Frederic Newton Gisborne (March 8, 1824 - August 30, 1892) was a British engineer, electrician, and inventor. Born in Broughton, England, he had settled in Canada by 1845 and developed an expertise in telegraphy and electricity, coming to manage the lines in Halifax and throughout Nova Scotia. He was responsible for laying the first deep-sea cable in North American waters, between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, in 1852. He became an associate of Cyrus W. Field, an early champion of transatlantic telegraphy, and was noted for a number of inventions that improved the operation of undersea telegraphs. Gisborne was then (in 1854) appointed chief engineer of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, which was founded to allow Field to acquire Gisborne’s telegraph interests and rights in Newfoundland. Though the company helped Field complete the first transatlantic cable in 1858, he and Gisborne had had a falling out in 1856 and Gisborne left the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company. Gisborne then turned his attention to mining, setting up companies (typically financed in London) to mine gold and coal in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Gisborne invested heavily in coal mines on Cape Breton Island from 1869, but his timing was unfortunate as the global economic depression starting in 1873 reduced demand for coal and he lost a significant amount of money. Nearly broke, Gisborne returned to telegraphy when the Canadian government offered him the job of superintendent of the dominion telegraph and signal service, a job for which he was very qualified. Following a life of dramatic ups and downs, Gisborne held this relatively quiet and stable position until his death. More by this mapmaker...

Albert James Hill (April 7, 1836 - November 26, 1918), generally known as A.J. Hill, was an esteemed Canadian land surveyor and civil engineer who was closely associated with railways. Aside from being born on Cape Breton Island, other details of his life are obscure. He may have been a relation of Canadian railway magnate James Jerome Hill (1838 - 1916). In any event, he was a prominent surveyor on the Canadian Pacific Railway and New Westminster Southern Railway, as well as a provincial land surveyor, in the course of his career. He also served as a director of the Coquitlam Water Works Company in British Columbia and became involved in local politics. Learn More...

George-Édouard-Amable Desbarats (April 5, 1838 - February 18, 1893) was a Canadian lawyer, printer, inventor, and publisher. He was born in Quebec, the son of a Montreal printer with a crown mandate. From 1846 to 1851, he attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1852, he transferred to the Collège Sainte-Marie, Montreal, to finish his secondary studies. He then studied law at Université Laval. After attaining his degree, he took a Grand Tour of Europe. Returning to Canada, he began working under his father in the Ottawa firm of 'Desbarats et Derbishire'. His partner Malcolm Cameron, who replaced Stewart Derbishire after his 1863 death, became the new Queen's Printer. The firm produced a rich corpus of literary, historical, religious, biographical, and scientific works. The Ottawa firm suffered arson in 1863, and the Desbarats Block building, containing the firm's precious printing and engraving equipment, burnt to the ground. In 1864, upon his father's death, he inherited the business and became co-queen's printer for the Province of Canada. Around this time, Desbarats relocated to Montreal, where he partnered with William Augustus Leggo (1830 - 1915). In 1869, he was made the first official printer of the Dominion of Canada. Finding it challenging to run businesses in both Ottawa and Montreal, he gave up the Ottawa portion of the business and settled fully in Montreal. Inspired by U.S. publications like Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated News, he founded the Canadian Illustrated News. The graphic magazine benefited from Leggo's photo-engraving process (leggotype), which allowed for the fast reproduction of line drawings. In 1873, having found some success, the duo went on to found the New York Daily Graphic, the world's first illustrated daily. The expensive venture proved financially disastrous, driving Desbarats into insolvency. He never fully recovered but did open a small boutique press in Montreal, which he eventually passed on to three of his sons. Learn More...