Walter Robert Nursey (1846-1927)

Journalist, librarian.

Born in England, he served in the Royal Navy then was a civil servant in India before coming to Canada in 1864, intending to farm. He worked at a bank in Upper Canada [Ontario] for a time, then traded in the Rainy River district. He worked briefly for the Hudson's Bay Company then accompanied Col. Dennis and Alexander Morris in aboriginal treaty negotiations in Western Canada. He was justice of the peace for the Keewatin District from 1875 to 1877, then served as Manitoba’s deputy minister of agriculture in 1878 and provincial auditor from 1879 to 1889. He was a founding member of the Manitoba Historical Society. A reporter for the Winnipeg Herald and the Winnipeg Times, he co-authored Ten Years in Winnipeg (1879) with Alexander Begg. He constantly tried to start new newspapers in Winnipeg. In 1908 he published a biography of Isaac Brock. He was appointed inspector of Ontario libraries in 1910. He died at Toronto on 14 March 1927.

More information:

Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B8, page 91, obituary for W. R. Nursey.

Sources:

Ontario death registration, Ancestry.

“W. R. Nursey Was Prominent Here in Early Days” Manitoba Free Press, 4 February 1927 [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B8]

Profile revised: 23 January 2010

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