of different expressions of their civic involvement; in other words, a parader who marched as a member of the Sons of Temperance potentially had to do so at the expense of presenting themselves as a member of a national society or trades organisation. Each of the groups involved in the procession and royal entry display had a purpose and function within colonial society. Reflecting the choices of individual citizens in aggregate, the ceremony documents the overriding strength of

139 mid-nineteenth century liberalism in the emergence of the colonial state at the outset of the 1860s.

The royal entry into Saint John closed with an afternoon levee, followed by an evening display of 'illuminations'. During the levee, the extensive citizen involvement which marked the majority of the royal entry ceremony gave way to the more exclusive participation of government office holders and those deemed 'respectable' enough to be presented to the heir to the throne. The list of those given audience with the Prince included "the Government and Legislature, the Mayor and Corporation, many

Clergymen,112 the officers of the Volunteers and many other professional and private gentlemen." The presentation of the participants was an embodiment of liberal democratic culture, documenting their role in responsible government, individual service and professional respectability. The backdrop for this stately ritual comprised an array of royal, national and corporate coats of arms designed to link together the respective municipal, colonial and imperial affiliations into a firm cultural community. Providing an environment steeped in the world of municipal democratic politics, the Common Council chamber was used as the ante room.

112 In the months of debate leading up to the reception ceremonies, the issue of 'Ecclesiastical Precedence' appeared in many of the Saint John newspapers. While it went uncontested that leaders of Catholic and Protestant - both conformist and non­ conformist sects- should be presented to the Prince, the order of presentation was at issue. It was believed that the Church of England bishop in Saint John should have his formal role within the New Brunswick colonial establishment confirmed with the first introduction, the other denominations to follow thereafter. In these same newspapers, however, the issue of 'Ecclesiastical Precedence' was entirely absent from the extensive coverage of the actual reception celebrations. Whereas previously ethnic and religious divisions had assumed prominence, the statecraft ritual of the royal tour allowed for a more culturally uniform experience to take place.

140 As darkness closed in, the day ended as it began; the entire city was transformed into a ritual stage large enough for the participation of all the citizens of the port-city communities. Reports tell of illuminations and fireworks "on the most extensive scale, and for a variety and brilliancy of display, exceed[ing] anything ever before witnessed in this City."113 Throughout the city individuals with candles, gas lamps, torches and

Chinese lanterns joined in civic solidarity to light the night on the arrival of the Prince of

Wales; the glimmering of light also shone from the Court House, volunteer fire halls, bell towers, steeples, banks, Post Office, Customs House, private residences, stores and many ships in the harbour. Through the formal and informal pomp and ceremony which comprised the royal entry ceremony of the Prince of Wales, the people of Saint John confirmed and projected their liberal cultural constitution, the energized, outward looking and increasingly industrialized heartland of the Atlantic region in British North America.

The pomp and pageantry which transformed the streets of Saint John and the port- city communities from sunrise until well after dark on August 3, 1860, was functional, ritual activity important on a number of different levels. It was the opening ceremony for the royal progress statecraft ritual through the colony of New Brunswick; the larger effect of such a staged cultural event was to provide the diverse communities with a ritual form in which to realise their commonality, both in their shared relationship with the reigning sovereign and in their shared cultural experiences. In many respects quite distinct from the royal progress ritual, the sensual displays also were the staged medium for the royal entry into the city of Saint John; as ritual embodies and conveys messages, the text

113 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6,1860.

141 demonstrates the predominance of an ascendant liberal culture within the port-city communities. The royal entry ceremony captured a snap-shot portrait of the state formation process which had evolved across the 1840-1860 period; as the Empire receded in its direct administration of the political and economic affairs of the colony, New

Brunswick society began to construct a liberal civic alternative to the paternalism of the early nineteenth century imperial system. Energized by societal elites, this process was driven forward by the willing participation of the work-a-day citizens of the port communities. Far from losing significance in the civic life of New Brunswickers, the cultural text on display in Saint John demonstrates that Monarchy and Empire, as symbolic cultural constructs, were instrumental in the realisation of a new liberal, democratic cultural reality.

142 - Chapter 5 - Progress & Paternalism: Statecraft Ritual and the Travel of the Prince of Wales Through New Brunswick

The multi-purpose nature of the public spectacles associated with the royal visit to

New Brunswick in the summer of 1860 presents an interpretive challenge for historians

studying the event. Planning and execution of the royal entry ceremonies at both Saint

John and Fredericton were carried out largely independent of the companion preparations taking place in the other city. The product of local civic debate, the pageantry and statecraft ritual which filled the royal agenda captured the unique culture of each body politic. The royal entry ceremony into Saint John was designed to articulate a largely booster-led vision of the port city. In the speeches, decorations, parades and through the showcase of industrial infrastructure and technology, the harbour community was cast as the economic and cultural engine which powered the forward momentum of a progressive and liberal-minded colony of New Brunswick. Articulating this vision, cultural manifestations of the past, present and future of the colony were largely shared by the population which enthusiastically turned out and participated in the events. While almost an exact replica of the port-city pageantry in its form and structure, the Fredericton entry challenged as well as confirmed cultural understandings of the New Brunswick experience articulated at Saint John. Inland, statecraft ritual presented a city and colony with a different cultural emphasis. Devoid of overt references to industrial progress and its allied booster culture, the Fredericton royal entry ceremony, as well as subsequent highlights on the official agenda at the capital, captured a community ostensibly caught

143 between competing understandings of its civic past, present and future. While displaying an acknowledgement and acceptance of the new liberal turn of mind, the people of

Fredericton preserved elements of colonial culture which appealed more to the New

Brunswick's past than its future. Cultural forms represented the degree to which empire and colony were still understood to mean deference to rank, title and atavistic notions of respectability and religious conformity.

The royal tour celebrations within New Brunswick were indeed complicated by the fact that two very different communities played host to, and showcased themselves for the Prince. But while the differences in the royal entry celebrations at Saint John and

Fredericton illustrated the cultural plurality within New Brunswick society, these choreographed events were but two highlights within a larger, singular colonial experience. As Charles Fisher and Leonard Tilley remarked in the Assembly when first introducing the motion to invite the Prince to the colony, the entire population of New

Brunswick was considered the formal host, and the formal reception reflected upon his royal subjects throughout the colony, both near and distant to the two principal cities. As the Prince travelled from Saint John to Fredericton and back, the royal progress dramatized the cultural negotiation between competing visions of progress and the legacy of paternalism. In sum, the royal progress through New Brunswick revealed the extent to which the energetic vision of Saint John had assumed primacy throughout the colony, but also the degree to which this vision was tempered by surviving strains of a traditional paternalism.

On August 4th the previous day's excitement continued in the streets of Saint

144 John. Heavy guns firing from the hilltop forts punctuated the morning calm and signalled

the start of the royal progress through the colony towards Fredericton. Symbolizing civic

participation in colonial society, detachments of volunteer fire fighters stood in formation

at the gates to the Chipman residence. Beyond them, a great crowd lined the sides of the

streets along the anticipated route down Union Street well in advance of the Prince's

scheduled departure.1 Once the royal carriages took to the streets and moved through the

lines of firemen, however, they were directed "through York Point, over Portland Bridge,

through Paradise Row, over the Railway Bridge and under the Triumphal Arch and so on

to the Station."2 The ceremonial arch and newly constructed railway infrastructure were

important monuments to progress, testimony to the industrial forwardness of the people

of the colony. The decision to follow this less-direct route appears to have been

spontaneous, taken with a view to showcasing further symbols of progress. But whether it

was a spontaneous decision or part of a previous plan, the choice of route generated

significant indignation. Nonetheless, the crowd lining the streets was not constituted as part of the formal celebrations. The decision not to engage them as the Prince departed the Chipman Residence revealed that, to programme organisers, at least, engineering an

impression of New Brunswick and its commercial city as politically and economically progressive was of greater moment than allowing the ill-defined popular sentiments of a

spontaneous crowd to dominate the limited time allotted the city on the royal agenda and in the international spotlight.

1 Morning Freeman (Saint John, New Brunswick), August 4,1860

2 Morning News (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. 22, No. 92, August 6, 1860.

145 The arrival of the Prince, press and spectators at the station on the European and

North American Railway line provided the booster community of Saint John a prime

opportunity to showcase the symbol of its industrial accomplishments. The engine and

rail-car in which their royal guest would travel the line were "got up specially for this

occasion," reported the Morning Freeman, "and appear to be most creditable specimens

of St. John manufacture."3 In honour of the Prince, the locomotive which pulled the train

was given the name 'Prince of Wales'. Once the carriages arrived at the station, a

ceremony marked the opening of the European and North American Railroad.4 The

ritual acknowledged that the colony had embarked upon a new phase in its development.

Industrial technology brought the distant shores of New Brunswick closer together, and

the challenges of nature were brought under control as trains moved passengers and

freight between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf coast. The ceremony served as royal

testimony to the resiliency and determination of the New Brunswick character. A fellow

British North American, Canadian journalist Robert Cellem understood the significance

of the occasion, observing of this new temple to the province's industry:

The St. John railway station is a very nice wooden building of considerable size, and was ornamented extensively in honour of the royal traveller. The interior of the slanting roof was covered with bright coloured drapery - evergreens and banners were plentifully bestowed - and a large arch, very handsomely decorated, stood over the road which leads to the platform.5

3 Morning Freeman, August 4, 1860

4 Lilian Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," The Maritime Advocate and Busy East, no. 12, vol. 37 (July 1947), p. 8.

5 Robert Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the British North American Provinces and the United States in the Year 1860, Compiled from the

146 Suitably impressed, as well as by the smooth ride and excellent construction of the line, he noted: "The run to Rothsay was accomplished in a few minutes."6 The booster community and railway enthusiasts within the colony were no doubt pleased by such press coverage, evidence that their message was being received and broadcast to distant audiences.

Journalists from outside British North America, however, did not give this moment in the New Brunswick programme the same degree of attention; the message of political and economic progress received much less prominence than the Saint John booster community might have hoped. In fact, the primary monograph accounts of the tour offer very little information about the Prince's progress between Saint John and

Fredericton. The London Times reporter, Nicholas Wood, recorded the departure from

Saint John as uneventful. The morning of the 4th of August, he commented, "the whole suite drove in carriages to a little village called Nine Mile Station, and about that distance from the city. Here on the Kennebekasis River, a noble branch of the St. John, the royal party embarked on board the Forest Queen."1 No mention was made of the European and

North American railway nor the opening ceremony. Gardner D. Engleheart, private secretary to the Duke of Newcastle, whose published journal remains one of the principal sources of information about the Royal Tour of 1860, also failed to give prominence to

Public Journals (Toronto: Henry Roswell, 1861), p. 88.

6 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 89.

7 Nicholas Augustus Wood, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States (London: Bradbury & Evans. 1861), p. 49. the European and North American Railway. "We made an early start for Fredericton,

travelling by rail for the first eight miles, and then embarking on the Kennebekacis [sic]

branch of the St. John River."8 The American journalist Kinahan Cornwallis made no

comment on the Prince's exit from the port city, resuming his narrative with the arrival of

the royal party in Fredericton.9 The Illustrated London News, a publication widely

circulated throughout the empire, included no images of the railway opening ceremony,

as was done for the Victoria Bridge when the tour reached Montreal. Thus, the months of

planning, debate and advocacy expended by the organising committee in their efforts to

ensure that the European and North American railway would be showcased as part of the pageantry during the Prince's visit were not rewarded by extensive comment in the

foreign press coverage of the events of that morning. This omission is not altogether

surprising: the European and North American Railway was limited in size and scale in comparison to other such ventures in the United Canadas and abroad, and the British and

American visitors knew little of the nature of the challenges surmounted in the course of its completion. The pageantry celebrating the railroad's inauguration was an internal cultural dialogue specific to the people of New Brunswick, its meaning embedded in the historical context of imperial and colonial developments over a quarter of a century.

Although it escaped notice in most of the high profile contemporary accounts of

8 Gardner D. Engleheart, Journal of the Progress ofH.R.H. The Prince of Wales Through British North America and His Visit to the United States, 10th July to 15th November 1860 (Privately Printed, 1860), p. 18.

9 Kinahan Cornwallis, The Prince of Wales in America (New York: M. Doolady, 1860), p. 54.

148 the tour, the railway connecting Saint John to the Kennebecasis River was, in fact, very

busy on the morning of August 4th. By the time the Prince and his party arrived at

Rothesay, nine miles down the line from Saint John, several trains, carrying thousands of

passengers, had already made the run to the steamer wharf from which he was to embark

on the way to the capital. Estimates in the Morning Freeman and the New Brunswick

Courier place the crowds in the range of seven or eight thousand people.10 The Morning

Globe reported that the "gathering of well-dressed persons to witness the departure was

very numerous" - the healthy number of ladies in the crowd "determined to kill him"

with a showering of flowers.11 Once the Prince was at the Railway Station in Rothesay,

the formal send off got underway. Lining the procession route from the station to the

river steamer, the Forest Queen, stood a guard of honour comprised of volunteer militia

from Saint John.12 The planned elements of the celebration, however, were eclipsed by

the spontaneous surge of the crowds, as waves of spectators broke through the lines of the

uniformed Volunteers, and swallowed the Prince in a sea of enthusiastic well-wishers as

he made his way towards the wharf.13

The formal exit programme had been designed to reinforce the cultural message

defined in the previous day's celebrations by showcasing the railroad and its

10 The Morning Freeman, August 4th, 1860, The New Brunswick Courier (Saint John, New Brunswick), August 4th, 1860.

11 The Morning Globe (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. Ill, No. 8, August 7, 1860.

12 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 89.

13 Ibid.

149 infrastructure as industrial symbols, marrying these images of liberal progress to the

similarly emotive power of monarch and empire. Despite occasional discord between the

Prince's colonial programme organisers and the assembled crowd, a fundamentally

different cultural vision from that of event planners and members of the booster elite was

not expressed. Spectators and participants in the celebrations shared in the cultural vision

for city and colony fashioned by the elites. Acting spontaneously and demonstrating through their participation a positive engagement with the spirit of the event, individuals

within the crowds announced their support for a society valuing the levelling principles of

open participation, showed excitement about their colony's industrial progress, and

sought confirmation of their new civic relationships through an appeal to the

constructions of Monarchy and Empire.

As the royal party sailed up the St. John River, the reception which greeted the

Prince integrated that section of rural New Brunswick into the cultural dialogue. Leaving behind the crowded, dusty streets and energetic bustle of the port-city, the compelling images along the shores shifted the backdrop against which to understand the people of

New Brunswick; the landscape allowed the royal party and visiting press time for reflection on the inhabitants' productive capacity, their past experience and future potential within the colony and Empire. Acknowledging the passing Forest Queen, many people from the farms and villages along the way turned out on the shore, fired guns, waved and cheered. At times lone individuals appeared, on other occasions whole families, "and when the proximity of a few houses allowed it, a small crowd gathered and

150 bade the Prince welcome."14 Militia companies were formed in places, firing salutes in honour of the Prince. Dr. Henry Wentworth Acland captured one such scene in watercolour.15 From the perspective of those on the Forest Queen, the scene was one of repeated celebration, emerging from the wilderness, it seemed, to carry forth the sights and sounds of Victoria's Empire. Individual farmhouses, small settlements and larger communities all joined in a cultural chorus, erecting ceremonial arches, raising flags and sounding church bells. "Each salute, was acknowledged by a shriek of the steam whistle," observed Cellem, "which, during the latter portion of the journey, was kept going nearly all the time."16 "At every little shanty village - and there were many along the whole route," noted English journalist N.A. Woods, it appeared that the participants in the pageant articulated their sentiments "with as much enthusiasm and delight as if the royal visit had been made to them especially, and the Prince was coming to stay among them a month at least."17 According to Kinahan Cornwallis, the people who turned out to greet the vessel on its journey to Fredericton "did credit to the colony."18 The spontaneous demonstrations of "patriotism and loyalty" which marked the occasion were representative of "the real sinew and muscle of the country, the hard working people

14 Ibid., p. 90.

15 Sir Henry Wentworth Acland Collection, Sketches in North America, Volume II: New Brunswick to Saguenay, "As We Ascend the St. John River Volunteers are Turned Out and Fire 'Feu de Joie'"(C-128574), NAC.

16 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 90.

17 Wood, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, p. 50.

18 Cornwallis, The Prince of Wales in America, p. 54.

151 almost entirely unaided by military force other than their own local organisation." As

text of state formation, the individuals from even the smallest rural communities paraded

in volunteer citizen militia groups, constructed arches, organised as a parish and even

coordinated individual activities on the family level. Citizens defined and communicated

their desire to participate in a larger colonial and imperial project. In an era commonly

characterized by notions of a 'receding' Empire and increasing colonial autonomy, the

actions of rural New Brunswickers illustrated the renewed role and purpose for cultural

constructions of Crown and Empire.

By early evening, after a full day on the river, the capital was reached. Similar to

the Saint John celebrations, the royal entry ceremony which greeted the Forest Queen was

a grand affair designed to articulate a cultural definition of the Fredericton community

and its role as the capital of New Brunswick. Originating from all across the colony, an

extensive array of participants and spectators had taken to the streets and assumed their positions a number of hours in advance of the arrival of the Forest Queen; the lines

stretched from the landing wharf at the foot of St. John Street, along Queen Street, through to Government House. From Saint John, members of the New Brunswick artillery, River Volunteers, a company of militia rifles and the Freemasons' Band stood to receive the Prince, having made the journey up river earlier that morning.20 The Officer in Command of the militia honour guard, Colonel William T. Baird, recorded his memories of the Prince of Wales' ritual engagement with the people of Fredericton.

19 Ibid., p. 56.

20 Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," p. 8.

152 At 3 p.m., headed by the Woodstock band, we marched into our position on the wharf at the old Gaynor Landing. The crowd assembled was immense. After waiting for some time the steamer was sighted, and shortly after the music of the Fredericton band reached our ears. The beautiful Forest Queen in her new dress of white, gay with colours and a gayer throng of living beings, glided gracefully to our front.21

With the royal vessel in sight of the Fredericton shoreline, the volunteer artillery from St.

John fired a salute, followed by another by the Fredericton volunteer artillery company,

this time sounded on the Prince's landing.22 Local press reports convey the deafening

noise from the crowd as the Royal Party moved from the Forest Queen, past Colonel

Baird's honour guard, which was inspected by the Prince, into the many carriages waiting

to usher them to Government House.

Like an old, familiar theatrical production staged by new actors, the Fredericton

royal entry ritual followed a similar pattern to that held the day before in Saint John. The

Prince and his entourage were again carried along a deliberately chosen route through prominent city streets in state carriages, the Duke of Newcastle, the Lieutenant Governor

and the Prince of Wales occupying the first of the three. Comprising the military escort were members of the mounted York Light Dragoons, as well as contingents of volunteer artillery and rifle regiments from Fredericton, Saint John and Woodstock. Illustrating the

social hierarchy, New Brunswick dignitaries from the colonial and city governments followed by members of the judiciary and civil service walked behind the stately carriages. Upon arrival at the residence of the Lieutenant Governor the procession was

21 William T. Baird, Seventy Years of New Brunswick Life (Saint John, New Brunswick: 1890), p. 215.

22 Head Quarters (Fredericton, New Brunswick), August 8, 1860.

153 received by a Guard of Honour from the 63rd Regiment of Foot.

More than a casual backdrop, the streetscape which greeted the Prince carried

significant cultural messages. A kaleidoscope of flags, flowers, evergreens and

enthusiastic spectators lined Queen, Smythe and King streets toward Government House.

The cheering was "tremendous" reported the Head Quarters; the streets crowded to such

excess that in some places, the passage of the royal procession was hampered.23 "The

windows were crowded with gaily dressed ladies, and handkerchiefs were waving in

every direction."24 Three main arches spanned the roadway over which the Prince passed:

the first set positioned at the corner of Queen and St. John, the second at York and the

third on Woodstock Road near Government House.25 The spans were capped with

crowns made from flowers and evergreens, and carried messages of "Welcome" and the

Prince's motto, "Ich Dien". "The telegraph posts, stretching a considerable distance

along the road leading to Government House," wrote Cellem, "were ornamented with

flags, and a great deal of bunting was displayed from the windows, roofs, chimneys and houses."26 The Prince landed, the procession completed, the royal entry celebration at

Fredericton closed with a memorable torch-light procession of the volunteer firemen; the ranks of uniformed men marched through the streets to Government House. Here the

Austin Squires, History of Fredericton: The Last Two Hundred Years (Fredericton: Centennial Print & Litho Ltd., 1980), p. 133.

24 Head Quarters, August 8, 1860.

25 Squires, History of Fredericton, p. 133.

26 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 92.

154 Prince closed the day's ceremonies by engaging the crowd on the piazza "while rocket

after rocket lit the night sky over the river."27

The royal entry ceremony at Fredericton possessed notable consistencies with the

similarly styled ritual at Saint John the previous day. In both cities, the cheering crowd

referred to in the press reports was understood as a singular, homogenous cultural

phenomenon - obvious, expected and uncomplicated. Although the uniform behaviours

of the masses were understood as a mere backdrop with which to people the formally

staged ritual programme, the patterns documented within the crowd activity convey

orderly civic participation; there are no references to instances of deviant or undesirable

conduct by the assembled masses. Though perhaps due in small part to the nine

additional policemen on loan to the Lieutenant Governor from the Mayor of Saint John,

Thomas McAvity,28 the unanimous spirit was more the product of a shared civic culture.

The people ritually defined their role in society through the adoption of a civic personae,

whether it be in the ranks of volunteer firefighters, in a corps of volunteer militia, or as

one of the many faces in the crowd which lined the procession route. The liberal culture

of individual responsibility, role differentiation and civic cooperation was consistent with the earlier port-city celebrations

Differences existed, however, between Fredericton and Saint John in the respective royal entry celebrations. Each of the Fredericton arches spanning the royal procession route was formally prepared through the work and direction of municipal

27 Squires, History of Fredericton, p. 133.

28 Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," p. 8. authorities. The product of debate and discussion, these municipal constructions evidence

little attempt to characterize the city or the colony in a manner similar to that of the arch

representations in Saint John and Carleton. While a diverse range of individuals had also

participated in the construction of Fredericton's decorative monuments, the civic identity

projected was more deferential and less confirmed in its own importance than that of

Saint John. Industry, commerce and the powerful appeal of memory to characterize New

Brunswick society as entering a new era of progress was a theme markedly absent from

the Fredericton monuments. In the capital, only artistic references to the Prince himself

provided the focus of the decorative aspects of the arches.

Though every moment from the landing to lights out was portrayed as euphoric in

the reports of the local media, the impressions of the celebrations recorded by the visiting

press were markedly different. Noted Robert Cellem: "There was very little attempt

made at display. Some few arches were erected, but none worthy of any commendation

for beauty and design."29 Failing to report the procession of firemen or the firework

display, he stated: "On Saturday evening nothing further was done beyond the

illumination of a considerable number of houses."30 Fredericton - a small, interior

community in the heart of the colony - seemed unable to generate the crowds or level of

spectacle which those travelling with the tour had come to expect or had anticipated before leaving England. While the medium of the celebrations was consistent with all

other places on the itinerary through British North America - parades, torch-light

29 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 92.

30 Ibid., p. 90.

156 processions, military pageantry, arches, evergreens, flags, illuminations - it was not what

was done, but rather how it was carried out, that elicited the less enthusiastic response on

the part of the foreign visitors. It is evident that the pageantry carried far more cultural

significance for the citizens of Fredericton and the people of New Brunswick than it did

for the members of the foreign press. As the leading members of New Brunswick society

paraded through the streets of the capital accompanying the heir apparent to the British

Empire, their own public prominence was also recognised. For the foreign press, the

spectacle proved less significant, for they did not share in the culture of the colony.

Fredericton had been allotted two full days on the itinerary of the Prince, a fact

that had ignited protest by the members of the Saint John booster community, who

wondered how an impression of industrial progress and a thriving liberal-minded political

culture could be achieved through pageantry and spectacle in a city which possessed

neither the proper cultural emphasis nor the requisite material symbols for its

communication. The events as they had transpired on August 5th might well have caused the boosters to remember their earlier reservations.

Sunday, the royal tour was to observe a day of rest from the rigour of a formal programme. Accordingly, the royal agenda was not long on that day; formally, there was only a service at Christ Church Cathedral to attend. Preparations to receive the Prince at the Cathedral began at 10:30 in the morning. The royal party travelled through the streets of the capital in an open carriage; the Lieutenant Governor, the Lieutenant Governor's wife, the Colonial Secretary and the Prince of Wales travelled together in the vanguard of the procession. The moment was exceptional, given the notable lack of conspicuous

157 celebration, cheering crowds and any formal, organised plan. In the absence of such

demonstrations, the people of Fredericton simply acknowledged the passing of royalty by

raising their hats - an action which prompted a reciprocal gesture on the part of the Prince

of Wales.31 The contrast between the quiet in the streets and the scene as the carriages

reached their destination, however, could not have been more striking. A local cabinet

maker, Charles Moffit, described the event. "On the clock striking ten," he wrote, the

people queuing at the door "rushed at the entrance so that hardly anyone could get in,

although several constables were in attendance."32 The crowd was so thick the doors had to be cleared by a small detachment of volunteer militia brought in especially for the purpose. The Head Quarters, omitting mention of any untoward actions on the part of the people of Fredericton, reported that "the building was almost entirely full, and after His

Royal Highness the Prince of Wales arrived more people crowded in and stood in the north and south aisles."33 Once inside, the Prince observed the service from the

Governor's pew.34 As a ceremony which may have been planned as a fairly exclusive venue at which those of the established religious order could have their place in society valued and confirmed by worshipping with the heir to the throne and future head of the

Church of England, the desired ritual effect was no doubt compromised by the twelve to

31 Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World, p. 56.

32 Charles Moffit Diary, as cited in Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," p. 8.

33 Head Quarters, August 8, 1860.

34 Cornwallis, Royalty in America, p. 56.

158 fifteen hundred people who jammed themselves into the Cathedral.35 'God Save the

Queen' was played as the Prince was received at the door to the Cathedral by Bishop

Medley. The service was performed by clergy and musicians from Fredericton, Saint

John and Woodstock, with the Bishop of Fredericton delivering the sermon.36

Whereas at Saint John the Prince was presented with material monuments to

human achievement in industrial and commercial pursuits as expressions of liberal

culture, at the capital the bricks and mortar of the Anglican Cathedral were appropriated

in the construction of the civic identity of city and colony. The Cathedral, completed in

1853, was a replica of a medieval parish church in Snettisham, Norfolk. Impressed by the

building, Robert Cellem commented on this "very beautiful Gothic edifice," the

exceptional quality of its stone, the intricate wood carvings, the stained glass, the bells

and spire - among other architectural features.37 It is curious to note, however, that no

English writer mentioned it in their coverage of the day's activities. Kinahan Cornwallis

chose, rather, to note the "quiet within the streets" as the royal party returned in open

carriage to Government House.38

Though the celebrations on the Sunday did not take the form of rich and elaborate public performances, the message behind the stillness was still evident. The silence,

Head Quarters, August 8, 1860.

36 Henry J. Morgan, Tour ofH.R.H. the Prince of Wales (Montreal: J. Lovell, 1860), pp. 37-44.

37 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 94.

38 Cornwallis, Royalty in America, p. 57.

159 itself, was consciously constructed cultural text on the part of the Prince and his handlers

designed to articulate deference to the paternal hierarchy of the Church of England

expected from its future spiritual head. Not surprisingly, the message was reciprocated by

the people of Fredericton. Commenting on the absence of pomp and ceremony, the

Prince, in an address to the people of Fredericton, claimed: "The devotional quiet which

prevailed ...in your streets, prove to me that this community knows how to fear God as

well as to pay due honour to its earthly Sovereign."39 Rank, order, deference and a

stalwart conformist, orthodox Anglican Christian foundation were the cultural attributes

communicated to the Prince, press and public in the Fredericton royal tour programme.

The itinerary for Monday, August 6th, began with a morning levee, held at

Government House. The levee provided effective means for the transmission of a vision

for city and colony by the Fredericton organisers. As a statecraft ritual, the levee had a

long history in western monarchical tradition. In levee ceremonies, the monarch - the physical embodiment of paternal power within the realm - was presented with distinguished members of the community. How an individual stood in relation to the monarch was illustrative of one's power and place in the social, political and economic hierarchy. Honoured individuals turned out in suitable attire and were expected to maintain rigid and culturally appropriate manners and deportment. The societal status of those individuals included - and excluded - was publically confirmed and communicated.

39 Addresses Presented to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales During His State Visit to British North America with The Replies Thereto, July, August and September 1860 (Privately Printed by the Duke of Newcastle, 1860), p. 25 (Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions [CIHM], No. 22821).

160 Thus, the levee was one cultural tool in which both individual and group identities were

confirmed, and the larger power structure and state machinery ritually enacted.

Just before noon, a procession of two-hundred and twenty40 notables was formed

on the grounds of the Provincial Hall. The Executive of the Colonial Government of

New Brunswick took the lead in the procession as the carriages made their way through

the streets of the capital towards Government House. Members of the Legislative

Council followed, representatives in the House of Assembly advancing thereafter. The judiciary and civil service marched behind. All moved through streets of Fredericton,

reported the Head Quarters, "in the order of precedence."41 The procession was

completed by a train of private carriages winding its way along the thoroughfares,

presenting itself to the citizens of the capital, before reaching the grounds of the vice­

regal residence. Once inside, the rank and title of the capital and colony were presented to the heir to the throne, the Colonial Secretary and the other distinguished visitors in the royal party

Eligibility to participate in the levee was a strong cultural pronouncement. In advance of the arrival of the royal party in Fredericton, a series of advertisements was published in the local press outlining a schedule of requirements which had to be met.

Individuals were required to wear an appropriate dress coat- black being the only acceptable colour. Waist coats and 'neckerchiefs' were subjected to similarly restrictive fashion criteria. Hardly concealing his impressions of the lack of genteel qualities within

40 Engleheart, Journal of the Progress ofH.R..H. The Prince of Wales, p. 19.

41 Head Quarters, August 8, 1860. Fredericton and New Brunswick society, English journalist N.A. Woods noted that "even

these slight rules of etiquette were not without their use, and had the effect of keeping the

applicants for the honour of presentation within tolerably moderate bounds."42 While

participation in the levee served as an instrument for articulating a cultural stratification

within colonial society, affording prestige and distinction to a select few, an important

message was also sent to those excluded: if possession of a proper dress coat and necktie

was all that was required to gain distinction, the social and cultural barriers to overcome

were not large. Articulated was the abstract notion of respectability, fully achievable

should an individual possess even moderate means and abilities.

Three days before, in the levee held at Saint John, similar cultural tendencies were

evidenced. Elected colonial and municipal officials led the roster of notables queuing for

presentation before the Prince; clergymen, militia officers, professionals and 'private

gentlemen' also were publically acknowledged in the ceremony. At Fredericton the

liberal democratic values were reinforced by parading the machinery of responsible

government before the Prince and people. In the generation of ritual meaning, the act of marching in procession from Provincial Hall to Government House, before the eyes of all the people of Fredericton, and, via the press, before the eyes of all the colony and abroad, was of greater significance than meeting the Prince and entourage. While the form and

structure of the levee ceremony was an active resurrection of archaic and anachronistic monarchical statecraft ritual, it was not used to bludgeon the excluded members of

society into social and political conformity; rather, the levee broadly illustrated the

42 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 55.

162 inclusive nature of colonial society and a liberal turn of mind.

Though the articulation of democratic liberalism was strong in the levee statecraft

ritual, New Brunswick's paternal inheritance yet cast a shadow. Following the morning

levee at Government House, the ceremony to open a new park within the city of

Fredericton took place at two o'clock in the afternoon. Accompanied by the Fredericton

Freemason Band, military formations consisting of militia rifle and artillery companies

and the York Light Dragoons, paraded from the Barracks on Queen Street through the

downtown towards Government House. As they reached their destination the rifle

companies broke off and assumed their positions in the new park43 across the street; the

Freemason's Band and the cavalry proceeded to the grounds of the vice-regal residence, there to form the escort for the Prince as he made his ceremonial entrance.44

Despite the shone brass, gleaming leather and uniformed presence of the troops, neither the event nor the day fulfilled the expectations of the organisers. The day was hot.

Numbering in the thousands,45 the crowd suffered as temperatures soared.

Sympathetically, Kinahan Cornwallis noted the sorry state of "several hundred school-

At this point in time, there was no official name given to the park. However, in the future the space would be known to the people of Fredericton as Wilmot Park.

44 Head Quarters, August 8, 1860.

45 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 98. Cellem writes: "the crowd was immense, not less than eight thousand..." Charles Moffit estimated the number to be between two or three thousand. Charles Moffit Diary, as cited in Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," p. 57-58; Cornwallis estimated the crowd to have numbered approximately four thousand. Squires, in History of Fredericton, gives the number in attendance to be 20,000. Given the numbers of Cellem, Cornwallis and Moffit, the Squires figure appears greatly exaggerated.

163 children ...anxiously undergoing the baking process on a large stand erected for their

accommodation."46 Charles Moffit recorded the event in his diary: "We got a seat under

some trees and boiled over in the shade... I had to bring water from the fountain in a

broken bottle and had a job to get it bad and all as it was."47 Perhaps the unrelenting

weather conditions fouled the mood of the foreign press covering the event; unimpressed

by the spectacle, N.A. Woods of the London Times reported:

There never was a place less in want of a park, considering that the hills and woods are within a stone's throw of any part of it, and there never yet was a spot which answers less to the name of 'park' than that which the Prince opened there, inasmuch as the whole meadow is as level as a bowling green, and every tree is carefully uprooted. Nevertheless, the people liked it, and were proportionately pleased at the Prince opening it.48

Also disappointed with the ceremony, Kinahan Cornwallis walked his readers through the proceedings which took place after the Prince arrived under mid-day heat to ceremonially open the park.

...a few minutes later a succession of cheers announced his entry into the so- called park.... Here he drew the plug and a thin column of water ascended. ...Such a step fromsublim e inauguration to a ridiculous sequel was never perhaps before witnessed, and the Prince could not suppress smiling at the contre temps ...While this sickly jet was disporting itself in feeble play, the baking children sang the national anthem, with a puerile variation, after which they gave three cheers for the Queen, and then three for the Prince of Wales, which were echoed by the crowd.49

A full-throated fountain it was not. The "insignificance" of the jet of water, Cornwallis

Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World, p. 57-58.

Charles Moffit Diary, as cited in Maxwell, "The Royal Tour of 1860," p. 8.

Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 54.

Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World, p. 57-58.

164 explained, was caused by the crowds, suffering in the heat, having quenched their thirst

with the water from the reservoir which fed the fountain.

The issues raised by the sceptical press coverage of the event beg important

questions for the analysis of the park opening ceremony. Fredericton, ostensibly, did not

require a public park of this nature; given the size and location of the colonial capital,

having community access to a site of tranquil contrast to the bustle and pace of urban life

was not a critical issue for the people of Fredericton. Indeed, when first presented with

the offer, the corporation refused proprietorship of the land for use as a city park.50 It thus

seems a curious decision of Fredericton's royal tour organisers to schedule the opening of the suddenly revered park as one of the few prominent events on the royal itinerary. Not

a widely valued civic jewel, the park was a material symbol appropriated to service a

vision of the community before the Prince, press and public, at home and abroad.

The land in question was a portion of the extensive property holdings of William

Hunter Odell, grandson of the influential loyalist refugee, poet and Church of England clergyman, Jonathan Odell (1737-1818). In 1783, Jonathan Odell had accompanied Sir

Guy Carleton to England, where he was presented to the monarch at a royal levee ceremony.51 New Brunswick's first provincial secretary, Jonathan Odell was among the advance party which travelled inland on a frozen St. John River during the winter of 1784

Squires, History of Fredericton, pp. 158-159.

51 Alfred G. Bailey, "Jonathan Odell," Dictonary of Canadian Biography, Vol. V (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 628-631.

165 to select a site for the capital of the fledgling colony.32 Across the first half-century of

New Brunswick's existence, when respectability and the social order valued rank, title,

civic office, Church of England membership and a disinterested education, Jonathan

Odell was the embodiment of the colonial ideal. His son, William Franklin Odell (1774-

1844), was, like his father, "by inheritance and training a 'King's Man'."53 As was the

tradition within paternal, loyalist New Brunswick in the early nineteenth century, civil

office passed from father to son in the Odell family; William assumed his father's

position as provincial secretary. Raised in the traditions of early nineteenth century

paternalism, William Franklin Odell found the emerging liberal views taking root in New

Brunswick in the late 1830s and 1840s "repugnant."54 His life was spent in an effort "to uphold genteel cosmopolitan Anglicanism in a colonial backwater."55 The career of

William Hunter Odell (1811-1891) carried on the Odell tradition at Fredericton, though the changes in the political culture of the colony as he matured diminished his chances at replicating his grandfather's and father's experience. By the mid-1840s it was becoming clear that the paternalism of the Odell tradition was increasingly out of step with the liberal response to colonial realities in an era of responsible government, increasing colonial autonomy and free trade. This history of the Odell family was implicit within

52 Ibid.

53 D.M. Young, "William Franklin Odell "Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. VII (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), pp. 657-659.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

166 both the donation of the park and its sun-baked opening ceremony in August 1860.

Yet the park was not merely a symbol of a continuing paternalistic impulse among

the members of the Fredericton establishment, for the decision to donate the land was not

entirely philanthropic. The park was an area adjacent to Government House, extending

sixteen acres56 and was "presented to the city by a gentleman named Odell, with certain

conditions attached to it."57 The property was to be transformed into parkland with public

access. Immediately upon transfer to the city of Fredericton, it was to be maintained by a

groundskeeper and properly fenced. Notes Austin Squires, it was the added condition that "the remainder of his property of over 400 acres be free of taxation" that caused the

corporation to balk at the proposal.58 After local politicking managed to salvage the offer

and secure the land for public use, "trustees took possession of the Park at a ceremony 18

June 1860."59 Given this controversy, it is curious that the city planners for the Prince of

Wales' celebrations would include the opening of the park as a major event on the royal itinerary. Further, it is ironic that "despite this auspicious beginning the Park remained empty meadow and pasture land for the next twenty five years."60

Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 98. Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 54: Woods reports "The first proceeding was to formally open a cleared meadow of some thirty acres, the germ of a future park which Fredericton had added to its other luxuries."

57 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 98.

58 Squires, History of Fredericton, pp. 158-159.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

167 Clearly the park opened by the Prince of Wales in Fredericton on August 6 ,1860 was not a source of deep rooted civic pride; therefore, another explanation must account for the choice of pageantry. The idea behind the park itself reflected a cultural understanding that could be reshaped through the ritual use of space. According to Simon

Schama, "it is our shaping perception that makes the difference between raw matter and landscape."61 Notes Brian S. Osborne, cultural communities 'construct landscapes of power'.62 An uninspiring fountain placed in an open field was not as obvious an embodiment of a civic vision as an arch, statue or other grand monument seen elsewhere on the Prince of Wales' royal tour through British North America in 1860. However, as a ritualized use of space, the park also served as a medium for the transmission of a cultural perspective. By giving royal sanction to the gift of William Hunter Odell to the people of

Fredericton, the ceremony ritually conjured and united a number of distinct cultural constructions. At the instant the Prince inaugurated flow on the disappointing fountain, the story of the people of Fredericton, as well as the colony of New Brunswick was made synonymous with the historical experience of the Odell family. This history extended from its people's unswerving loyalty to the crown during the American Revolution, through the suffering endured by the thousands of refugees as they established themselves within the formidable wilderness environment of a newly established colony, to their many successes in planting a respectable, successful and loyal society. Fredericton's

61 Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1996), p. 10.

62 Brian S. Osborne, "Constructing Landscapes of Power: The George Etienne Cartier Monument, Montreal," Journal of Historical Geography, 24(4) (1998), p. 434.

168 Prince of Wales' committee organisers were choosing to have the Prince ritually accept

this version of the past and present of the people of New Brunswick, a cultural

construction in which retrospection and the emphasis on a paternal tradition were

particularly strong.

On the evening of Monday, August 6th the hall of the Legislative Council was

transformed from its function as the site of government into a vibrant ballroom for what

the Head Quarters reported as "the Grand Fete of the day."63 The gala event began at

nine o'clock, upon the arrival of the royal guests under cavalry and guard of honour escort

from Government House. Local estimates placed those in attendance at over 1,000 persons, though only approximately one fifth that number were recorded to have purchased a ticket.64 The accompaniment was provided by a combined corps of musicians from the Fredericton Freemason Band and the band of the 63rd Regiment. As the evening progressed, ladies selected by the wife of the Lieutenant Governor were given the pleasure of dancing with the Prince, "subject of course, as a matter of form, to superior approval."65 The first dance with the Prince went to the wife of the Lieutenant

Governor. Next in line were "Miss Florence Parker (daughter of Judge Parker), Miss

Fisher (sister of Attorney General), Miss Lizzy Hazen [daughter of a member of the opposition], Miss Medley (daughter of the Bishop), Mrs. Justice Ritchey, Mrs. Bayard

Head Quarters, August 8, 1860.

Ibid.

Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 101.

169 and Miss Robinson.66 The daughter of the Lieutenant Governor67 was also a member of this list of ladies with whom the Prince danced. As suggested by Cellem, it was not left to the discretion and intrigue of the nineteen year old Prince to pluck the wallflowers from the shadows of the Legislative Council chamber in order that the dancing take place.

An orchestrated public ceremony, the ball provided purposefully selected women within the colonial establishment the formal opportunity to confirm their societal roles just as their male counterparts had assumed centre stage during the royal levee reception held earlier that day.68 Equally significant are the local and visiting press reports which conveyed to a wider audience the conspicuous display of rank, title, wealth and respectability.69 Whether in person or in print, however, for the New Brunswick audience the pageantry of the ball confirmed the cultural constructions already circulating within colonial society.

The use of ritual forms to affect and reflect cultural realities is further documented in the issue of public attendance at the Fredericton ball. The source of the misgivings was not entirely clear; whether the experience of the evening was handicapped by actual overcrowding or the inherent limitations in the venue to accommodate even a modest crowd, universal opinion about the event among the members of the visiting press was negative. Noted N.A. Woods, "Fredericton, though a small place, is by no means so

66 Morgan, The Tour ofKH.H The Prince of Wales, p. 46.

67 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 101.

68 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, p. 151.

69 Ibid., p. 157.

170 small as not to have its quarrels and divided parties."70 He went on to explain the

consequences of the great 'difference of opinion' over the arrangements regarding the

venue for the ball. Some advocated one large ballroom, but because no agreement could

be reached on the nature of and theme for the decorations of the room, the ball was

divided into a number of smaller rooms, "which were all decorated on different plans,

except one, to the adornment of which a great legal functionary had given up his mind,

and which was bedizened with evergreens on no plan at all."71 Moreover, passage

through the hallways connecting each of the ballrooms was obstructed by a great

"collection of hot-house plants."72 The principal observation about the event made by the

Duke of Newcastle's private secretary, Gardner D. Engleheart, was that "the rooms being

small were hot and crowded."73 Adding to the problems, the room in which the Prince danced drew the majority of those in attendance, leaving the other rooms nearly empty.74

Kinahan Cornwallis also complained of the overcrowding. The problem was not the layout of the site, nor the obstructive nature of the decorations, however. The tickets which granted the public access to the event were, in his view, priced much too low, at five dollars each. "The rooms ...were consequently overcrowded, and those present were of an order less select than at Halifax, where the price was ten dollars for gentlemen and

70 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 55.

71 Ibid.

72 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 100.

73 Engleheart, Journal of the Progress ofH.R..H. The Prince of Wales, p. 21.

74 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 55.

171 five for ladies."75

As with the ceremonial levee earlier in the day, the rituals convey images of

respectability and the structure of the colonial social hierarchy. To participate, members

of colonial society were required to assume accepted standards of dress and deportment,76

and as Cornwallis' comments regarding ticket prices convey, a sufficient measure of

wealth as well. It appears, however, that despite such an element of exclusion,

participation in the pageantry was not prohibitive for many in Fredericton, as evidence of

overcrowding would suggest. Further, the elite members in New Brunswick society as

identified in the Prince's listed dance partners, were reflective of the changes in fortune

experienced within the colony across the previous quarter century. While deference was

shown to the traditional source of paternal authority, the offices of the Lieutenant

Governor and the Anglican Bishop in particular, the ball similarly showcased the place of

mid-Victorian liberalism. Through the wife of Charles Fisher and Miss Lizzy Hazen,

respectively, the Smasher government and the legislative opposition were ritually

acknowledged. But while the liberal view of society was much more inclusive than older

expressions of paternalism, the ball was, by nature, an exclusive affair. Residents of

Fredericton unable to attend the crowded ballrooms in the Legislative chambers did not

let such measures of social exclusion prohibit their desire to announce their presence as a

factor within colonial society, however.

A company of volunteers bivouacked in the grounds. Those of the people who

75 Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World, p. 58.

76 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, p. 130-131.

172 could not enjoy themselves at the ball resorted to other methods. During the whole night bursts of music and of songs issued from many different quarters. The Good people of Fredericton, like all the rest of those visited by the Prince, celebrated his short sojourn enthusiastically and generally. There was no exception to the rule - no old curmudgeons objected to it. And when at last His Royal Highness emerged from the ball room, there were still hundreds assembled who gave him a hearty farewell.77

Though undocumented in the other press accounts of the tour, Cellem's record of

extensive street activity extends the cultural text into the wider population, and offers an

example of the manner in which a cultural identity construction was operating beyond the

formal programme, and within the entire body politic.

The morning following the rich pageantry of the Fredericton evening gala ball, the

state travels were resumed. The Forest Queen was scheduled to depart at 6 a.m., but a

thick fog prevented the steamer from sailing until the conditions improved. In what was a

familiar refrain at this point, the Prince's ascension of the gangplank was accompanied by

artillery salutes from the Volunteer corps accompanied by several Rifle companies presenting arms. Added 'amusement' was given to the usual spectacle in "the racing on the part of fifteen canoes, manned by Indians of the Milicelt [sic] tribe."78 Following the

departure from Fredericton, the royal party and the press on the Forest Queen observed

scenes similar to those which had characterized their trip up-river. Frequently, the shores were lined with small groups of people playing music, firing rifles, waving flags, with

77 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 101.

78 Cornwallis, Royalty in the New World, p. 59. Interestingly, although no mention of this event is made by the other foreign or local writers, it does appear to have been the subject of an Acland painting: Sir Henry Wentworth Acland Collection, Sketches in North America, Volume II: New Brunswick to Saguenay, C-124442 / C-128606 "Farewell at Fredericton - the MicMacs of Fredericton," NAC.

173 such actions acknowledged by the steamer as it passed.79 The weather was clear and bright, allowing the travellers to make much closer observations of the scenery and landscape. "At times it was exceedingly wild, grand and rugged, almost like that of the

Hudson at West Point," wrote N.A. Woods; "Its general character, however, was rich luxuriant beauty, like the valleys in Devonshire on a large scale."80 The Forest Queen touched the wharf at Indiantown at two o'clock in the afternoon. It was here that the royal tour through New Brunswick reached its final leg.

The landing of the Prince and entourage at Indiantown began what was, in the estimation of some, the defining moment within the royal progress through New

Brunswick. Since the artillery pieces which were normally stationed within the port-city region had been taken to Fredericton by the volunteer artillery companies, no royal salute was sounded on the landing the Prince. However, a number of rifle companies were still available to provide the requisite show of the uniform, and were stationed at the landing site, presenting arms as the Prince landed. Carriages were standing ready to carry him through the streets of Indiantown, through Carleton to the harbour where the royal yacht was stationed to receive him. The local press reported that the walk from the Forest

Queen to the carriages was prepared with "an evergreen arch of magnificent proportions, erected by the Indian Town people. It is Gothic, tastefully ornamented; and planted, as it were, upon its top, are some of the most symmetrical cedars our forest can produce."81

79 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 102.

80 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada & the United States, p. 56.

81 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 93, August 8,1860. The cedars, explained the Saint John Albion, were "emblematic of long life — to the

Prince."82 According to Robert Cellem, this arch was "one of the best erected in New

Brunswick."83 Once in the carriage and under way, the royal party was escorted through

the streets by the mayor, the police magistrate, the common council and the volunteer

rifle companies which had received the Prince on his landing at the wharf. Members of

the provincial Legislature representing the harbour community were also on hand to take

part in the ceremony. As with all the routes along which the Prince travelled, the local

press reported it was "tastefully decorated" with flags, evergreens, arches and lined with

cheering crowds. "On the steps of the Methodist Meeting House were a large number of

children, all neatly dressed, who sang the National Anthem as the Prince advanced.84

Wrote N.A. Woods: "All the people were out, too, in their gayest - the old Welsh settlers, the Irish and Scotch, with a thin sprinkling here and there of Indians, stalking in abnormal

dignity and sullen raggedness, the remnants of a broken, expiring race."85 Upon reaching the Suspension Bridge, troops were formed, and a Royal Salute was fired by the remaining artillery pieces stationed at Carleton Heights.86 In an event which received

great publicity in the press coverage of the procession, the two companies of volunteer

82 Saint John Albion (Saint John, New Brunswick), Vol. II, No. 18, August 11, 1860.

83 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 103.

84 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 93, August 8, 1860.

85 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, p. 56.

86 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 93, August 8, 1860.

175 firemen, "one in scarlet and one in blue" unhitched the horses pulling the Prince's carriage, fixed two long drag ropes from the fire engines, and in two long columns, marched the Prince through the streets of Carleton "with measured tread and slow" behind the festive music of the City Band. Noted the Saint John Albion: "This was certainly an interesting and very complimentary feature of the procession."87 In the view of the visiting press, "The scene at the pause caused by this operation forbids description."88 Wrote Robert Cellem:

The thousands of people assembled cheered almost incessantly; true British cheers. No mincing matters. All roared out 'hip, hip, hurrah,' as loud as they could; as though their welfare, for ever after, depended upon rendering their throats, and bursting the ear-drums of all present.89

The heir to the throne being pulled by twin columns of volunteer firemen along Prince

Street to Ludlow, and then along King Street, Cellem reported, was the moment at which

"the enthusiasm reached its highest pitch."90 In the midst of such energy, Fredericton, it seems, was all but forgotten by the Prince and press. Cellem's editorial remarks were echoed in similar statements in the English and American journal accounts. Gardner D.

Engleheart wrote that "H.R.H.'s progress to the harbour was one continuous ovation. The

Carleton people seemed much pleased at his going out of his way to see them, and have given him the heartiest reception he has yet had."91 N.A. Woods echoed the impressions

87 Saint John Albion, Vol. II, No. 18, August 11, 1860.

88 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 103.

89 Ibid.

90 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 93, August 8, 1860.

91 Engleheart, Journal of the Progress ofH.R.H. The Prince of Wales, p. 22.

176 of the Duke of Newcastle's private secretary: "it was one grand ovation along the streets," he wrote, "for the people seemed suddenly to have recovered their voices and made the houses ring again with their cheers."92 If there was a climax within the New Brunswick portion of the royal tour, unanimous opinion in the Canadian, English and American press placed it here. As a means of defining and communicating an image of colonial society, the surging energy and singular opinion of the vociferous crowd within the port communities drowned out any other competing cultural message.

As the carriages approached their final destination on the New Brunswick portion of the royal tour, the final moments to affect the perceptions of Prince, press and public were utilized. On Rodney Wharf the royal party stopped to inspect the workings of a saw mill, owned and operated by 'the Hon. John Robertson'.93 The tour was not long, and time allowed the Prince and those accompanying him "little more than to walk through and take a rapid glance at the kind of machinery by which New Brunswick makes so much money."94 The demonstration afforded the visitors the opportunity to witness the processing of converting cut timber from "hauling up, sawing, trimming and conveying the newly sawed deals out of the mill."95 Upon the completion of the timber processing demonstration, the royal yacht was brought up to the wharf, and amid the cheers of the thousands, the volunteer artillery companies fired a royal salute while 'God

92 Woods, The Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, p. 56.

93 Saint John Albion, Vol. II, No. 18, August 11, 1860.

94 Cellem, Visit of His Royal Highness, p. 104.

95 Morning News, Vol. 22, No. 94, August 10, 1860.

177 Save the Queen' was played.96 As the time neared five o'clock in the afternoon, the royal yacht pulled away from the wharf. The harbour was filled with many different types of boats, "from the smallest wherry to the splendid Eastern City" as the people crowded onto anything that floated to accompany the Styx as it headed out into the Bay of Fundy.

The many wharfs and Reed's Point were swarmed with people cheering and waving handkerchiefs, in addition to "the house tops, masts of vessels and every inch of ground from whence a view could be obtained, by anxious persons to see the last of the eldest son of England's Queen, as he parted from the shores of New Brunswick."97 One ship, the

Princess Royal, which held two companies of firemen from the harbour communities and a "large party of ladies and gentlemen" sailed with the Styx seven miles out into the Bay of Fundy, to Black Point. As it turned behind the stern of the royal yacht, "the Sailors manned the yards and gave the Princess Royal three hearty farewell cheers, the Prince standing uncovered on the paddle box waving an adieu to New Brunswick."98

Summarizing the event, the Morning News wrote: "It is impossible to convey any correct idea of the almost frantic enthusiasm which prevailed during the Prince's progress through Carleton, and his embarkation. It exceeded anything of the kind ever before witnessed in St. John."99 As a moment in the cultural history of New Brunswick, the royal tour of 1860 was powerful for spectator and participant alike; it allowed the majority of

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid.

98 Saint John Albion, Vol. II, No. 18, August 11, 1860.

"Ibid.

178 the colony's inhabitants an opportunity to express themselves through formal pageantry, decorations, or by adding themselves to the crowd. Observing the richness within such cultural text, the royal tour of 1860 moves from being considered an ephemeral curiosity within the pages of history to a signal event in the construction of New Brunswick society in the middle of the nineteenth century.

179 Conclusion

Upon leaving New Brunswick the royal party travelled in state to Charlottetown,

Prince Edward Island, before entering the United Canadas. Montreal, the highlight of the entire royal progress through British North America, was reached by August 25th. The people of New Brunswick were able to follow the prince's every move through extensive press coverage in their colony. Accounts compared the reception staged in the major centres along the way with the celebrations in Saint John and Fredericton. Comments reinforced the perspectives gained during the lead up to and events in New Brunswick.

In 1860 New Brunswick was a society in the throes of change. Over the 1840-

1860 period, the colony navigated imperial transitions from mercantilism to free-trade, the move towards railway construction and its allied integration into a continental commercial infrastructure, and the shifts towards liberal perspectives in political and social values. Within the British North American context, the ability of the United

Canadas to dictate the direction of colonial policy for the other British North American colonies - albeit as first among equals - had a significant impact in New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick celebrations for the Prince involved an active appeal to the past, as well an attempt to fashion an understanding of present and future directions of the colony. A whole range of ritual mediums were used to explore the culture of the colony, from ceremonial arches, to processions, military parades, addresses, levees, a gala ball, street theatre, and decorations, among many more. In a society still cognisant of its loyalist traditions, cultural constructions of Empire and Monarchy were assigned new roles and purposes reflective of the growth of liberalism and the evolution of Empire. As

180 the influences and factors affecting the growth and development of the communities of

Fredericton and Saint John had been different in the quarter century before the arrival of the Prince, a different balance existed between the strains of paternalism and liberal- inspired visions of progress. In each community it was a matter of which cultural tendency was emphasized, as staged ritual and spontaneous celebrations captured the minds of organisers, participants and spectators alike.

Following the methodology of the 'new cultural history', analysis of the royal tour of 1860 in New Brunswick reveals the ability of staged statecraft ritual and informal street pageantry both to reflect and create cultural awareness. The scheduled ceremonial highlights on the royal agenda were instances of orchestrated cultural programming; leadership within each locale used the event to stage a ritual representation of their community, conceived and constructed by themselves. There is, however, a lack of evidence to suggest that the response by the assembled crowds to the formal ceremonies was the product of an imposed false-consciousness. Events during the spring and summer of 1860 illustrate an open process for community participation in the planning and preparations. Such institutionalised procedures allowing for debate and airing of alternative visions for city and colony illustrates the emerging tendencies towards democratic state-formation. The statecraft rituals performed in the streets of Saint John and Fredericton document a liberal-democratic dynamic in New Brunswick society that does not conform to the Hobsbawm / Ranger 'invention of tradition' theory regarding the construction and functional use of ceremonial forms. Planners and organisers of the royal entry into Saint John were steadfastly opposed to having pageantry planned and executed

181 from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor and Colonial Office speak on their behalf; there was a keen sense within the liberal elite at Saint John that the spectacle was their own, to be constructed in their image, and to communicate their vision for both city and colony alike. The royal entry at Fredericton shared much in common with that at Saint

John - but while liberalism factored strongly, at the capital an increased emphasis was given to expressions of deference to the established paternal order, characteristic of late

18th and early 19th century New Brunswick. Both perspectives appear to have been the product of authentic public dialogue, cultures shared with, not imposed by the city and colonial elites.

As statecraft ritual, the royal entry ceremonies at Saint John and Fredericton were prepared as separate cultural constructions. From first mention of the tour in the House of Assembly, however, the entertainment of the Prince was portrayed as a colony-wide,

New Brunswick reception. Local distinctions were to be eclipsed by a collective presentation of the people and society of New Brunswick before Prince, press and public at home and abroad. A more nuanced and reflective statecraft ritual than the royal entry, the royal progress was the means through which competing spectrums of progress and paternalism came together. New Brunswick was neither the grand expression of the primarily liberal-progressive vision emphasized at Saint John, nor the largely reflective, historically inspired paternal community it was cast as during the Fredericton celebrations. Rather, upon the formal reception of the Prince of Wales in 1860, New

Brunswick's culture was deferential to its past, energised by its present and excited about its future as a liberal-democratic society, influential in eastern North America and the British Empire.

183 Bibliography

Abbreviations: National Archives of Canada [NAC] National Library of Canada [NLC] Public Archives of New Brunswick [PANB] New Brunswick Museum Archives [NBMA] Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions [CIHM]

Newspapers:

Illustrated News (London, U.K.)

Montreal Gazette (Montreal, Canada East)

Morning Freeman (Saint John, New Brunswick),

Religious Intelligencer (Saint John, New Brunswick)

Sussex Times (Sussex, New Brunswick)

The Head Quarters (Fredericton, New Brunswick)

The Morning Globe (Saint John, New Brunswick)

The Morning News (Saint John, New Brunswick)

The Saint John Albion: A Family Paper Devoted to Literature, Amusement, and the News (Saint John, New Brunswick)

The Temperance Telegraph (Saint John, New Brunswick)

Archival and Manuscript Sources:

Acland (Sir Henry Wentworth) Collection, C-128574: "As We Ascend the St. John River Volunteers are Turned Out and Fire 'Feu de Joie'", Sketches in North America, Volume II: New Brunswick to Saguenay [NAC]

Acland, (Sir Henry Wentworth) Collection, C-124442 / C-128606 "Farewell at Fredericton - the MicMacs of Fredericton," Sketches in North America, Volume II: New Brunswick to Saguenay [NAC]

Acland, Dr. Henry Wentworth, Letters from North America, (unpublished: 1860), MG

184 40 Q 40 [NAC]

Graves Papers [PANB]

Tilley (Leonard )Papers, MG 27,1D 15 [NAC]

Tilley Family Papers, S75, Fl, 30 (1) [NBMA]

Government Publications:

Colonial Office: Entry Books of Correspondence, Vol. 20 New Brunswick January 31, 1856-December 20, 1863. Letters from the Secretary of State, Dispatches (CO. 189, Vol. 20), (Reel B-2330) [NAC]

Executive Council Minutes & Orders in Council, RG 2, RS 6A, Volume 36 (1857- 1866) [PANB]

Journal of the House of Assembly of the Province of New Brunswick, From the Ninth Day of February to the Ninth Day of April, 1860, Being the Fourth Session of the Eighteenth General Assembly (Fredericton: John Simpson, Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. 1860)

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Name: David James Parsons

Degrees Obtained: Bachelor of Arts (Honours), History, (1994) Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON Bachelor of Education, (History/Politics: Intermediate/Senior), (1998) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

Conference Presentations: "Colony and Empire Defined: An Analysis of the Royal Tour of 1860 to New Brunswick," University of New Brunswick / University of Maine Graduate Student Conference (Fall 2002)

Employment: Teacher / Department Head Colonel By Secondary School / Colonel By International Baccalaureate World School, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Ottawa, ON, (1998-present)