Robert laird borden biography of william

Prime Minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920

This article is about the prime minister of Canada. For the American TV writer and producer, see Robert Borden (TV producer).

Sir Robert Laird BordenGCMG PC KC (June 26, 1854 – June 10, 1937) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920. He is best known for his leadership of Canada during World War I.

Borden was born in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia. He worked as a schoolteacher for a period and then served his articles of clerkship at a Halifax law firm. He was called to the bar in 1878 and soon became one of Nova Scotia's most prominent barristers. Borden was elected to the House of Commons in the 1896 federal election, representing the Conservative Part

Robert Laird Borden was born on 26 June 1854 in Grand Pré, Kings, Nova Scotia, Canada to Andrew Borden (1816-1881) and Eunice Jane Laird (1825-1881). Robert had three siblings, John William (1856-1937), Julia Rebecca (1858-1940) and Henry Clifford (1870-1943) and two half siblings, Thomas Andrew (1842-1887) and Sophia Amelia (1884-1921).

Robert grew up on the family farm in Grand Pré and qualified at first as a teacher. He became articled to a Halifax law firm and was admitted to the Nova Scotia bar in 1878. In the 1881 census, Robert was a lawyer lodging with a widow, Margaret Cochran in Kentville, Kings, Nova Scotia.

Robert married Laura Bond on 25 September 1889 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Laura was born on 26 November 1861 in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Thomas H Bond (1813-1876) and Catherine Atkinson (1820-1876). Laura had seven siblings, Berkley B (1842-1891), Emma (b 1847), Clara (b 1849), Margaret (b 1851), George (b 1853), Annie (b 1857) and Frederick W (1858-1870).

Thomas Bond was a hardware merchant in Halifax.

Laura was only fifteen when both her parents died. She lived with her
elder brother George until her marriage.

Robert practised as a barrister until elected to Parliament in 1896. He was Prime Minister of Canada 1911-1920 and was knighted in 1915.

Laura was a supporter the women’s suffragette movement in Canada and an officer in various charitable organisations. Laura was active in the Red Cross during WWI and this may explain how she and her husband appear as names on the quilt. The following extract is taken from a newspaper article:

She was an active worker in the Red Cross association during the 1914-18 war and in the Women's Guild of All Saints' Anglican Church here [Edmonton]. It had been Lady Borden's custom for some years to hold an annual garden party for the guild on Sir Robert's birthday

Lady Borden always maintained an interest in the families of the veterans of the first Great War and in several individual cases she provided cl

American congressional staffer (1920–1985)

William Liscum Borden (February 6, 1920 – October 8, 1985) was an American lawyer and congressional staffer. As executive director of the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy from 1949 to 1953, he became one of the most powerful people advocating for nuclear weapons development in the United States government. Borden is best known for having written a letter accusing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer of being an agent of the Soviet Union, an accusation that led to the Oppenheimer security hearing of 1954.

Early life, college, and military service

Borden was born in Washington, D.C., on February 6, 1920, and grew up in the city. His father served in the Army Medical Corps and became president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. The importance his mother attached to honorable behavior left a strong impression on him. The family had a military tradition, and Borden's middle name came from a relative, Colonel Emerson H. Liscum, who had fallen in the Boxer Rebellion.

Raised in affluent circumstances, Borden attended the private St. Albans School in Washington, from where he was graduated in 1938.

Borden went to Yale College, where he fit into the rich and clubby pre-war Ivy League environment. He was president of the Yale Political Union and belonged to the literary-minded Elizabethan Club. Borden at this time has been described by author Richard Rhodes as "bright, ardent and utopian". He was editor of the Yale Daily News and columns he wrote for that paper reflected his gradual switch from traditional American isolationism to interventionism, an evolution in thinking common among his contemporaries. His conversion became complete shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

BORDEN, Sir FREDERICK WILLIAM, physician, businessman, militia officer, and politician; b. 14 May 1847 in Upper Canard, N.S., only son of Dr Jonathan Borden and Maria Frances Brown; m. first 1 Oct. 1873 Julia Maude Clarke (d. 1880) in Canning, N.S., and they had two daughters and a son; m. there secondly 12 June 1884 Julia’s sister, Bessie Blanche Clarke; d. there 6 Jan. 1917.

The son of a popular, public-spirited physician of Planter origin, F. W. Borden was educated at Acacia Villa School in Lower Horton, N.S., King’s College in Windsor (ba 1866), and Harvard Medical School in Boston (md 1868). Upon his return to Nova Scotia, he practised medicine in Canning, a thriving inland port and market town of some 600 people. To supplement his income (there were four other physicians in Canning) he invested in ships and local utilities, bought and sold real estate, and served as an agent, first of the Bank of Nova Scotia (1882–91) and then of the Halifax Banking Company (1891–96). By 1897 he owned two 125-to-150-ton vessels and the controlling interest in a third. On the land he planted orchards, grew wheat, hay, potatoes, and cranberries, and established a 150-acre livestock farm at Pereau, a lumbering business at Gaspereau and Blomidon, and general stores in Canning and Blomidon. He also invested in the Cornwallis Valley Railway Company Limited, the Canning Water and Electric Light, Heating and Power Company Limited, the Western Chronicle (Kentville), and other local enterprises.

In October 1895 the greater part of Borden’s assets were incorporated as the F. W. Borden Company Limited, with an initial stock of $50,000, later increased to $250,000. Incorporation gave the company broad powers to own, sell, and develop farm and other properties, lumber operations, and electrical, transportation, and communications facilities. Following his admission to t