Silver, William Chamberlain

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: David A. Sutherland, “SILVER, WILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/silver_william_chamberlain_13E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Merchant and philanthropist; b. 3 Dec. 1814 in Preston, N.S., eldest son of William Nyren Silver and his first wife, Elizabeth Ann Chamberlain, daughter of Theophilus Chamberlain; m. 2 Sept. 1840, in Halifax, Margaret Ann Etter, daughter of Benjamin Etter, and they had 13 children; d. 23 Feb. 1903 in Halifax.
    • William Chamberlain Silver’s father, the son of an Anglican cleric, left his home in Hampshire, England, as a youth to become an apprentice with a London silk mercer. Drawn overseas by the bustle of war, he settled at Halifax in 1805 and later went into business as a dry-goods retailer. His firm apparently collapsed during the economic dislocation which followed the Napoleonic Wars but Silver persisted and, in the early 1830s, reappeared as a shopkeeper. Young William began working as a clerk for his father and in 1840 was admitted as a partner. Reorganized in the 1840s as W. and C. Silver when William’s brother Charles joined the partnership, the firm grew into a leading Halifax wholesaler.
    • That criticism probably related to William Silver’s zeal for involvement in community affairs. He first displayed this tendency early in the 1830s when he became a founding member of Halifax’s pioneer temperance organization, the Halifax Temperance Society. His commitment to temperance proved a lasting one and led a half-century later to his election as grand worthy patriarch of the Sons of Temperance. Silver had other enthusiasms, in particular the Church of England. In the 1860s, after the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel withdrew its financial subsidies from Nova Scotia, Silver volunteered to tour the province on a money-raising campaign. Successful in setting up the Church Endowment Fund, he became its long-term chairman. 
    • Silver also became active in education. For example, in 1878, as president of the Halifax School Association, he played the major role in the founding of the city’s first public high school. Although largely self-taught, he possessed considerable intellectual curiosity, which he exhibited by becoming an original member and later an executive officer of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science.
    • Silver was also concerned with the more material aspects of “progress.” For example, he acted as president of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce for 11 years, and in that capacity spoke out with “rugged eloquence” for such things as lower railway freight rates and improved docking facilities in Halifax Harbour.
  • Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1389
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/160697391/william-chamberlain-silver