Ernest John Chambers (16 April 1862 – 11 May 1925) was a Canadian militia officer, journalist, author, and civil servant.

Biography

Chambers was born in

Penkridge Penkridge ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in South Staffordshire, South Staffordshire District in Staffordshire, England. It is to the south of Stafford, north of Wolverhampton, west of Cannock and east of Telford. ...

, England. He and his family moved to Montreal in 1870 where his father became headmaster of a British-Canadian school. He studied at Prince Albert School in

Saint-Henri Saint-Henri is a neighbourhood in southwestern Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the borough of Le Sud-Ouest. Saint-Henri is usually considered to be bounded to the east by Atwater Avenue, to the west by the town of Montreal West, to the north by Au ...

and the High School of Montreal. He was Captain of the Montreal High School Cadet Rifles. After graduation, he became a journalist with the

Montreal Daily Star ''The Montreal Star'' was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike. It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950s and remained the dominan ...

, where he covered the Frederick Dobson Middleton and the

North-West Rebellion The North-West Rebellion (french: Rébellion du Nord-Ouest), also known as the North-West Resistance, was a resistance by the Métis people under Louis Riel and an associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine of the District of S ...

of the

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...

people. From 1904–1925, he served as

Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod Black Rod (officially known as the Lady Usher of the Black Rod or, if male, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod) is an official in the parliaments of several Commonwealth countries. The position originates in the House of Lords of the Parliam ...

, the most senior protocol position in the

Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada (french: Parlement du Canada) is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, the ...

. In that role, he was the chief press censor of material during World War I where he censored passages that he perceived to be against the war effort including pacifist and socialist writings. His censorship efforts reflected a strong English-Canadian nationalism and tried to ban foreign language newspapers. After the war ended he continued in the position and with an increased mandate continued to censor material that had nothing to do with the war. During the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, he banned the Yiddish journal ''Volkstimme'' which supported the strikers. He died in Vaudreuil, Quebec in 1925 at the age of 63.

Works

* ''The Queen's Own Rifles Of Canada'', (1901) * ''The Montreal Highland Cadets'', (1901) * ''The Governor General's Bodyguard'', (1902) * ''The Duke of Cornwall’s Own Rifles'', (1903) * ''The Book Of Montreal:...Canada's Commercial Metropolis'', (1903) * ''The 5th Regiment, Royal Scots of Canada Highlanders'', (1904) * ''The Royal North-West Mounted Police: A Corps History'', (1906) * ''The Unexploited West'', (1914) Source:

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chambers, Ernest J. 1862 births 1925 deaths Canadian Militia officers 19th-century Canadian journalists English emigrants to Canada High School of Montreal alumni People from Penkridge Writers from Montreal Canadian newspaper journalists