William Kingsford

William Kingsford (23 December 1819 – 29 September 1898) was an English-born Canadian historian and civil engineer. He is best known for his ''History of Canada'' in 10 volumes (1887–1898), which was widely read by both the upper middle class and Anglophone teachers.

Born in London, England, Kingsford traveled to Canada, where he served in the army before engaging in surveying work. He was a self-taught historian, and one of the first to use the archives being gathered in Ottawa. He was also a civil engineer, working across North America to install railways such as the Hudson River Railroad. His work led him to Panama, where he assisted in construction of the Panama Canal Railway. Kingsford served a brief term as the chief engineer of Toronto, Canada.

Kingsford believed that the Conquest of New France guaranteed victory for British constitutional liberty and that it ensured material progress. He assumed the assimilation of French Canadians into a superior British culture was inevitable and desirable, for he envisioned Canada as one nation with one anglophone population. Provided by Wikipedia