Canniff, William

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Heather MacDougall, “CANNIFF, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/canniff_william_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Physician, medical educator, author, school administrator, and civil servant; b. 20 June 1830 in Thurlow Township, Upper Canada, son of Jonas Canniff and Letitia Flagler; m. first 20 June 1857 Grace Hamilton (d. 1858), and they had a son; m. secondly 15 Sept. 1859 Elizabeth Foster (d. 1908) in Toronto, and they had six sons and a daughter; d. 18 Oct. 1910 in Belleville, Ont.
    • A grandson of late loyalist settlers on the Bay of Quinte, William Canniff grew up in relative affluence on the family farm north of Belleville. (His father and elder brothers also owned and operated a grist-mill and a sawmill.) 
    •  Following his successful examination by the Medical Board of Upper Canada on 2 Jan. 1854, Canniff attended the University of the City of New York, completed his medical degree, and served as a house-surgeon in New York until the spring of 1855. He studied next at St Thomas’s Hospital in London, England, and qualified for membership in the Royal College of Surgeons of England later in 1855. Drawn to military medicine, he passed the examinations of the British army’s medical board to obtain a commission as an acting assistant surgeon in the Royal Artillery. The end of the Crimean War in 1856 left him free to visit hospitals in Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris. In 1857 he returned to Canada, married, and set up practice in the Belleville area.
    • The early 1860s had witnessed the first stirrings of Canadian nationalism, and in 1861–62 Canniff had participated in attempts with George Coventry and others to set up an Upper Canadian historical society. In the years that followed he completed the research and writing of his History of the settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario), with special reference to the Bay Quinte (Toronto, 1869), a project he claimed to have undertaken in 1862 at the instigation of the short-lived society. In this monumental study, Canniff’s developing interests in loyalist history and “the future prospects of the Dominion” fused, producing a distinctly British Canadian sense of nationality.
    • William Canniff’s story reflects some of the forces which shaped life in Ontario during the mid and late 19th century. His medical career demonstrates the growing importance of professional training and organizations, and the development of new areas of specialization, most notably public health. As a researcher and writer, he exemplifies the idealistic, visionary, and slightly naïve nationalism that characterized the confederation generation. Nevertheless, in the course of his historical work he preserved many important documents. In his history of Upper Canada he argued forcefully that “the importance of history cannot be questioned; the light it affords is always valuable, and, if studied aright, will supply the student with material by which he may qualify himself for any position in public life.”
  • Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1253
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89865640/william-canniff