William Southam was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 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.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, he began his newspaper career working for the London Free Press

London Free Press

The London Free Press is a daily newspaper based in London, Ontario, Canada.The London Free Press began as the Canadian Free Press, founded by William Sutherland in 1847. It first began printing as a weekly newspaper in 1849. In 1852, it was purchased for $500 by Josiah Blackburn, who renamed it...

. The first newspaper he bought was the Hamilton Spectator. He would own the Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Canada. According to the Canadian Newspaper Association, the paper had a 2008 weekly circulation of 900,197.- History :...

, Calgary Herald

Calgary Herald

The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in the Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta.- History :The paper was first published on August 31, 1883 by Andrew Armour and Thomas Braden as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser. It started as a weekly paper with only...

, Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Journal

The Edmonton Journal is a daily newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta. It is part of the Postmedia Network.-History:The Journal was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunningham — as a rival to Alberta's first newspaper, the 23-year-old...

, Windsor Star

Windsor Star

The Windsor Star is the regional newspaper of Windsor, Ontario , and is owned by the Postmedia Network Inc. Since 1923, the publication's main office is located at 167 Ferry Street in the downtown area...

and Montreal Gazette.

Robert Smiley, the founding publisher of The Hamilton Spectator

The Hamilton Spectator

The Hamilton Spectator, founded in 1846, is a newspaper published every day but Sunday in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The paper has a daily circulation of 105,000 and a daily readership of nearly 260,000.-History:...

, sold the newspaper to William Southam in 1877 as the first link in the Southam newspaper chain.

His son was Gordon Hamilton Southam (1886-1916). A graduate of Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, Southam served as a Major in the Canadian Field Artillery, 8th Brigade, in the first World War. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme, France, October 15, 1916 and is buried in Albert, France.

Tribute

The Southam neighbourhood on the Hamilton, Ontario

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...

 Mountain was named after him. It is bounded by the Niagara Escarpment

Niagara Escarpment

The Niagara Escarpment is a long escarpment, or cuesta, in the United States and Canada that runs westward from New York State, through Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois...

 (north), Fennell Avenue East

Fennell Avenue (Hamilton, Ontario)

Fennell Avenue, is an Upper City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts of just West Garth Street on the West mountain and is a two-way street throughout that extends eastward and ends at Mountain Brow Boulevard, a road that wraps around the edge of the Niagara Escarpment on...

 (south), West 5th Street

West 5th Street (Hamilton, Ontario)

West 5th Street is an Upper City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts off in the north at James Mountain Road, a mountain-access road, and extends southward past Rymal Road where it ends just south of Christopher Drive...

 (west) and Upper James Street

Upper James Street (Hamilton, Ontario)

Upper James Street, is an Upper City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts at the Claremont Access, a mountain-access road in the north, and extends southward towards the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport where it then changes its name to the Hamilton Port Dover Plain...

 (east). Landmarks in this neighbourhood include the Glenwood Cemetery.

William married Lilias Ahearn, the daughter of inventor Thomas Ahearn of Ottawa.

External links

• William Southam at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...
  
  
• Military Attestation (1915) for Gordon Hamilton Southam