Alexander Begg

Who was Alexander Begg?

Alexander Begg was a Scottish-Canadian teacher, civil servant and journalist.

He came to Belleville, Upper Canada in 1846 and taught in public schools in neighbouring towns until 1850, when he helped found the Bowmanville Messenger, Oshawa's first newspaper. He later founded papers including the Brighton Sentinel and the Trenton Advocate and would go on to write for the Toronto Daily Mail as a correspondent in the West.

After starting a ranch in Alberta with one of his sons in 1882, Begg joined his other son as a reporter for the Daily British Colonist in Victoria.

In 1872 he had been Ontario's emigration commissioner in Glasgow. In BC he continued to work to encourage emigration from Scotland and the provincial government made him commissioner in charge of settling a community of crofter-fishermen on the West Coast. He styled himself C.C. to distinguish himself from another Alexander Begg also working as a journalist in Victoria at the time.