Alexander Fraser Pirie

Alexander Fraser Pirie was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Pirie's father was George Pirie (1799-1870), a native of Aberdeenshire, Scotland who had settled near Elora, Ontario in 1838. His mother was Jane Booth, a native of the Shetland Islands.

In 1848 George Pirie became the Publisher of the Guelph Herald newspaper. As a young man, Alexander assisted at his father's newspaper and job printing office on Wyndham Street in Guelph. After his father's death in 1870, Alexander, at 21 years of age, became Publisher of The Herald for two years. The Herald was later absorbed by The Guelph Mercury.

By 1874, Mr. Pirie was working at the Toronto Sun as a columnist. From a circa 1876 article: "The Sun...still retains one of the most fertile humorists in Canada in the person of Mr. Alexander Pirie, commonly known as the "Sun Skit Urchin." This gentleman, who is still very young, finds plenty of work for the scissors of his contemporaries in a daily column of "Sun Skits." They abound in reckless humor, sparing no one, and have just the pleasant bitterness of a dry curacoa. They have now flowed forth in an uninterrupted stream for nearly two years, and neither the supply nor quality shows any signs of falling off".

In 1876 Mr. Pirie joined the Toronto Evening Telegram. He was a popular editorial columnist, as well as social figure and public speaker. His written debates with Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald were published in the Toronto papers. He was best known as the second Editor of the Telegram, a role he held until 1888. The Telegram was founded in 1876 and during the 1880s was Toronto's largest circulated newspaper.

He married Hester Emma McCausland (1858-1901) in Toronto on June 12th, 1889. They moved to Dundas, Ontario, to raise their four children.

In February 1893, Mr. Pirie was elected president of the Canadian Press Association (Hamilton Spectator, Feb. 10, 1893). On August 3, 1900, Mr. Pirie was in London England, and sent a letter home. Back in Toronto, he spoke at the Fraternal Society in connection with the Bond street Congregational Church, presenting a lecture entitled - "An Editor's Holiday, or a First Peep at Europe". According to an undated review of this event - "...he described in humorous terms the pains and pleasures of a sea voyage, the first impressions of a visitor to the different cities in England, Ireland, Scotland, and France, the habits and customs of foreigners, and the difficulties and trials of a Canadian in foreign lands."

Mrs. Pirie died of pneumonia in 1901. In August 1903 Mr. Pirie visited relatives in Brandon, Manitoba. After his return to Dundas, he died at home on August 15th, 1903.

Information from FAG contributor M.I.Pirie