George Edward Desbarats

The late George Edward Desbarats was head of the well known printing firm of Desbarats & Company of Montreal, which, for many years has set the standard for all that is progressive in this field of business activity. He was a representative of a family that through many generations has been closely connected with the printing business, successive generations being in the vanguard of those who have been most active in bringing about the advancement and improvement in connection with the art preservative of arts. The History of Printing and Bookbinding in the State of Bearne gives account of Pierre Desbarats, bookseller from 1638, who established in 1651 the first printing office to have more than a transient existence in the state of Bearne; while Jean Desbarats, 1656 to 1687, was named printer to the Royal College of Bearne in 1662, printer to the Jesuit College at Pau in 1663 and printer to the King and the Royal College in 1680. Jean Desbarats, 1687 to 1714, was appointed King’s printer and printer to the Royal College in 1687. Isaac Desbarats, 1714 to 1737, was printer to the States of the Province of Bearne and on the 24th of December, 1719, was officially appointed to succeed Jean Desbarats as King’s printer. Parliamentary decree of April 27, 1730, admitted him to the ranks of the nobility as “Isaac Desbarats, King’s Printer, Seigneur de Labarthe Buisson.” Isaac Charles Desbarats, 1737-1787, was made printer to the King and to the States of the Kingdom of Navarre, September 20, 1737. He succeeded to the rank of Seigneur de Labarthe Buisson and was “Avocat au Parlement.” The printing establishment was inherited by Jeanne Desbarats but the government would not allow a woman to carry on the printing business and it had to be sold. The above indicates the close connection of the family with the printing business in France from 1638 to 1787. The family name has figured with equal prominence in Canada. Pierre Edouard Desbarats was named King’s printer January 27, 1800, and so continued until his death in 1828. His son, Georges Pascal Desbarats, father of George E. Desbarats of this review, succeeded his father and in 1844 was named Queen’s printer.

The family had been founded in Canada by Joseph Desbarats, who came to this country in 1756 and in 1761 married Marie Louise Crête at Beauport. He died in 1810. Their son, Pierre Edouard Desbarats, was married in September, 1798, to Josephte Voyer and at the time of his death, in 1828, was not only printer of His Majesty’s laws, but was also assistant clerk of the house, lieutenant colonel and justice of the peace. His son, Georges Pascal Desbarats, married Henriette Dionne, daughter of Hon. Amable Dionne. She died in 1839, while G. P. Desbarats passed away in 1864. He had succeeded his father in business and in 1844 was named Queen’s printer, in which connection he removed with the Government to Kingston, Toronto and Quebec as the government was successively established in those cities. He was also lieutenant colonel of militia.

George Edward Desbarats was born at Quebec, April 5, 1838, and in the attainment of his education attended Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1846 to 1851; St. Mary’s College at Montreal from 1852 until 1855 and Laval University at Quebec from 1855 until 1857. He won the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws and thoroughly qualified for the bar. He studied with the Hon. Jean Thomas Taschereau in 1857 and with the law firm of Bethune & Dunkin in Montreal. He was received at the bar of Lower Canada in 1859 and was offered a partnership in the firm of Laflamme & Laflamme but declined in order to enter his father’s printing office, in which connection he remained in Quebec until 1865, when he went to Ottawa which had been made the new seat of government. In Quebec he published several volumes of original French-Canadian literature, among which were: Le Foyer Canadien in three volumes, eleven hundred and thirty-six pages; La Littérature Canadienne, in two volumes, seven hundred and eighty pages; Essais Poétiques, Lemay, in one volume, three hundred and twenty pages; Les Anciens Canadiens, P. A. de Gaspe, in one volume, four hundred and twelve pages; Mémoires de M. de Gaspe in one volume, five hundred and sixty pages; Canadians of Old (English) in one volume, three hundred and thirty pages; Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, L’Abbé H. R. Casgrain, in one volume, four hundred and sixty pages; Vies des Saints, Abbé Casgrain, in one volume, seven hundred and fifty pages; Lives of the Saints (English) in one volume, seven hundred and fifty pages; Chansons Populaires du Canada, Ernest Gagnon, in one volume, three hundred and seventy-five pages; Contes Populaires, Paul Stevens, in one volume, two hundred and sixty-five pages; Traité d’Art & d’Histoire Militaire, L. T. Sugor, in one volume, four hundred and seventy-two pages; Instructions Chrétiennes pour les Jeunes Gens, in one volume, three hundred and twenty pages; and Le Protestantisme, Etc., Abbé Guillaume, five hundred and fifty pages.

On removing to Ottawa in 1865 Mr. Desbarats occupied a building erected for this purpose which was begun during his father’s lifetime and belonged to the estate. Malcolm Cameron, who had been Queen’s printer with the father of George Edward Desbarats after the death of Stewart Derbishire, held the patent alone from 1864 to 1869 and was G. E. Desbarats’ partner in the printing business. The building erected there in Ottawa was one of the largest business blocks of the city at that time. It was in this building that the Hon. Thomas D’Arcy McGee lodged in company with Sir Hector Langevin and others on the occasion of his atrocious assassination and it was upon the place where the murder occurred that Mr. Desbarats caused to be erected a memorial tablet. This, it has been supposed gave offence to a certain lawless element in the population, resulting in the destruction of the noble pile of buildings by the incendiary’s torch. After the destruction of the building by fire on the 21st of January, 1869, it was not rebuilt. The Cartier-Macdonald government was then in power and gave out the Gazette, laws, etc., to public competition. G. E. Desbarats was appointed Queen’s printer and charged with making the schedules, getting the tenders and adjudging the contracts. He held the office for about a year and then resigned to remove to Montreal, where he had large interests in a lithographic and photo-engraving business which he had established there in connection with the Leggo Brothers. The fire of January 21, 1869, destroyed the complete first edition of Les Oeuvres de Champlain, which G. E. Desbarats was publishing at that time, the compiler and annotator being L’Abbé Laverdiere, librarian of Laval University. Not only was the manuscript destroyed but also the electrotype plates and illustrations. The only copy saved was that in proof sheets in Mr. Laverdiere’s hands. Mr. Desbarats determined to republish the work at once. The second edition was printed direct from the type, being limited to one thousand copies. The six volumes, which are quarto, contain some sixteen hundred and fifty pages and are copiously illustrated with facsimiles of the original charts, maps and cuts produced by the Leggotype process. This great work was published by G. E. Desbarats in 1870 and is considered the finest book issued so far from the Canadian Press. He was also the publisher, in Ottawa, of H. J. Morgan’s Bibliotheca Canadensis.

At the fire in Ottawa G. E. Desbarats’ net loss was over one hundred thousand dollars. The estate also lost heavily on the building, which was only partly insured. At a meeting of citizens an address of sympathy was voted to Mr. Desbarats and afterwards presented to him, handsomely engrossed, bearing the city seal, signed by the mayor and others and framed.

In 1869 G. E. Desbarats built a printing office on St. Antoine Street, Montreal, and there founded The Canadian Illustrated News, the first number of which was issued on October 30, of that year, with Alexander Robertson as the first editor and E. Jump as chief artist. The illustrations were at first photo-electrotypes produced by the Leggotype process. In 1870 Mr. Desbarats founded a French companion paper to the Canadian Illustrated News called L’Opinion Publique, a twelve-page paper, the illustrations in which were for the most part the same as those in the English weekly. The editors were J. A. Mousseau and L. O. David. Among the contributors to its pages were P. J. O. Chauveau, L. H. Frechette, Joseph Marmette, J. A. Poisson, Benjamin Sulte, W. Gelinas, Joseph Tassé and many other distinguished French-Canadian writers. By arrangement with Ferdinand Gagnon, L’Opinion Publique absorbed L’Etendard National of Worcester, Massachusetts.

In May, 1871, Mr. Desbarats became proprietor of a weekly literary paper named The Hearthstone. The editorial work of The Hearthstone was performed by J. A. Phillips. Mr. Desbarats owned and conducted The Dominion Telegraph Institute which had been started by Churchill, continuing this for two years, during which time were sent out many capable telegraph operators now at the head of their profession. In 1872 he organized the Graphic Company to publish a daily illustrated paper in the city of New York. This was the first illustrated daily ever published and it came to end in about a year, being too far ahead of its time and lacking the necessary capital. Still the field of his activity and usefulness constantly broadened, and at all times he was in the lead among those who have wrought for advancement and progress in connection with the printing and publishing business. In March, 1873, he founded The Canadian Patent Office Record and Mechanics Magazine, a quarto monthly of thirty-two pages devoted to engineering, manufacturing, mining and other industrial pursuits. With each number was issued the official patent office record, the whole amply illustrated, the two parts together forming a book of from sixty to eighty pages monthly, the subscription price to which was only a dollar and a half a year.

In 1873 it was thought advisable to form a stock company to carry on the Canadian publications and the general Montreal engraving and printing business. The Desbarats Lithographic & Publishing Company was therefore organized by G. E. Desbarats, W. P. Hussey, Luke Moore, William Angus, Jonathan Hodgson, Alexander Buntin and Daniel MacLellan as provincial directors; G. E. Desbarats and W. P. Hussey as managers. In April, 1874, Mr. Desbarats entered into negotiations with G. B. Burland with a view to amalgamating the two concerns and formed The Burland-Desbarats Lithographing Company, from which he retired in 1876. He then opened a small office in the old postoffice building and in 1878 moved to larger premises and laid the foundation of the present Desbarats Printing Company, one of the most important establishments of this character in the Dominion. In 1879 G. E. Desbarats joined with Notman & Sandham in organizing The Artotype Printing Company and went himself to New York to learn the artotype work.

In 1884 W. C. Smillie, founder and first president of The British American Bank Note Company entered into negotiations with G. E. Desbarats & Company to revive the Canada Bank Note Company which absorbed G. E. Desbarats & Company’s business and in which G. E. Desbarats and H. Drechsel were appointed managers. In 1887 Mr. Desbarats admitted his son, William, to a partnership and together they published the Dominion Illustrated, a weekly illustrated paper which also had to be discontinued for lack of capital. Half-tone engraving was then in its infancy and Mr. Desbarats was the first to introduce it into Canada. The process was largely used in the Dominion Illustrated and a photo-engraving plant was installed to meet the paper’s requirements. While all days were not equally bright in his career and indeed in his business experience he saw the gathering of clouds that threatened disastrous storms, yet his rich inheritance of energy, determination and initiative enabled him to turn defeat into victory and promised failures into brilliant successes. His strict integrity, business conservatism and judgment were always so universally recognized that he enjoyed public confidence to an enviable degree and naturally this brought him a lucrative patronage. In early manhood he showed conspicuously the traits of character that made his life brilliantly successful and his mental and physical activity, combined with thorough training, brought him to an eminent position as a representative of the printing and publishing business in Canada.

The business career of Mr. Desbarats with its steps of successive advancement has been given but what of the man and his personality? All who remember him speak of him as of the highest type of gentlemen, his kindly nature and courteous manner winning for him many warm friends. Even now, twenty years after his demise, his old employes mention him with the greatest respect and love. It has been said that there is no better way to judge an individual than by his treatment of those in his employ. Judged by this standard, no man has been more worthy of regard. While in Ottawa his employes presented him a silver goblet and tray as a mark of esteem. The employes of the Canadian Illustrated News presented him with two bronze statues and a necklace for Madame Desbarats and the employes of the Canada Bank Note Company presented him a water pitcher when he severed his connection with that company.

Aside from his extensive printing and engraving business Mr. Desbarats was deeply interested in all that pertained to the city’s welfare, and those things which are a matter of civic virtue and civic pride received his indorsement and cooperation. He took great interest in the Montreal Philharmonic Society of which he was one of the directors. He was captain in the Civil Service Rifle Regiment, of a company composed entirely of men in his employ. During the smallpox epidemic in Montreal in 1885 he was chairman of the citizens’ relief committee and took a leading part in the establishing of a temporary hospital at the exhibition grounds. His political allegiance was given to the conservative party but he took no active part in politics. In religious faith he was a Roman Catholic and in 1867 was president of the Société St. Jean Baptiste in Ottawa.

On the 30th of April, 1860, G. E. Desbarats was married to Miss Lucianne Bossé, eldest daughter of Joseph N. Bossé, advocate who was afterward senator and subsequently judge. Mr. and Mrs. Desbarats were married in Quebec and they became the parents of five sons and two daughters. George J., born January 27, 1861, and now deputy minister in the naval service, married Miss L. Scott, a daughter of Sir Richard Scott. William A., born February 14, 1862, is president of the Desbarats Printing Company, Limited. Edward S. C., born April 24, 1863, is president of the Desbarats Advertising Agency and married Miss M. A. MacCallum, daughter of Dr. D. C. MacCallum. Lucianne, born August 10, 1864, married Lord de Blaquière. Cecile is superior of the Convent of the Sacred Heart at New Orleans, Louisiana. Alexander died in childhood; and C. H. Hullett married Miss J. Henkels of Philadelphia. He is the secretary and treasurer of the Desbarats Printing Company. He and his brother, William, succeeded to the business upon their father’s death and it has since been organized into a joint stock company.

Such in brief is the life history of one who had much to do with shaping the development of the printing and engraving business in Canada. His was largely the initiative spirit that brought about improvement and advancement in methods of printing and of illustration. He ever maintained the highest standards, was quick to adopt any new methods which his judgment sanctioned as of value, and he largely set the standards that others have followed. His life continued one of increasing activity, usefulness and of public benefit to the time of his death which occurred in 1892.