The Blogging from A to Z Challenge is to post everyday (except Sunday) in the month of April 2020 starting with the letter A and going all the way to Z. My theme is...
Ancestor Occupations
REPORTER
My great uncle George John Seale was a Reporter/Stenographer, a Reporter in this case being "a person who makes a shorthand record of a speech or proceeding".
George and his friend Joseph William Bawden were both Reporter/Stenographers, having studied shorthand at the Kingston Business College. They first started appearing as such in the City Of Kingston Directory in 1895, just under their own names. In 1897 they joined forces, opened an office at 79 Clarence Street in Kingston, and put a full ad in the directory.
By order of Council, May 1888 reporters were awarded $3.50 for traveling expenses.
The 1898 Sessional Papers of Canada, in the Auditor General's Report, Bawden & Seale were mentioned as being paid $45 for typewriting and $45 for work on reconnaissance plans for the Military
That same year George and Joseph also did some work recording evidence during an Investigation at Kingston Penitentiary. They were paid $531.69 for reporting and copying evidence, 5087 folios.
Bawden & Seale were paid twice in 1899:
Typing reconnaissance survey reports for the military - 20 folios at 8¢, 199 folios at 5¢, and another 295 folios at 5¢ for a total of $26.30
Typewriting for Royal Military College, Kingston - 72 folios at 7¢, or $5.04
In late 1899 Joseph moved to Lethbridge to work for Alberta Railway & Irrigation Co. and two years later married George's cousin Helena Whitney, making him the "husband of the sister-in-law of my 1st cousin 2c removed".
Joseph died in Lethbridge in 1940 at age 65.
George moved to Montreal late 1899 to work for the Royal Bank. He was later transferred to Winnipeg where he quit with the bank to be administrator of the Red Cross during WWI.
George died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1924 at the age of 46.
