Pringle, William Allen

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Ramsay Cook, “PRINGLE, WILLIAM ALLEN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/pringle_william_allen_12E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Teacher, farmer, apiarist, free thinker, and pamphleteer; b. 1 April 1841 in Richmond Township, Upper Canada, second son of Lockwood Pringle and Sarah McNeill (McNeal); m. first 1869 Grace Agnes Pratt (d. 1872); m. secondly 2 July 1873 Emma Grace McLeod, and they had one daughter, Grace; d. 22 July 1896 in Selby, Ont.
    • William Allen Pringle, known throughout his life as Allen, came from a prominent family whose loyalist forebears had served in the King’s Rangers before settling in the Cataraqui (Kingston) area of Upper Canada. Allen’s father, like many of his ancestors, combined farming with religious work, serving as a licensed Methodist preacher in the Selby area in the 1860s. 
    • By 1871 he had taken over his father’s farm in Richmond Township on the western side of the village. He farmed that property for the next 25 years. Pringle’s agricultural pursuits were varied, but he was especially known as a beekeeper. In 1885, when David Allanson Jones began publishing the Canadian Bee Journal in Beeton, Ont., Pringle became a frequent correspondent. There, and in other agricultural journals, he demonstrated his wide knowledge of practical bee-keeping, commenting on such matters as hives, swarming, frames, markets, queens, workers, and drones. Occasionally he used these articles to propagate his belief in the evolutionary hypothesis of Charles Darwin, “the greatest naturalist, living or dead – that the world has ever produced.” 
    • Support for the Patrons’ political movement was a logical enough conclusion to Pringle’s career, for his entire life had been characterized by support for unconventional and even radical ideas. But his nonconformity related much more to religious than to political questions. He was something of a village philosopher who for nearly two decades, beginning in the 1870s, played a leading role in disseminating the ideas of the free-thought movement. He played the role with zest, pugnacity, and a very considerable intellectual acumen.
    • Those pamphlets demonstrated Pringle’s zeal for the secularist cause and his love of intellectual combat, combat which he preferred to conduct in print for he was not an effective platform performer. Moreover, these works established him as one of the leaders of the free-thought movement in Canada. In 1882 he displayed an astonishing knowledge of British political and religious controversy in The “Mail’s” theology, a defence of Bradlaugh against an attack in a Toronto newspaper.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6785
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/132935923/william-allen-pringle