William Harry Muirhead

The Deadbeat

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Colonel D. D. Cameron
17th Reserve Battalion
CameronDD

I expect you wondered why I asked you for Lieut. Col. D.D. Cameron’s address. The reason is because he is the father of my child. I have written to him twice and received no answer. I have given him over 6 months to make up his mind so that I need tell no one which he asked me on my honour no to, but I cannot possible afford to keep Baby myself because I work for a living, which he knew.

(Miss Ivy Smart to Canadian Overseas HQ, 31 Oct 1918)*

Daniel Duncan Cameron was born in Salt Springs, Nova Scotia on 15 March 1859. He had thirteen children with his wife Elizabeth “Bessie.” Although commanding officer of the 78th Pictou Highlanders, he agreed to exchange rank with his second-in-command Major Struan G. Robertson at Valcartier on the formation of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Robertson was appointed to command the 17th Battalion with Cameron as his second. On arrival in England, to the disappointment of the senior officers, the 17th would not go to France but instead provide reinforcements as a reserve unit.

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The Party Hack

/ Matthew K Barrett / Leave a comment

Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Muirhead
219th (Nova Scotia Highlanders) BattalionMuirhead

When the war broke out one of the very first to volunteer from the province of Nova Scotia, and to place his services unqualifiedly at the disposal of his King, was Major Muirhead.

For nine months Major Muirhead has been in the trenches, and for the last four months of that period he has been a member and in charge of a bombing party, which you know, Sir is the most dangerous branch of the service.

(F. B. McCurdy, Debates, 28 Jan 1916, 398)

In summer 1914, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court indicted William Harry Muirhead on eight counts of electoral fraud and perjury. Muirhead, a Conservative political operator, had allegedly secured a February 1914 provincial by-election in Victoria County through bribery and forgery. After the outbreak of the Great War, the embattled party bagman joined the Royal Canadian Dragoons, or as Liberal MP Daniel Duncan McKenzie intimated, “Major Muirhead fled the country on the pretext that he was going to war.”

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