Janet Lindsey King

Other Events:

• Name: Jeanette King
• Residence: 528 Wellington St. N., Kitchener
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-135549
• Residence: 1881, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian
• Residence: Bef 1886, 43 Benton St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1891, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian

Other Events:

• Residence: 528 Wellington St. N., Kitchener
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-81666
• Occupation: 1871, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lawyer
• Residence: 1871, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; C. Presbyterian
• Residence: 1874, 43 Benton St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Occupation: 1881, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Barrister
• Residence: 1881, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian
• Occupation: 1891, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lawyer
• Residence: 1891, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian

Notes:

And John King must have looked like a "catch" to Bell, as she drummed her fingers impatiently on the kitchen table in her mother's house. He was quite the dandy in his narrow grey trousers and smart, black wool jacket, with its nipped-in waist and grosgrain lapels. In an age when personal cleanliness was sometimes lacking, John was reassuringly fastidious: his moustache and beard were always neatly cut and combed, and the nails on his long, tapering fingers were carefully trimmed. Although, like Bell, he was virtually penniless and no part of Toronto's wealthy elite, he had everything that she felt was missing in her own past and future. He was a well-educated, bright young man, with every prospect of becoming a wealthy lawyer.

John and Bell had much in common. Both came from the same vigorous, Presbyterian stock that had been part of the great surge of immigration to Canada in the early half of the century. John King's parents, like Bell's, were transplanted Scots. But there was a crucial difference in their Backgrounds. John King Senior was no rebel; he was a soldier of the Crown. Born in Aberdeenshire, he had been educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and had joined an immensely respectable regiment: the Royal Horse Artillery. During the 1837 Rebellion, he was stationed as a bombardier at Kingston, where he defended the interests of the Crown, Governor Sir Francis Bond Head and the Family Compact against the likes of William Lyon Mackenzie.

The elder John King married another Scots emigre, Christina McDougall, but he died before their son was born in 1843. For a while, Christina King ran a boarding house in Toronto (Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, who headed the United Canada's first Reform government in 1848, alongside Robert Baldwin, was said to be one of her lodgers). But finding it increasingly difficult to raise her son John on her own, Christina eft Toronto and moved in with her brother and sister, Dougall and Flora McDougall.

Mrs. King, The Life & Times of ISABEL MACKENZIE KING, by Charlotte Gray pg 65

John — Isabel Grace MacKenzie. Isabel (daughter of Mayor William Lyon MacKenzie) was born 1845, New York City, New York, USA.; died 1916, Ottawa, Carleton Co., Ontario, Canada; was buried , Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, York Co., Ontario. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Isabel Grace King
• Residence: 528 Wellington St. N., Kitchener
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-81667
• Residence: 1874, 43 Benton St., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1881, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian
• Residence: 1891, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Presbyterian

Notes:

MACKENZIE, ISABEL GRACE (King), politician's mother; b. 6 Feb. 1843 in New York City, 13th child of William Lyon Mackenzie* and Isabel Baxter; m. 12 Dec. 1872 John King (d. 1916) in Toronto, and they had two daughters and two sons; d. 18 Dec. 1917 in Ottawa.

If Isabel Mackenzie were to be judged on her own accomplishments, she would fade into oblivion. She stands out, however, as the daughter of an extraordinary father and the mother of a distinguished son. W. L. Mackenzie had been the major instigator of the rebellion of 1837-38 in Upper Canada. Isabel faced this heritage with ambiguity. She was fiercely proud of being Mackenzie's daughter: it gave her life a prominence that it would not otherwise have had. She was to name her elder son after him and was always anxious to see the record of her father's activities set straight. (Her husband would publish a small volume in 1886 as part of this endeavour.)

But Mackenzie was no more successful as a steady provider than he had been as a rebel. Though Isabel was spared the aftermath of the rebellion - she was born in 1843 in New York, where Mackenzie had fled - the subsequent years of family life, characterized by feast and famine and by the deaths of 6 of her 12 siblings, engendered in her an unease that would dominate her life. She was to search for security and advancement with an intensity that brought out some of the least desirable characteristics of her personality. Prevented by the social climate of the times from doing something about her situation herself, she had to rely on the men in her life.

In 1850, when Isabel was seven, the Mackenzie family had moved back to Toronto, where she attended the school of the Sisters of Loretto. For a time after her father's death in 1861, she and her mother and sisters ran a school themselves. Her marriage in 1872 to a personable and promising lawyer, John King, and the setting up of a home in Berlin (Kitchener), Ont., appeared at first to fulfil her need for a prestigious lifestyle. Vivacious and attractive, with a penchant for fine clothing and jewellery, she entertained well, was active in St Andrew's Presbyterian Church and local music circles, and encouraged John's intellectual stimulation of their children. Her hopes began to fade when John failed to achieve success and legal prominence, but the couple was able to send their boys, William Lyon Mackenzie* and Dougall Macdougall (Max), to university and to see their daughter Janet Lindsey (Jennie) successfully married. Still, it was a struggle. Their elder daughter, Isabel Christina Grace (Bella), was never in good health and would die in 1915. Woodside, their residence near Berlin from 1886, was rented. In 1893 the family moved to Toronto, where John had accepted a lectureship at Osgoode Hall. He made no headway in private practice, however, so that in middle age Isabel experienced the pattern of financial difficulty, frequent moves, and disappointments that she had known as a child. Her fears and hopes came to be focused on her elder son, Willie.

It is clear from family correspondence that Isabel was in constant fear of finding in Willie the recklessness and lack of concern for self-advancement that had ruined her father. At the same time she hoped that the youth who displayed much of his grandfather's promise could be the family's salvation. She attempted to guide his life at every turn with gentle loving words that nevertheless made clear her wish to see him follow a path that would facilitate his exploitation of patronage and produce financial security for them all. Such pressure was not restricted to career choices. In 1892-93 an adolescent romance was transformed into a family crisis that took on epic proportions when Willie seemed determined to make an inappropriate marriage. She expressed disappointment when he failed to join his father's law firm in 1895. She was initially troubled at his decision to enter politics - he was first elected in 1908 - just as she had been unhappy with her husband's interests in this sphere. But at the same time the Mackenzie heritage seemed to lead in this direction. She was proud and excited when she accompanied Willie to official occasions; her praise was strong when he mixed with prominent individuals. It was an unkind fate that Isabel, who had moved in with Willie in Ottawa in late 1916, died while he was campaigning to regain a parliamentary seat and never lived to see him become prime minister of Canada. She was buried in the family plot in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.

Much of the public perception of Isabel King comes from the idealized version of her created by W. L. M. King. He was what she made him, and he acknowledged her role. Her portrait by John Wycliffe Lowes Forster* was given a place of prominence in his study. From his papers and diaries this sanitized portrayal has been carried into biographies of him, so that it has become necessary to correct the record. Suggesting that Isabel King was a woman like many others is not intended to disparage her. That she survived hard times to raise a family and launch a son into a successful career is no mean feat. The fact was that in the process she was sometimes bitter, vain, and self-centred. Of greater importance was her strong influence on her elder son's personality.

Like so many women before and after her, Isabel Mackenzie is remembered only as a reflection of others - daughter, wife, and mother - a common but not-to-be-scorned epitaph.
J. E. Esberey

The principal source of primary material for Isabel Mackenzie King is the collection of family papers and correspondence in the W. L. Mackenzie King papers at NA, MG 26, J. Additional background detail concerning the Mackenzie family is available in the Mackenzie-Lindsey papers at AO, F 37. These are the chief sources used in secondary works, notably R. MacG. Dawson and H. B. Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King: a political biography (3v., Toronto, 1958-76),1. E. Esberey, Knight of the Holy Spirit: a study of William Lyon Mackenzie King (Toronto, 1980), and M. W. Nicolson, Woodside and the Victorian family of John King ([Ottawa], 1984).


Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online 2000 University of Toronto/Université Laval

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-132907P
• Military: 1843, , Quebec, Canada; Bombardier in the Royal Artillery

Notes:

possible burial. John King Bombardier in the Royal Artillery, aged twenty Nine years, Died on the Ninth, and was buried on the Eleventh Day of May in the year of our Lord, one Thousand, Eight Hundred and Forty Three.

Quebec Garnison, P. Q. Registres photographiles aug Greffe de Quebec - Ancestry.com

______________________

John King Senior was no rebel; he was a soldier of the Crown. Born in Aberdeenshire, he had been educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and had joined an immensely respectable regiment: the Royal Horse Artillery. During the 1837 Rebellion, he was stationed as a bombardier at Kingston, where he defended the interests of the Crown, Governor Sir Francis Bond Head and the Family Compact against the likes of William Lyon Mackenzie.

The elder John King married another Scots emigre, Christina McDougall, but he died before their son was born in 1843. For a while, Christina King ran a boarding house in Toronto (Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, who headed the United Canada's first Reform government in 1848, alongside Robert Baldwin, was said to be one of her lodgers). But finding it increasingly difficult to raise her son John on her own, Christina left Toronto and moved in with her brother and sister, Dougall and Flora McDougall.

Mrs. King, The Life & Times of ISABEL MACKENZIE KING, by Charlotte Gray pg 65

John — Christina McDougall. Christina (daughter of McDougall) was born 1821, Glasgow, , Lanark, Scotland; died Nov 1900, Toronto, York Co., Ontario, Canada; was buried , Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, York Co., Ontario. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Christina King
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-132909
• Residence: 1871, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; C. Presbyterian

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: dnf-81669

Notes:

William Lyon Mackenzie (March 12, 1795 - August 28, 1861) was a Scottish born American and Canadian journalist, politician, and rebellion leader. He served as the first mayor of the city of Toronto (1834) and was an important leader during the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion .

Mackenzie was born in Dundee, Scotland . Both of Mackenzie's parents, Daniel Mackenzie, a weaver, and Elizabeth Mackenzie, née Chambers, came from Kirkmichael . They married in May 1794: a widow, Elizabeth was seventeen years older than Daniel. Daniel allegedly died three weeks after William Lyon Mackenzie's birth (though historians have been unable to find a record of his burial) and Mackenzie was raised by his mother. Elizabeth Mackenzie was a deeply religious woman, a proponent of the Secession, a branch of Scottish Presbyterianism deeply committed to the separation of church and state . While William Lyon Mackenzie was not a religious man himself, he remained a proponent of separation of church and state for his entire life.

Mackenzie entered a parish grammar school at Dundee at age 5, thanks to a bursary, and then moved on to a Mr. Adie's school. Mackenzie early on adopted habits as a voracious reader, keeping a list detailing the 958 books he read between 1806 and 1820 . By 1810, at age 15, he was writing for a local newspaper . During this time he also joined a scientific society . It was there that he met Edward Lesslie and his sons James and John, who would play a large role in Mackenzie's life.

Mackenzie's mother arranged for him to apprentice with several tradesmen in Dundee, but in 1814, he was able to secure financial backing from Edward Lesslie to open a general store and circulating library in Alyth . During this period Mackenzie had a romantic relationship with one Isabel Reid, of whom nothing is known except that she gave birth to Mackenzie's illegitimate son on July 17, 1814. The boy was raised by Mackenzie's mother.

During the recession which followed the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Mackenzie's store in Dundee went bankrupt and he had to travel to seek work, first returning to Dundee; then going to Wiltshire in 1818 to work for a canal company; travelled briefly to France ; and then worked briefly for a newspaper in London .

Lacking stable employment, at age 25, Mackenzie decided to emigrate to British North America, along with his friend John Lesslie.

Early years in Canada, 1820-1824

Mackenzie initially found a job working on the Lachine Canal in Lower Canada . He wrote for the Montreal Herald during this period. John Lesslie on the other hand, had settled in York, Upper Canada (now Toronto ) and Mackenzie soon became employed at Lesslie's bookselling / drugstore business. Mackenzie fell in love with Upper Canada and began writing for the York Observer.
In 1822, Edward Lesslie and the rest of his family, along with Elizabeth Mackenzie, joined Mackenzie and John Lesslie in Upper Canada. Elizabeth brought along a young woman, Isabel Baxter (1805-73), whom she had chosen for William Lyon Mackenzie to marry - the couple were married July 1, 1822 in Montreal . Isabel would ultimately bear Mackenzie 14 children (including Isabel Grace Mackenzie, the mother of William Lyon Mackenzie King).


Wikipedia 2011

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-155011