Bulletin 12 (VI:2), 1968

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Robert Harris and The Fathers of Confederation

by Moncrieff Williamson

Pages  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  

Harris also charged the Government of the Dominion of Canada the sum of $1.50, "paid for packing same for transport."

Writing to his brother Edward, Harris referred to the purchase of the cartoon: "They would have liked me to repaint the burnt picture 'The Fathers of Confederation' but I couldn't see my way to undertaking it. The Government bought the original cartoon, which I made as a preparation for the picture and which has been rolled up ever since the completion of the painting. It is in Ottawa now, framed and glazed. It is 12 feet long and, of course, gives a pretty good idea of the lost painting." (32)

One would have thought that from then on Robert Harris would have been free of worries, but on 16 May 1917, Mr. Roy F. Fleming wrote to him pointing out the discovery, "by a careful examination of your charcoal cartoon of the Fathers of Confederation lately acquired by the Dom. Government, that the enclosed list of Fathers published by the Department of Education, Ontario has errors of identity ...the names have been mixed up in eight cases, as far as we have been able to ascertain. ..." (33) Harris answered as follows:

Dear Mr. Fleming,

Yours of the 16th as to the identity of the portraits in my burnt painting 'The Fathers of Confederation' just received. 1 return the cut with your corrections of the printed list. These corrections as marked by you are absolutely right. There is no doubt whatever about this. The names on the large charcoal cartoon of course show this, though I changed the places of two or three of the heads in carrying out the painting. I can't see how the names can have got so mixed.

There is another error in the printed list of names under the cut No. 7 Col. T. H. Gray P. E. I. should be Col. J. H. Gray P. E. I. Again No. 28 Col. J. H. Gray N. B. should be only J. H. Gray N. B. He was Chief Justice of B. C. later on. No. 7 the   P. E. I. Gray had been an officer in an English cavalry regt. Their Christian names John Hamilton were the same. This probably has led to the confusion. The head of the P. E. I. Gray in the cartoon is as he was at the conference wearing more beard than when 1 painted him. Both the cartoon and the painting 1 made excellent likenesses of him.

The hall is of course in the old building in Quebec which was burnt afterwards.

What a libel on my painting that cut I think our questions are all answered now.

I am
Yours sincerely,
Robert Harris.

In 1927, for Canada's Diamond Jubilee celebration, The Fathers of Confederation was reproduced in full colour for the Canadian National Railways menu card (fig. 7), complete with all the errors of identity mentioned in Mr. Fleming's letter. It was also widely published in the national press.

On 5 May 1930 Harris's nephew James Harris, a Charlottetown architect and custodian of the collection, wrote to Dr. A. G. Doughty(34) of the Public Archives to inform him that while searching through his uncle's papers he had found the key tracing for the original cartoon. "I find two changes," the letter continued, "apart from the windows, etc., that is, the two Newfoundland men, Carter and Shea, have been placed together in the background (Nos. 33 and 34 in the cartoon) and William Pope of P. E. I. and J. H. Gray of N.8. have been changed; Gray being behind Sir Chas. Tupper in the painting and Pope standing in the background, instead of reversed as in the cartoon." Dr. Doughty replied that he was "exceedingly obliged to you for sending the blueprint of the key of the picture painted by your uncle. This should enable us to settle the matter satisfactorily."

And so it did. But by this time, while most Canadian children could recite by rote the names of the Fathers, few indeed knew the name of the artist. On the C. N. menu card, not even his initials were given. As is often the case, the work was better known than its author.

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