A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
present Thomas Ussher, of Edinburgh, for seventeen years secretary of
the Borders’ County Association for the Advancement of Education (and
out of which arose the celebration of the centenary of Sir Walter
Scott), sold to Sir Walter Scott the chief part of the estate of
Abbotsford (_vide_ “Lockhart’s Life of Scott”). By unbroken tradition
this branch claims kinship with Archbishop Ussher; and the Rev. W.
Neville Ussher, cousin of the above named Thomas Ussher, is a canon of
the Cathedral in Edinburgh. The Ussher family have had the honour of
having four distinguished church dignitaries; two Archbishops of Armagh;
one Bishop of Kildare (Robert Ussher); and Bishop B. B. Ussher, of
Montreal, who has at present five surviving brothers and two sisters as
follow:—Major-General John Theophilus Ussher, Beverly Ussher, Henry
Ussher, M.B., Rev. P. R. C. Ussher, a prominent minister in Australia;
and James Ussher, solicitor; Henrietta Buchanan and Arabella Madelina
Buchanan. On his mother’s side Bishop Ussher has an equally
distinguished ancestry, the Boileau family being one of the few that can
trace their genealogy back without a break for a period of over six
hundred years. The present Baron Boileau de Castleneau is the
seventeenth in descent from Etienne Boileau, who, born early in the
thirteenth century, was appointed by Louis IX., in the year 1255, Grand
Provost of Paris, at that period the highest officer of state. In 1371,
Jean Boileau was ennobled by Charles V. At the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, A.D. 1685, Jacques Boileau, the 10th baron, was arrested as a
Protestant, tortured, and, after an imprisonment of ten and one-half
years, died in the prison of St. Jean de Vedas, one mile from
Montpellier, a noble martyr for the Protestant faith, having been
beheaded by order of the Duke de Nemours. His son, Charles Boileau, then
a youth, having taken refuge in England and having entered the British
Army, firm to his Protestant faith, formally renounced his rights and
titles to the honours and estates of the family which thereby devolved
on his younger brother Maurice, who became the eleventh Baron Boileau.
From that time the barony fell into the hands of the junior and Roman
Catholic branch of the family of which the present Baron Boileau de
Castleneau is now the representative. He holds, too, the ancient château
de Castleneau, six miles from Nimes, which has been for three and a half
centuries in the family to which it gives the present title of the
barony. Five of the Barons de Castleneau held in succession the office
of Royal Treasurer. Charles Boileau died in 1733, leaving three children
who had issue, whose grandchildren and more remote issue are now living
to the number of six hundred and fifty. The Right Rev. Bishop Ussher,
when a child, was sent from under the jurisdiction of a governess at a
very early age. At Delgany College, in the county Wicklow, the Rev. Dr.
Daniel Flyns, of Harcourt street, Dublin, and the Rugby of Ireland, the
Rev.
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