Name: From Folly to Fortune
Brand: DC Books (US)
SKU: 9781897190234
Price: 21.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

From Folly to Fortune

The Firing of James Richardson Forman

By (author): Jay Underwood

Published by DC Books (US)

In stock

£21.99

Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Illustrations: b/w photos & illus
ISBN: 9781897190234
Publication Date: 01-Jul-2007

Subjects:
Trains & railways: general interest
Canada

Quantity

James Richardson Forman was born in 1822 at Halifax, and returned from Scotland in 1854 to oversee the construction of the Nova Scotia Railway, the first publicly owned railway in the British Empire. But did he become a victim of Nova Scotia's venal politics? He had been appointed to his post at the request of Reformer Joseph Howe, but was dismissed from office in 1858 by James W. Johnston, who became Conservative premier of the province in 1857. Two years after he left for a brilliant career in Scotland, it was discovered that most of the reasons for his dismissal were the fault of his second-in-command, who was also Johnston's nephew! The book examines the unfair treatment Forman received at the hands of his Nova Scotia countrymen, and asks the question if it could have been Forman, and not Sandford Fleming, who would later (in 1867 to 1876) have built Canada's Intercolonial Railway from Nova Scotia to Quebec City, had he been allowed to stay on the project.

Jay Underwood lives in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, and has had a life-long connection with the military and the railways. Born in Changi, Singapore in 1958, son of a Royal Air Force non-commissioned officer, he earned his diploma in journalism from Holland College of Applied Arts and Technology in Charlottetown, PEI. He was city editor of the Truro, NS, Daily News, and served for several years as the information officer for 1st battalion, the Nova Scotia Highlanders (North), Canada's largest militia infantry battalion. He joined the Halifax Daily News as senior copy editor and a member of the editorial board.