Cotton, William Lawson

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Robert Critchlow Tuck, “COTTON, WILLIAM LAWSON,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cotton_william_lawson_15E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Newspaperman; b. 23 July 1848 in New London, P.E.I., eldest son of Richard Cotton, a Bible Christian preacher, and Maria Lawson; m. 17 June 1874 Margaret Ellin Harris in Charlottetown, and they had four daughters, one of whom died in infancy, and four sons; d. there 31 March 1928.
    • William L. Cotton left school in New London at 16 to learn the printing and newspaper business in Charlottetown under the direction of John Ings, editor of the Islander. After two years in Halifax as a reporter for Edmund Mortimer McDonald’s Halifax Citizen in the early 1870s, he returned to Charlottetown, where in June 1873 he became editor and manager of the Examiner, owned by Jedediah Slason Carvell. Two years later he bought the paper and in 1877 he turned it into a daily, the first in Prince Edward Island. The move was a bold one, but a spirit of optimism was abroad in Charlottetown, and large homes and new public buildings were under construction. The boom did not last, but the Examiner did, and its main competitor, the Patriot, followed suit in becoming a daily in 1881. At least until 1901 Cotton continued to publish a weekly edition as well. In 1922 the Examiner was absorbed by the Charlottetown Guardian, with which it had been merged in 1915, and Will Cotton retired after having edited it for 49 years. However, he sat on the Guardian’s editorial board, and wrote a column for the paper, mostly essays in Island history that were brought together and republished in 1927 under the title Chapters in our Island story.
    •  He had continued the Examiner’s tradition of support for confederation established by its founder, Edward Whelan, and just a month after he became editor the Island entered the Canadian union. For four decades the Examiner was the only Conservative paper in Charlottetown, and Cotton himself was a lifelong Conservative, although the Guardian noted when he died that he maintained “a spirit of independence which at times made him restless under party discipline.” He was no reactionary, however, and he wrote early editorials urging free education, land reform, construction of the Prince Edward Island Railway “from Georgetown to Cascumpec,” and installation of an up-to-date water and sewage system in Charlottetown. Around 1880 the standard of coverage and commentary in the paper began to decline, but Cotton continued to take stands from time to time.
  • Second Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=11620
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/160845393/william-lawson-cotton