Dryden, John

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Ian M. Stewart, “DRYDEN, JOHN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dryden_john_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Farmer and politician; b. 5 June 1840 in Whitby Township, Upper Canada, son of James Dryden and Elizabeth Marsh; m. 1867 Mary Lydia Holman, daughter of a New York publisher, and they had three sons, two of whom died in infancy, and five daughters; d. 29 July 1909 in Toronto.
    • James Dryden was a native of Sunderland, County Durham, England, and in 1820, at the age of 14, he immigrated with his mother to Whitby Township. By the time of John Dryden’s birth, he had become a successful farmer and had turned his 200-acre property near the village of Winchester (Brooklin) into a local show-place, which he named Maple Shade Farm. In the 1850s he was a reeve and deputy reeve of the township. He was also prominent in business, having become president of the Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway and a director of the Ontario Bank. John came to share his father’s love of farming, liberalism, and business interests. After an education at the Whitby Grammar School, he took over management of the family farm. On his father’s death in 1881, he bought out the other heirs and became sole owner of Maple Shade.
    •  In 1879 he was elected to the Ontario legislature as Liberal member for Ontario South, and he would retain this constituency until 1905. Dryden’s prominence in agriculture, combined with his political ability, led Premier Oliver Mowat to make him minister of agriculture after Charles Alfred Drury was defeated in the election of 1890. The department’s responsibilities were exceptionally broad and, in addition to agriculture, included, at different times during Dryden’s ministry, immigration, factory inspection, mines, roads, and a bureau of industries that compiled useful statistics, many of them on agriculture in Ontario. As well as its own reports, the department published the reports of the wide array of agricultural organizations that operated under its aegis, among them farmers’ institutes and bodies devoted to entomology, dairying, bee-keeping, fruit-growing, and the raising of poultry and livestock.
    • As a politician, John Dryden was notable for his longevity: he represented Ontario South for 26 years, 15 of them as minister of agriculture. His political success was largely due to his personality and character; even his antagonists could occasionally find kind words for him. As a Baptist he attended to his obligations to church and society assiduously. His foes suspected political motives and saw him as a sly opportunist who pretended more virtue than he possessed and whose piety was mere sanctimony. As one of them put it in the Oshawa Vindicator in 1897, “He can do the prayer meeting smile and engineer as slick a political deal as anyone.” But such partisan opinion can be discounted in the light of Dryden’s contributions to the Baptist church and McMaster. Furthermore, his encouragement of innovation in agriculture and his efforts to improve the quality of products were frequently praised in the press, sometimes by his political opponents. Dryden was thus a strong and effective minister of agriculture who deserves credit for devising and implementing policies that helped carry Ontario through the shock induced by American protectionism.
  • Second Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=15654
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138563729/john-dryden