Memorable Manitobans: Percy Criddle (1844-1918)

Farmer, eccentric.

Born in London, England, the son of a woman who was a well-known painter, he was educated at the University of Heidelberg and trained in music. Inept in business, he immigrated to Manitoba with his families (an English wife and a German mistress, plus two sets of children) in 1882, homesteading at Aweme. Criddle spent the remainder of his life farming in Manitoba, although a large number of children gradually enabled him to devote most of his time to more gentlemanly pursuits, such as organ playing, composing, and amateur science. For 35 years he was a self-conscious diarist, and his diary is one of the most revealing documents of the pioneering period in Manitoba.

Father of Norman Criddle and Stuart Criddle.

A copy of Criddle’s correspondence and diaries are in the Archives of Manitoba.

See also:

The Criddle Family by Lillian Gibbons
Manitoba Pageant, Volume 6, Number 2, January 1961.

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Criddle-Vane Homestead (RM of South Cypress)

Criddle-de-Diddle-Ensis: A Biographical History of the Criddles of Aweme, Manitoba Pioneers of the 1880s by Alma Criddle (1973).

Pioneers of Manitoba by Robert Harvey (1970).

Sources:

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 25 August 2011

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