George Pirie was a Canadian newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 publisher.

He emigrated to Canada from Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. His father, also George Pirie, was a prominent Aberdeen

Aberdeen

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....

 merchant and ship owner. His mother was Katherine (Catherine) Mitchell Pirie, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Mitchell, of the parish of Tarves, Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area.The present day Aberdeenshire council area does not include the City of Aberdeen, now a separate council area, from which its name derives. Together, the modern council area and the city formed historic...

. He was educated in Scotland and in London, where he was apprenticed to his relative, Sir John Pirie List of Lord Mayors of London, at one time the Lord Mayor of London

Lord Mayor of London

The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...

.

Mr. Pirie and his first wife, Mary Robieson, and their children, arrived in Canada in 1838. They settled in a Scottish settlement named Bon Accord after the town motto of Aberdeen. This settlement was located in Upper Nichol Township near present day Elora

Elora, Ontario

Elora is a community in the township of Centre Wellington, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. It is well known for its 19th-century limestone architecture, its artistic community and the geographically significant Elora Gorge.-History:...

. The transition to Canadian pioneer life was much more difficult than had been anticipated during the planning stages in Scotland. Mr. Pirie's wife died a few years later and was one of the earliest burials from the settlement.http://www.mestern.net/historical/dalgarno.phphttp://www.standrewschurch.ca/ The Pirie's, formerly residents of downtown Aberdeen, had no prior experience with farming.

Mr. Pirie decided to abandon farming and purchase a newspaper. In 1848 he took over the two year old Guelph Herald and moved with his family to downtown Guelph

Guelph

Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...

. The printing and publishing office for the Herald was on Wyndham Street. The paper was printed once weekly and the office covered job printing and issued marriage licenses.

Mr. Pirie's correspondence to his eldest son George Mitchell Pirie detailed his struggles to make the newspaper profitable and collect payment for advertisements and subscriptions. He also faced lawsuits over content. They were often short staffed with his son, Alexander Fraser Pirie

Alexander Fraser Pirie

Alexander Fraser Pirie was a Canadian journalist and newspaper editor.Pirie was born in Guelph, Upper Canada, to George Pirie , a native of Aberdeen, Scotland...

, running the Washington Press, and his second wife, Jane Booth (1825-95), at work in the office - "...Mamma is run off her feet".http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=booth&GSfn=jane&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=11883232& Another son, Charles Napier Pirie, worked at the paper, and other children may have assisted. During this time his priority was to pay his staff and in one letter to his son he wrote that they were now dangerously low in candles. In many cases he asked his son to search for potential advertisers in Hamilton, or chase after missed payments. In one case his son suggested that Mr. Pirie might attempt to take some work on the Canadian census to help make ends meet. The sale of his original farm Maryville was also a headache. His son arranged for the sale but the new landowner felt that he had overpaid and that the land was impossible to work and unprofitable.

Mr. Pirie was a poet, and was remembered as one of Canada's Scottish Canadian

Scottish Canadian

Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish descent or heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and among the first to settle in Canada, Scottish people have made a large impact on Canadian culture since colonial times...

 poets in a 1900 book published in Toronto by the Caledonia Society.http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView?id=ef46456c00e5a272&display=03830+0151 His poetry generally dealt with Canadian patriotism, and social issues such as poverty, and temperance. One of his best known poems was "The Volunteers of Canada". He also tackled contemporary issues such as Louis Riel

Louis Riel

Louis David Riel was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political and spiritual leader of the Métis people of the Canadian prairies. He led two resistance movements against the Canadian government and its first post-Confederation Prime Minister, Sir John A....

 in his poem entitled: "The Murder of Thomas Scott". He wrote on the Fenian Raids

Fenian raids

Between 1866 and 1871, the Fenian raids of the Fenian Brotherhood who were based in the United States; on British army forts, customs posts and other targets in Canada, were fought to bring pressure on Britain to withdraw from Ireland. They divided many Catholic Irish-Canadians, many of whom were...

, the difficulties faced by new immigrants, the exploitation of textile workers, and Scottish history. His private and unpublished papers included some romantic poems, and poems relating to death and mourning. A selection of his poems were published in pamphlet form by the Guelph Herald as "Lyrics of the Late George Pirie, Esq." Much of his writing was lost in a house fire, although a booklet of handwritten unpublished poetry, primarily romantic, has been preserved.

His poetry in some cases reflected the particular experience of the displaced Scotsman in Canada:

Far from Clan Alpine Dhu,

Wanders the bonnet blue;

Still to that magnet true,

Turns his heart thither.

Far though his fate may part,

Land of his love thou art,

Ever the Scottish heart

Warms to the heather.

As to his writing ability, the following statement appeared in Selections from Scottish Canadian Poetry (1900): "William Lyon Mackenzie

William Lyon Mackenzie

William Lyon Mackenzie was a Scottish born American and Canadian journalist, politician, and rebellion leader. He served as the first mayor of Toronto, Upper Canada and was an important leader during the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion.-Background and early years in Scotland, 1795–1820:Mackenzie was...

, a Scotsman like himself, although opposed to him in politics, said of him that he was one of the ablest writers in Canada."http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView?id=ef46456c00e5a272&display=03830+0151

Mr. Pirie' Canadian patriotism was evident not only in his poetry:

So enthusiastic was his patriotism, that at the time of the Trent Affair

Trent affair

The Trent Affair, also known as the Mason and Slidell Affair, was an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War...

 (1861) though then a feeble old man, he gallantly joined the Scottish company formed in the town at that time, and drilled night after night, to be able to take his place among his country's defenders.

Mr. Pirie was particularly close to his son George Mitchell Pirie. The younger Pirie was a merchant in Dundas, Ontario

Dundas, Ontario

Dundas is a formerly independent town and now constituent community in the city of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. It's nickname is the Valley Town. The population has been stable for decades at about twenty thousand, largely because it has not annexed rural land from the protected Dundas Valley...

. Mr. G. M. Pirie assisted Mr. Pirie on many business matters including the sale of his Bon Accord farm, and following up on newspaper advertising clients in the Dundas and Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

 area. The correspondence between father and son are preserved today in the form of about 20 letters.

By November 1869, Mr. Pirie was quite ill due to complications from severe asthma

Asthma

Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...

. He felt that he had first acquired the condition in 1819 during a visit to the island of Anticosti after which he had his first attack. After that he was often ill - "...it was long a matter of wonder how he bore up so well under his affliction." He continued to write for the newspaper until just 3 weeks before his death. His correspondence was as frequent and as clear as ever and he was busily conducting his business affairs up to his last days through numerous letters to his son in Dundas, Ontario.

His funeral was described as "...one of the most mournful sights ever seen in Guelph, nearly all the inhabitants wearing crape..." His obituary in the Guelph Herald included the following statement about Mr. Pirie's character:

"Although ever ready to assist the poor emigrant or wayfarer, no matter what his nationality might be, he loved his native land and his "brither Scots" with a love which was unquenchable. We have often, when speaking of his native land and its dearly cherished associations, seen his lips quiver, and the tear start in his eye, as with faltering accents he recounted its history, dwelt lovingly on its scenery, or recalled his youthful days spent there, with all their fondly remembered reminiscences."

Mr. Pirie has numerous descendants across Canada, the United States, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery (formerly Union Cemetery) in Guelph, Ontario, and his grave is one of the earlier burials.