=Birkett, Thomas=, was born in Bytown (now Ottawa), February 1, 1844. He is the son of Miles and Elizabeth (Wren) Birkett, who came to Canada from Cumberland, England, in 1838, and who saw that he received a good education at the Public and Grammar Schools, and that he was thoroughly prepared for commercial business life. That their efforts were not in vain was shown at an early date, in the rapid and successful progress that greeted his efforts and ventures. But, and in addition, they had the good fortune to see their son make his mark in School, Municipal, Provincial and Dominion and other public affairs and to be elected to many public offices of trust where he distinguished himself in various ways and established an enviable record for progressive, reliable and lasting service. In every public office, to which he was elected he devoted the attention and care that was made so evident and pronounced in his private business with the result that he not only made good, but cemented and enlarged the confidence and esteem of those who had selected him as their representative. Whether as director or trustee of a public institution, as member of the city council, mayor of the city, or as member of Parliament, his conduct was the same and the result the same, viz., conscientious devotion to duty attended by successful results. Many a time it has been proclaimed, even by those who were politically opposed to him, that having rendered to the State the continuous and valuable public services that he did, and in a manner so effective, that he would long ago have been called to the Canadian Senate, and great has been the surprise that he has not been. But being still robust in health, mentally and physically, and his activities being as marked as they were in former years, it may not be out of place to say that a seat in the Senate will be honored by his presence at an early date. Having served as an apprentice in the hardware trade to Mr. Isaac, in 1866, Mr. Birkett opened a retail hardware store on Rideau Street, prospered, and soon had to remove to larger premises. For thirty years he kept in the retail business, which year by year assumed larger proportions and supplied goods to the many prosperous and wealthy manufacturing towns and villages and thriving agricultural districts in the Ottawa Valley. Finding the demand for his goods still on the increase in 1896 he converted his private firm into a joint stock company, of which he became president, his son Thomas M. Birkett, vice-president, and other members of the family shareholders, and launched into the wholesale business under the title of Thomas Birkett & Son Company, Limited, of Ottawa. To-day this wholesale firm is one of the most extensive, if not actually the largest hardware house in Eastern Ontario and is known from one end of Canada to the other. The building forms one of the best business blocks in Ottawa and is most advantageously situated, the warehouse doors opening direct on the