Goldsmith, Oliver

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Michael Gnarowski, “GOLDSMITH, OLIVER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/goldsmith_oliver_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Author and civil servant; b. 6 July 1794 in St Andrews, N.B., son of Henry Goldsmith and Mary Mason, and grandnephew of Oliver Goldsmith, the Anglo-Irish poet; d. unmarried 23 June 1861 in Liverpool, England.
    • Goldsmith was to hold various positions during a long career in the commissariat. It was interrupted in its early stage by visits to Liverpool, London, and Plymouth for much of 1817, and a circuitous return to Nova Scotia via New York, Boston, and Maine, where he was shipwrecked on Hat Island early in 1818. After his return he was posted first to Halifax, then transferred to New Brunswick in 1833, and, rising steadily in rank and responsibility, found himself ordered to Hong Kong in 1844. He served there until March 1848 and in October of that year was appointed to Newfoundland and he attained the rank of deputy commissary general in 1853. 
    • Goldsmith’s career as a writer seems to have followed a whimsical and sporadic course. He later noted that in 1822 he had dabbled in amateur theatre in Halifax, and that he had written some verse. The rising village, a narrative poem of 528 lines in pentameter couplet, was first published in 1825 in London. Goldsmith later wrote: “In my humble poem, I . . . endeavoured to describe the sufferings they [the loyalists] experienced in a new and uncultivated Country, the Difficulties they surmounted, the Rise and progress of a Village, and the prospects which promised Happiness to its future possessors.” It has become recognized as an important example of early Canadian verse as well as a valuable commentary on contemporary life and conditions in the Maritimes and an expression of the aspirations of a pioneer society.
    • Comparisons have always been made between this poem and the famed work of Goldsmith’s great-uncle, The deserted village. Goldsmith himself felt such comparisons were unfair, although he seems to have been making a response, certainly in spirit, to the earlier poem. 
    • Goldsmith’s Autobiography remained undiscovered until Reverend W. E. Myatt found it in the family papers and published it with valuable annotations in 1943. Only 24 pages in type, it seems to be a telescoped, and, in places, incorrectly remembered version of some events in Goldsmith’s busy and long life. It nevertheless provides interesting information on the life of a man who is widely regarded as Canada’s first native-born poet to write in English.
  • Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=3213
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/166890736/oliver-goldsmith