Angus Lorne Bonnycastle

The Boulton Boys

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Major Lawrence Boulton
&
Major D’Arcy Boulton
&
Lieutenant Russell Boulton †

Manitoba Depot Regiment  Boultons

If sole support of widowed mother, state what amount you have given per month prior to your enlistment, also reason she has no other support than yourself:

All earnings. Husband dead and her only other sons married and supporting their own families. She has no other income sufficient to support her & her two daughters.

(L. C. Boulton, “Particulars of Family”, 7 Jan 1917)

The Boultons were a prominent Upper Canadian family with deep political connections and a long military tradition. During the 1885 Northwest Rebellion, Colonel Charles Arkoll Boulton (1841—1899) raised a unit to help put down the uprising of Louis Riel. In 1889, he was appointed senator for Manitoba. His oldest son, D’Arcy Everard Boulton was born in Orillia, Ontario on 26 April 1876. Lawrence Charles Boulton was born in Lakefield, Ontario on 10 December 1878. The youngest son, Russell Heath Boulton, was born in Russell, Manitoba on 24 February 1884-1918.

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The Blue Blood

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Lieutenant Colonel A. L. Bonnycastle
200th (Bonny’s Buccaneers) Battalion Bonnycastle

I am raising a battalion of stalwarts that will make the Germans hop.

(Bonnycastle, Winnipeg Tribune, 8 March 1916, 5)

Angus Lorne Bonnycastle was a former Conservative member of the Manitoba legislature (1907—1911), a Winnipeg barrister and provincial police magistrate. Born on 3 November 1873 in Campbellford, Ontario, Bonnycastle moved to Manitoba as a school teacher in 1893. He was a member of one of Ontario’s most prominent military families. His great-grand father, Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle (1791—1847) helped to suppress the 1837 Rebellion and oversaw fortification construction in Kingston. His father Major R. H. Bonnycastle (1843—1911) had participated in the Fenian Raids and the Northwest Rebellion.

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