George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen bare-footed stable boy, he became the richest man in Canada and closely associated with George V, whose wife, Queen Mary, was a lifelong friend and confidante of the second Lady Mount Stephen. In 1829, Stephen was born at Dufftown, Banffshire, in a cottage built by his grandfather. He was the son of William Stephen (b. 1801), a carpenter, and Elspet, daughter of John Smith, a crofter at Knockando, Moray. His mother was a first cousin of the philanthropic Grant brothers of Manchester, immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Stephen began life as a boy running
Dickens in America see a prairie and a day was arranged for him to do so. Miriam and a companion take a picnic basket, similar to Dickens’s and visit the Looking Glass Prairie. Although Dickens found the scenery somewhat disappointing, he enjoyed the company and devoted a whole chapter of "American Notes" to the trip. Part Nine - Canada Originally Dickens was not going to write much about Canada, but he liked it so much that he gave it the full treatment. He spent five weeks in Canada. Maybe he liked it because it was still very British in the 1840s. There were