Did you know that one of the city’s narrowest streets is named after Edward Biggings, a former mayor and businessman? Who was he and why was a street named after him?
Edward Biggings was born in Cornwall, England, and his story is typical of many of the early immigrants who made their way from England to Canada to make a new life for themselves.
In the mid-1800s, England was facing problems caused by overpopulation and high unemployment. This situation left very few opportunities for many in England to be able to build a career and support themselves. Newspapers in England were full of advertisements about the abundance of land and opportunities available in Canada and encouraging people to move to Canada. Of course, some of these articles may have set expectations a little too high, so that when people arrived they found things more primitive than what they were used to in England.
Edward Biggings had lost seven uncles in the wars between Britain and France, so he was the last one left in his family. Deciding to start a new adventure, he left Cornwall in 1854, when he was just 24 years old.
He had a contract of employment for a businessman in Montreal. While on board, he befriended a young lady named Eliza Ann Hockridge from Plymouth who was traveling to Oshawa to live with her married sister. She mentioned that her brother-in-law hired men to work for the government. When Edward arrived in Montreal, he discovered that the business he had been hired to work for had gone bankrupt.
With no job and no other friends in Canada, Edward decided to travel to Oshawa to meet Eliza’s brother-in-law.
Through this contact, he was offered a job in Toronto and continued his friendship with Eliza and her family. Eliza and Edward married in April 1859 and moved to Bowmanville where he had been transferred for work. Although he now had a job, he was frustrated by the lack of opportunities for advancement in southern Ontario and so moved north, settling in Bruce Mines, which was a booming mining town at the time.
Eliza found the conditions in this mining town very primitive, compared to southern Ontario. After a series of disasters struck Bruce Mines and the mines located there, Edward Biggings moved his family to Sault Ste. Marie in 1869. They found life much more comfortable in their new home. Upon arrival at Sault Ste. Marie, Edward, and Eliza moved into the new “target’s” quarters and he assumed the role of Target Governor. They also joined the Methodist church and became active church members.
By 1877 Edward and Eliza wanted a house of their own, so Edward bought a piece of land on the north-east corner of Carney’s Lane and built the first house on that lane for his family, which included 13 children. This lane would later be renamed Biggings Avenue. Edward and Eliza suffered losses in their personal lives with one daughter and four sons dying before adulthood.
In 1855, Edward started a real estate business which was quite successful and he operated this business until he sold it in 1903. The coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway created a building boom in Sault Ste. Marie and Edward were able to take advantage of this as new people began to move into the area.
Edward entered the world of politics in 1888, when he was elected and served as Mayor for a term beginning in 1889. Elections were held every year, so he held that office for just one year before being kicked out. In 1897, he was once again elected to the office of Mayor and once again assumed the leadership of the city in 1898.
During his first term, Mayor Biggings championed some controversial issues. The first was a bylaw that would prohibit cattle from roaming unrestrained in city streets. A delegation of residents had come to the Municipal Council to protest the “garbage” left on their streets by the wandering cows. The owners of these cows strongly opposed this statute.
The second was a request for a $15,000 bond to build a new high school in town. There was considerable opposition to this proposed scheme and a public meeting was held on 27th August 1889. The Secretary of the School Board led a delegation which appeared before the Board to take a stand against this proposal. It took several years before the high school was finally built in the city and the cost ended up being much higher.
These were thought to be two of the main reasons why he was voted out of office for the first time after just one year. The city attorney, Henry C. Hamilton was voted in as mayor for the coming year.
Edward did not accept failure. He was described as a progressive thinker and “had to fight all his life to improve conditions in Sault Ste. Marie because people were never so quick to see the merits of his ideas.”
He had a goal he wanted to achieve for the people of Sault Ste. Marie and, although voted out of office after his first year, continued to support the establishment of a permanent hospital for the townspeople. Until this point, medical care was paid for by the indigent fund managed by the City Council. Therefore, over the next decade he visited Toronto and Ottawa, served on hospital committees and met with senior government officials to try to convince them of the need to establish a permanent hospital here in Sault Ste. Mary.
When he was once again elected mayor in 1897, all his hard work paid off and he was relieved to be able to officially lay the first stone of the permanent building that would become the General Hospital.
On April 16, 1885, he started a newspaper called The Algoma Pioneer. In the deed for the building housing the printing office, Edward Biggings is listed as Editor and he continued in that role for 27 years. Although the population was still quite small, Edward provided jobs for the young boys of the town to deliver the paper to homes and wrote most of the content himself. When the Sault Star began publication in 1901, The Pioneer was unable to compete and ceased production soon after.
It is fortunate that Edward Biggings did not accept his first political defeat and simply walked away from politics. His desire to see the city grow in size and strength meant that he continued to support the improvements that needed to be made, including a permanent hospital building erected for the people of Sault Ste. Mary.
Edward died in 1903 aged 72, but his wife Eliza lived many more years after his death, dying in 1928.
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