McGill Libraries
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Montreal, Quebec
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Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Earls, John, 1838-1917
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1838-1917
History
John Earls was born in 1838, in Ireland.
He was one of the best-known railway officials in Canada. In 1862, he joined the Grand Trunk Railway as a clerk in the office of the Western General Freight Agent, Toronto. In 1866, he became the corresponding freight clerk at Portland, Maine. In 1871, he returned to Toronto as chief clerk to General Freight Agent. In 1877, he was promoted to Assistant General Freight Agent of the Western Division in Toronto and in 1884, he was made District General Freight Agent for the Great Western Railway and the Grand Trunk section west of Toronto. He was one of the founders of the General Freight Agents Association of Canada and served as its president in 1893. He was instrumental in creating a joint and uniform classification of the merchandise and was the chairman of the Canadian Joint Freight Classification Committee.
In 1870, he married Sarah Ann Montgomery (1848-1875). In 1876, he remarried Lucy Jane Murphy (1852–1878) and in 1881, Sara Jane Cheffey (1857-1932). He died on June 3, 1917, in Toronto, Ontario.