Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Donald's mother was the sister of the Canadian explorer John Stuart, partner of the North West Company who rose to become Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres. By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself
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