- DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Peter E. Paul Dembski, “RYERSON, GEORGE ANSEL STERLING,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ryerson_george_ansel_sterling_15E.html
- DCB profile notes:
- Physician, teacher, militia and army officer, politician, author, and businessman; b. 21 Jan. 1855 in Toronto, only son of George Ryerson and Isabella Dorcas Sterling; m. first 14 Nov. 1882 Mary Amelia Crowther (d. 1915) in Toronto, and they had four sons and one daughter; m. secondly 8 June 1916 Elizabeth Van Hook Mann, née Thomas (d. 1924) in Buffalo, N.Y.; they had no children; d. 20 May 1925 in Toronto.
- George Sterling Ryerson was born into one of Upper Canada’s most renowned families and emerged as an archetypal Toronto Tory. His grandfather Joseph Ryerson had been a distinguished loyalist, and his father, George, brother of the more famous Egerton, was a notable clergyman who had left the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada for the millennialist Catholic Apostolic Church, of which he served as head in North America from 1837 to 1872.
- George Jr displayed his independence as well as his conservative instincts by opting for membership in the Church of England. He was, however, grateful to his parents for an education that was extraordinary by the standards of the day. Ryerson entered Trinity Medical School in Toronto, where he obtained an mb in 1875 (md 1876). He then undertook further academic work in Edinburgh, Paris, London, Vienna, and Heidelberg, Germany.
- Ryerson returned to Toronto in 1880 to begin his practice and soon established himself as a leading oculist. That year he was appointed professor of eye, ear, and throat diseases at Trinity Medical School, launching a teaching career which would continue until 1918. Also in 1880 he became surgeon at the Andrew Mercer Eye and Ear Infirmary in the Toronto General Hospital. Ryerson was responsible for a number of innovations in Canadian medicine such as a recognition of the perils of colour blindness.
- In 1892 Ryerson had been appointed an honorary associate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England (he would become a knight of grace in 1901); in 1895, under its auspices and with the support of Lieutenant Governor George Airey Kirkpatrick, he created the St John Ambulance Association in Ontario, an organization he guided as general secretary for 15 years. Ryerson was also instrumental in founding the Canadian Red Cross Society in 1896, became its commissioner to the Canadian forces in South Africa in 1900, and succeeded John Morison Gibson as its president in 1914. During World War I his experience was again put to use: in 1915 he was sent overseas to investigate the needs of hospitals and make a survey of Red Cross work.
- Ryerson shared with many prominent Tories in Toronto a fervent devotion to loyalist origins which caused him in 1896 to launch the United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario, of which he became second president. For him the loyalists of the American revolution had constituted a natural ruling elite, representing, in historian Moses Coit Tyler’s words, a “very considerable portion of the most refined, thoughtful and conscientious people in the colonies.”
- Ryerson had contributed significantly to the progress of medicine, especially military medicine, in Canada. A paradigm of Toronto Toryism, his political, economic, and social outlook gave him a comfortable life, status, and opportunities for attainments. This outlook was, however, marked by an elitism, racism, and religious intolerance that lessened his moral stature.
- Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7251
- Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/40710084/george_sterling_ansel-ryerson
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