H. R. Milner

Who was H. R. Milner?

Horatio Ray Milner, CC, QC was a lawyer and businessman.

Milner was born in Sackville, New Brunswick, the son of lawyer, newspaper publisher and historian William Cochrane Milner. His higher education was at Halifax, Nova Scotia where he graduated from Dalhousie University law school in 1911, following his 1909 graduation from King's College. He would return to Kings as Chancellor between 1957 to 1963.

In 1912, he was a founding partner of the Edmonton, Alberta legal firm of Milner and Steer, forerunner of today's Fraser Milner Casgrain. He would be called to military service in World War I, after which he was appointed King's Counsel.

He become associated with various utilities and natural gas companies in Alberta, and was a founding director of Canadian Utilities.

He was married twice, first to Catherine "Rina" Bury, and second, in 1954, to Veronica Villiers Fitzgerald. Milner died in Qualicum, British Columbia, aged 86.

Milner and his second wife maintained a garden estate on British Columbia's Vancouver Island which was made a gift to Malaspina University-College in 1996. The university now runs it as the publicly accessible Milner Gardens.