John Bassett descends from #42B Edward Charles Bassett as follows:
Edward Charles Bassett and wife Elizabeth Tough
John Bassett (b. 1886)
The Daily Mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Tuesday, 15 September 1925
Mr. John Bassett, Canada
John Bassett, who was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parents, 39 years ago, was educated at the Christian Brothers’ Schools of Ireland and the Royal University of Ireland. He came to Canada in 1909, and shortly after entered the employment of the Montreal “Gazette” as a junior reporter. After a period of four years, in 1913 he was taken into partnership in the capacity of a director of the Montreal Gazette Printing Company, and in 1920 was appointed vice president of the same company, of which Senator Smeaton White, of Montreal, is the president.
Mr. Bassett divides his time and his duties between Montreal, which is the head office of his newspaper, and Ottawa, which is the Federal capital of the Dominion. He maintains his residence in Ottawa, and although actively engaged in the business end of the newspaper and printing plant, has never given up his position as Parliamentary correspondent for the “Gazette”, to which he was appointed in 1911, and early in the present year was elected president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He is attending the Imperial Press Conference in his capacity as vice-president of the Montreal “Gazette” and also as president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery of Canada, which embraces many of the leading political writers of Canada.
During the war, he served in the capacity of Staff Major to Lieutenant General the late Sir Sam Hughes, K.C.B, Minister of Militia and Defense for Canada from 1911 to 1916. During the early days of the war, he was associated as Staff Officer with the late Sir Sam Hughes in the organization of not only the First Canadian Division, but also in the organization of the remaining three Divisions which eventually took the field, making up the Canadian Corps. At the present time, he is on the reserve of officers of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, and was decorated by the Belgian Government for certain war services rendered.