Henry James Morgan
Henry James Morgan (November 14, 1842 – December 27, 1913) was a Canadian civil servant, lawyer, author and editor. He is best known for publishing collections of biographical sketches of notable Canadians.
He was born in Quebec City to Robert Morgan, a Scottish Napoleonic Wars veteran, and Mary Ann Proctor. His father died in 1846. Morgan began working as a page in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in 1853 and wrote for newspapers in the late 1850s. From 1860 to 1864 he was a sessional clerk for the assembly, and he later served as private secretary to Isaac Buchanan and then William McDougall.
After Confederation, he worked as a clerk for the Department of the Secretary of State. He studied law at McGill and was admitted to the Quebec and Ontario bars in 1873. That year he was promoted to first-class clerk and put in charge of state records, and he became chief clerk in 1875. In 1888 he was demoted after an accusation of misappropriation, but he was later cleared. He retired from the civil service in 1895.
Morgan married Emily Richards in 1873, and they had three sons and a daughter.
As an author and editor, Morgan published Sketches of celebrated Canadians (1862) and was editor of the Canadian Parliamentary Companion (1862–1876). In 1867 he published Bibliotheca canadensis, a guide to Canadian biographies and authors. He helped produce The Dominion Annual Register and Review (1878–1886) and published The Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1898). He was a founder of the Canada First movement and, in 1904, was named to the Royal Society of Canada. He died in Brockville, Ontario, at age 71 and is buried in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. In 2016 he was named a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:51 (CET).