Charles Dickson Archibald, F.R.S.

Stampless folded trans-Atlantic letter dated June 28, 1850, from London, England to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Addressed to C. D. Archibald, Esq, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cancelled B R 28 Jun 1850. Backstamp Halifax N.S. JY 11 1850. Manuscript notation inside flap, "Hill & Heald 1850 28 June" and "ans 21 July".

According to the Post Office London Directory 1850, Hill & Heald, solicitors had offices at 23 Throgmorten Street, London near the London Stock Exchange.

The contents are the last page of a multi-page business letter, which reads:

"…hundred pounds frighten you, as you may probably get back a considerable portion of your money.

You say nothing of the time of your return, are we to expect you in August as understood when you went away?

If you could get a short power of atty drawn up in Halifax authorizing anyone here to execute in your name the opt. of the 2 patents it might be desirable to send it.  Cochran’s English patent has date 2 June 1846 and his Scotch 12 June in same year,

We are Dear Sir

very truly yours

Hill & Heald

P.S. Having settled with Mr. Woodcroft for L40 and paid him before receipt of your letter enclosing a sealed letter for him we have thought it would be better not to send that letter forward."

The letter refers to the Cochran patents. John Webster Cochran was granted British and American patents for machinery for cutting and shaping wood for shipbuilding and other purposes, being Patent number: 11235 published: 2 June 1846. It is described as a "mill for sawing warped or curved surfaces" - a complex reciprocating sawmill that could rotate a log as it was cut and was intended for cutting ship parts. In 1848 Cochran was sued in Britain by James Hamilton, also of New York, who in 1843 had received British and American patents for a very similar machine. Cochran lost. In 1849, Cochran was granted an American (and probably a British) patent for a somewhat different reciprocating sawmill design; that patent listed Cochran's address as London, England.

Charles Dickson Archibald, lawyer and businessman was 48 years old when he received this letter from his solicitors in London. He was born on October 31st, 1802, at Truro, N.S., the eldest son of Judge Samuel George William Archibald and his wife Elizabeth Dickson. He died September 12th, 1868, at London, England.

Like his brothers Edward Mortimer and Thomas Dickson, Charles Dickson Archibald attended Pictou Academy, graduating about 1822. His mentor there was Thomas McCulloch, whom he was to support in the 1820s through the political controversies surrounding the repeated vetoing by the Legislative Council of the Nova Scotia assembly’s attempts to grant financial aid to the school. Archibald studied law in his father’s office in Truro and was elected in 1826 to the assembly representing Truro Township. Although his four-vote victory was challenged by William Flemming, his nearest rival, the election was subsequently upheld by a select committee of the assembly. At age 24, one of the youngest members of the house, Archibald was under the shadow of his father, then speaker and solicitor general. Unlike many other members of the Archibald-Dickson family, Charles Dickson tired of political life and did not contest the election of 1830; instead, he accepted an appointment as chief clerk and registrar of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland. He resigned from this post a year later to be succeeded by his brother Edward Mortimer Archibald.

On 18 Sept. 1832 Archibald married Bridget Walker, daughter of Myles Walker and heiress to Rusland Hall, a large estate in the parish of Colton, Lancashire, England. They had four daughters and one son, Charles William, who inherited this family property.

Throughout the remainder of his life, spent in England, Archibald maintained close ties with Nova Scotia and frequently visited the province. Between 1836 and 1838 he actively encouraged Thomas McCulloch to accept the presidency of Dalhousie College and advised the latter on the political maneuvering necessary to win this post. In 1840 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the first Nova Scotian to be accorded that honour. Archibald had a wide range of business interests: from helping to raise funds in the 1850s for the development of iron ore extraction at Acadia Mines (Londonderry), N.S., not far from his former home, to acting as lobbyist for Peto, Brassey, Jackson, and Betts, British railway promoters.

In 1851, when hopes for an intercolonial railway linking the Canadas and the Maritimes were revived, Archibald attended a conference in Toronto on the question with Joseph Howe and Edward Barron Chandler. On 21 June 1851, he addressed an open letter to Lord Elgin [Bruce], the governor general, pleading for a transcontinental railway from Halifax to the Pacific as part of a world-wide transportation network binding the British Empire together. In florid prose he argued: “on the one side are the countless millions of the Indian archipelago, China, India and Hindustan . . . on the other the overcrowded busy marts of Europe. The British possessions in North America lie midway and I believe that the day is not far distant when this great highway of nations will traverse our neglected territory as surely as a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.”

Archibald’s next foray in imperial affairs was in June 1854 when he directed two letters to the Earl of Clarendon, then foreign secretary. These were later published under the title A look toward the future of the British colonies. Fearing a breakup of the empire and the “territorial aggrandizement” of the United States, Archibald called for the creation of “indissoluble ties” with the mother country. These could be best achieved, he believed, by the crowning of “a prince of the blood royal” as viceroy of British North America. Unlike his close friend Joseph Howe, Archibald was opposed to any form of colonial representation in the British parliament. Instead, he urged the development of a loose form of imperial federation.

Hamilton, William B., ARCHIBALD, CHARLES DICKSON, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto, 1976