Bayard, William

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, “BAYARD, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bayard_william_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Physician, surgeon, and author; b. 21 Aug. 1814 in Kentville, N.S., son of Dr Robert Bayard and Frances Catherine Robertson; m. 11 July 1843 Susan Maria Wilson of Chamcook, N.B.; they had no children; d. 17 Dec. 1907 in Saint John, N.B.
    • William Bayard was one of the most distinguished physicians in New Brunswick for much of the later 19th century. Born of a Huguenot family, he was educated at Fordham (New York City) and received his medical training in New York State and at the University of Edinburgh, where he was awarded an md in 1837. (An lld would be conferred on him in 1907.) He then joined his father in Saint John, and assumed the practice upon the latter’s death in 1868. In 1839 he became coroner of Saint John, a position he would hold for 30 years. An Anglican in religion, he was a Conservative in politics. In 1896 he would serve as president of the New Brunswick Loyalist Society.
    • Bayard’s most influential publication was An address upon the use and abuse of alcoholic drinks, an anti-prohibition tract. Like many of his professional contemporaries, he considered the judicious use of alcohol to be “a most valuable remedy in various forms of disease, and one for which no proper substitute has yet been found.” “Alcoholic stimulants improve the appetite, assist digestion, and in fevers and other wasting diseases, are indispensable.” Bayard did believe, however, that those who abused alcohol regularly should be locked up. Voluntary inebriates – that is, those who still possessed “the power to resist” alcohol – should be imprisoned with hard labour; involuntary drunkards (confirmed alcoholics) should be restrained in institutions until such time as they were cured. In Bayard’s commonsensical view, prompted no doubt by the total failure of temperance measures in Saint John, the sale of alcoholic beverages ought to be licensed, not prohibited: “The efforts of the philanthropist should be directed towards the possible, not the impossible.”
  • Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=437
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/214662227/william-bayard