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- John Bassett’s Forty Years in Politics, Publishing, business and sports.
By Maggie Siggins (Excerpts)
The Bassetts settled in the pretty town of Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to raise their eight offspring. John was born in February 1886, the younger of two sons. Edward was the managing law clerk in the firm of Messrs. Dickie and Carson. Although he was not a wealthy man, the family managed, and John got an excellent education.
From 1902 to 1905, Edward Bassett sat as a member of the Omagh Urban Council. He represented the Loyalist Party, which advocated continuing union with Great Britain, John Bassett Senior would remain as ardent a supporter of the mother country as any immigrant who set foot in Canada, and his son would become a firm Anglophile. Both remained staunch Conservatives always – political philosophies are well rooted in the Bassett family.
The family attended the First Omagh Presbyterian Church. In the same profile on Sir Sam, Bassett Senior wrote of this religion: “An Irish Protestant is always a Puritan. And Irish Puritanism is worse than the type of Scotch Presbyterianism in ‘Bunty Pulls the String.’ It not only states that ‘whistling on the Sawbeth’ is perilous to proper salvation but defines dancing as an ungodly shaking of the limbs. Compromise is a thing accursed.’
Edward Bassett, however, was not of the traditional mould. He believed that “the only solution for Ireland lay in better understanding between Catholics and Protestant elements.” In a most extraordinary move, he sent his son John to the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic establishment, for five “extremely happy” years. Bassett Senior developed a great affection for Catholics which he retained for the rest of his life.
He passed the fine arts examination at the Royal University, a purely examining body. Then for the term 1906-1906 he took classed in the Faculty of Law at Queen’s College in Belfast. Edward Bassett died in 1907 at the age of fifty-six. He left a third of his estate – valued at £484 – to his eldest child Lily. The rest was for the education of the remaining offspring. His wife had passed away some years before.
After the death of his father, finances were not available for further study. And John quickly realized that an ambitious, good-looking young man with a golden tongue could do a lot better for himself in the new world. In 1909, at the age of twenty-three, he arrived in Montreal.
(CMC) He was 28 and she was 20 at the time of their marriage.
Notable Canadian Families: The Canada-Ulster Heritage Site
John Bassett
John Bassett was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ireland on February 7, 1886. He was educated at the Royal University of Ireland and came to Canada in 1909. He joined the staff of the Montreal Gazette. At the onset of World War I, John joined the Army and attained the rank of Major; The Belgian Government decorated him. At the end of the war he returned to the Gazette and became its Director at the age of 27, made Vice-president at age 23 and President at age 51; In 1956 he became Chairman of the Board. He was the Gazette's "Parliamentary Correspondent" from 1911-1926 (with the except of 1914-1918;) He was also the owner and President of "The Sherbrooke Daily Record." John married Margaret Avery of Ottawa in 1914; They had on son, John White Hughes Bassett born August 25, 1915.
John (Senior) was governor of Bishop's University from 1937-1950 and then became its Chancellor until his death on February 12, 1959. His son, John Bassett (Junior) purchased the Sherbrooke Daily Record from his father in 1946. He later joined "The Toronto Telegram" as its Advertising Director, becoming tis General Manager in 1951. He purchased "The Tely" with a group of associates in 1952; He served in World War II and became a Major in the Canadian Forces overseas.
Later, John Bassett Junior gained control of Baton Broadcasting Inc. Toronto; He was chairman of Inland Publishing Co. Ltd., Chairman CKLW Radio (Windsor), CFGO Radio (Ottawa), CFQC-TV and CFQC Radio (Saskatoon), CFTO-TV (Toronto) and CTV-TV Ltd. (Toronto).
The Bassett family has made a tremendous contribution to the media in Canada.
Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, Feb. 13, 1958
Montreal Gazette Chief John Bassett, 72, Dead
(Article also includes a picture)
Montreal, Feb. 13 - (CP) - John Bassett, 72, chairman of the board of directors of the Gazette Printing Co. Ltd., died last night in hospital.
He had been chairman of the board since March, 1956, and president from 1937.
Mr. Bassett won success as readily as he won friends. A cub reporter for the Montreal Gazette in 1910, he was Ottawa correspondent for the paper a year later. In 1913, at the age of 27, he was named to the board of directors of the Gazette Printing Co.
He interrupted his newspaper career to serve overseas during World War I, rising to the rank of major and winning the Belgian governments Ordre de Reconneissance.
Was Ottawa Correspondent
During 15 years as Ottawa correspondent he became president of the parliamentary press gallery in 1925-26 and was Canadian delegate to the third imperial press conference in Australia in 1925.
As president of the Gazette Co. he steered it through the difficult late depression years and World War II, and into rapid expansion since the war.
Shortly after he became president, an automobile accident complicated a serious hip ailment and forced him to use a wheelchair and crutches for the rest of his life.
Born at Omagh, county Tyrone, Northern Ireland, Feb. 7, 1886, he was one of eight children. He came to Canada in 1909 and joined the Gazette after a stint as teacher in a French-speaking school to make him bilingual.
Friend of Laurier
In 1936, Mr. Bassett personally acquired controlling interest in the Sherbrooke Record, which he sold to his son, John Jr., in 1946. His son went on to become chairman and publisher of the Toronto Telegram.
Other survivors include his wife, formerly Marion Wright Avery of Ottawa, whom he married in 1914, and his daughter, Elizabeth, Mrs. Baldwin Smith of Buffalo.
Funeral service is to be held here tomorrow at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, at 2 p.m.
His friends and close acquaintances ranged from Sir Wilfrid Laurier to Premier Maurice Duplessis of Quebec, whom he described as "one of Canada's greatest sons."
The Telegram, Toronto, Thurs. Feb. 13, 1958
Publisher John Bassett Dies at 72 (includes picture)
MONTREAL - John Bassett, chairman of the Montreal Gazette, died yesterday at the age of 72 after an illness of several weeks.
Funeral service will be held at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal at 2 p.m. tomorrow.
The body is resting at Joseph C. Wray Funeral Parlor. Burial will be in the Protestant cemetery at Knowlton, Que.
Mr. Bassett was a dedicated newspaperman with this belief: "People look not only to the pulpit but to the newspaper to guide them."
Mr. Bassett, whose thinking remained youthful, delighted in guiding young people and once told a student group:
"Do not always be chasing security. Do some adventuring, gamble a little with your future, live somewhat dangerously or, in other words, take a chance. Security is a reward, not an escape."
Born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on Feb. 7, 1886, he was one of a family of eight.
His father, Edward Bassett, was a native of Dublin. His mother was Scottish.
At the age of 23, John Bassett left home for a new life in Canada.
His first position was as a reporter on the old Montreal Witness.
After four months he decided that a Canadian should be as fluent in French as in English, and with this object he did a year's stint as a teacher of English in a French college.
In 1918, John Bassett was cub reporter on the Montreal Gazette. By 1937 he had become its president and managing director and led the 186-year old paper to its greatest heights.
At the helm of the Gazette he showed equal interest and capacity in both the business and journalistic sides.
It used to be said that he was an equally good critic of a sheet of copy or a balance sheet.
While developing the Gazette on sound business lines, he was always quick to note the quality of writing and to express appreciation to the writer of any particularly good report that had appeared in the paper.
CHAIRMAN OF BOARD
After 19 years as president, John Bassett resigned to become chairman of the board a few weeks after his 70th birthday.
Mr. Bassett maintained active interest in the affairs of the Gazette until his recent illness.
He went daily to his office and in December presided as chairman over the monthly meeting of the board of directors to which he had been elected in 1913.
Even from his hospital bed he kept in touch with his newspaper by telephone, showing an undiminished interest in all that was taking place.
His vibrant spirit had sustained him through a crippling disability, taxing even to his fine courage.
A motor accident in 1940 had aggravated a serious hip ailment and often caused him acute pain.
Though he had always been a man of exceptional physical energy and briskness, from then on he had to move about on crutches or in a wheelchair.
He refused to view his condition as a tragedy. Instead it was only an adversity to be faced - and surmounted.
He refused to curtail his activities. Not only did he carry on his work in his office as before but he assumed heavy responsibilities in the life of the community and the country.
He continued to accept invitations as a public speaker. He often insisted on speaking while standing, though he had to support his weight with his arms resting on the table or lectern.
On one occasion during a Toronto speech, Mr. Bassett's arms slipped from the lectern and he fell heavily. But, lifted to his feet, he finished his address to the admiration of his audience.
His qualities of gallantry, alertness and gaiety, seemed to flourish even more after his serious incapacity.
In June, 1956, when a plaque in his honor was unveiled by Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, Mr. Bassett attended in a wheelchair.
The plaque was a tribute to his continued aid and encouragement to the Jewish hospital.
A Presbyterian, he always pleaded for - and practiced - religious tolerance and was active in fund-raising for institutions of all faiths.
After one such campaign for Loyola College in Montreal, he told the students and faculty that he owed much to the Roman Catholic Church in his youth.
His father, believing that "the only solution for Ireland lay in better understanding between Catholic and Protestant elements," had sent him to a Christian Brothers school "for five happy years." Later, he studied at the University of London.
AIDE TO SAM HUGHES
Mr. Bassett interrupted his newspaper career to serve as a staff officer to Lt Gen Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defence, in World War I. He rose to the rank of major and was awarded the Ordre de Reconnaissance by Belgium.
As staff officer, John Bassett had his part in the rapid organization of the camp at Valcartier. He saw the first men arrive, still in their civilian clothes, from all parts of Canada.
He was on the inside of many of the wartime controversies and was present when Sir Sam Hughes asserted the rights of his "Canadian boys" before the Duke of Connaught and later before Lord Kitchener.
Except for the war period, Mr. Bassett represented the Gazette as its Ottawa resident correspondent from 1911 to 1926. Looking bak on those days, he recently recalled:
"Ottawa was a very different city than it is today. Rockcliffe was then very far away to visit in a horse-drawn cab, before the days of taxis. The Russell House was the chief hotel, for the Chaueau Laurier was not then built. The Russell Theatre stood behind the Russell Hotel, on what is now Conferderation Square. It was there I saw Sarah Bernhard and other famous people on the stage. Cartier Square was then an open space with only the drill hall on it. As a junior lieutenant with the Governor-General's Foot Guards, I drilled there two or three times a week."
VIVID REPORTS
As Parliamentary correspondent, John Bassett attracted attention by the liveliness and vividness of his reporting.
He won Sir Wilfrid Laurier's praise for the correctness with which he reported Laurier's political speeches, whether they were delivered in French or in English.
In 1911, Laurier asked the youthful Ottawa correspondent to become his private secretary but the offer was gratefully declined. John Bassett was a newspaperman to stay.
From his colleqgues in the Press Gallery, he received the honor of being elected the Gallery's president in 1925.
In that year also he was a delegate to the Imperial Press Conference in Australia. On this trip he met Anthony Eden, then representing the Yorkshire Post. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
In 1936, a year before he attained the presidency of the Gazette, Mr. Bassett personally acquired a controlling interest in the Sherbrooke Daily Record.
In 1914, the rising young newspaperman married Marion Wright Avery, daughter of Frederick W. Avery, Ottawa lumberman.
FOLLOWED BY SON
Their son, John Jr. followed his father into the newspaper profession, taking over his Sherbrooke Record interest in 1946 and becoming chairman and publisher of The Telegram in Dec. 1952.
Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Baldwin Smith, a Buffalo business man.
Besides his widow, son and daughter, Mr. Bassett is survived by a brother, Edward, of Ottawa, five sisters, Miss Lily Bassett, Mrs. Lorne Coughtry, Mrs. Gordon Hanson, Mrs. Henry Meyers, all of Montreal, and Mrs. James Quigg of Portrush, Northern Ireland, and by four grandsons and two granddaughters - John, Douglas and David Bassett, of Toronto, and Baldwin, Margaret and Susan Smith, of Buffalo.
Gifted with Irish eloquence and wit, John Bassett was always in demand as a speaker. From many a platform, as in his newspaper, he exhorted Canadians to greater efforts in the building of their country.
An ardent Commonwealth booster, he found a kindred spirit in Lor Beaverbrook, who was an intimate for nearly 50 years. Many other political and business leaders of Canada and the Commonwealth were also his close friends.
FRIEND OF TELY FOUNDER
He valued the friendship of the late John Ross Robertson, founder of the paper now published by his son.
A great traveler, he was a frequent visitor to the Old Country. In 1951 he and his wife were guests of the government of Northern Ireland at a luncheon attended by cabinet ministers a leading citizens. He told them: "My heart is still in County Tyrone."
Mr. Bassett was made chancellor of Bishop's University at Lennoxville, Que. in 1950. It had awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law in 1939.
The University of New Brunswick also gave him an honorary doctorate of law degree i n1947, and in 1955 he became the first newspaperman to receive a similar honorary degree from McGill University.
Mr. Bassett retired from the board of The Canadian Press in 1956 after years of activity in CP affairs. His fellow members of the boar passed a resolution referring to him as one of the news agency's soundest advisers.
He played considerable tennis and hockey in his early years, but he was a man of few hobbies, except reading.
WORK WAS HOBBY
He often said that his work was his hobby.
He grew impatient over golf, as he died over bridge. Meeting people was for him a greater pleasure and relaxation.
His interest in books grew as the years passed. He formed large and well-chosen libraries both in his apartment in Montreal and in his country home in Bondville, Quebec.
His favorite volumes were the collected poems of Rupert Brooke (whom he had known), Archibald Lampman and Willis Butler Yeats.
He read verse with such sublety and expressiveness that he was often called upon by his guests to read his favorites.
He was an authority on the Georgian period in English history and had a large library dealing with it.
He liked classical music, the theatre, and story-telling.
He loved life. He did not believe in looking back with nostalgia or looking ahead with trepidation.
Typical of his philosophy was the advice he gave students at Bishop's University convocation in 1954:
"It is only when we live in the present that the richness of life becomes real. The present is our life. What we do with it will serve the future and make up the past."
The Daily Mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Tuesday, 15 September 1925
Canada
Mr. John Bassett (Picture included)
John Bassett, who was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Ireland, of Scoth-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.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1886 - 1958 (72 years)