Richard Henry Bonnycastle
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle (30 September 1791 – 3 November 1847) was an officer of the British army active in Upper Canada. In his capacity as a military engineer, Bonnycastle oversaw the fortification of Fort Henry in modern Kingston, Ontario.
Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle was born in Woolwich to John Bonnycastle and his second wife, Bridget Johnstone. He attended the Royal Military Academy, where his father was professor of mathematics. He graduated as a second lieutenant of Royal Engineers on September 28, 1808. The following year he served at the siege of Flushing in the Netherlands campaign and was promoted first lieutenant.
Bonnycastle later went to Nova Scotia and participated in the British occupation of part of Maine in 1814, acting as engineer in charge of fortifications erected on the Castine peninsula, and was promoted second captain. He then went to the British occupation forces in France.
In 1818 he published Spanish America, a two-volume description of Spain's Latin American colonies with historical comments.
He was then sent to Upper Canada, serving at Fort George and Kingston, and was later posted to York (Toronto). Bonnycastle became a prominent freemason. In 1834 he was chosen president of the Society of Artists and Amateurs, the first art society in York. A number of his paintings, depicting Lower Canadian and European subjects, were displayed at the society's only exhibition. Bonnycastle attributed his interest in painting to the influence of his godfather Henry Fuseli. Bonnycastle Street in Toronto is probably named after him as he drew up one of the first plans of Toronto in 1833. (No. 1 plan of the town and harbour of York, Upper Canada, and also of the Military Reserve showing the site of the new barracks and work around them as proposed to be erected near the western battery.)
In 1837 he was promoted brevet major and placed in command of the engineers at Kingston, with the task of completing construction of the new Fort Henry.
Between 1841 and 1846 he published numerous books, publishing with Henry Colburn The Canadas in 1841, Newfoundland in 1842: a sequel to "The Canadas in 1841", and Canada and the Canadians, in 1846. He retired from the engineers in 1847 and died in Kingston soon after, at the age of 56. A fellow officer and friend, Sir James Edward Alexander, edited Bonnycastle's notes and published them in Canada as it was, is, and may be.
Through his son, Henry William John Bonnycastle (1813–1888) would come a prominent Bonnycastle family of Canadian politicians and adventurers and the founder of Harlequin Enterprises, the world's largest publisher of romance novels.
[edit] References
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Richard Henry Bonnycastle (1849). Canada and the Canadians, Volume I. London.
- Richard Henry Bonnycastle (1849). Canada and the Canadians, Volume II. London.
