Lawrence Johnstone Burpee

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he moved to Ottawa at an early age, where from 1890 to 1905 he worked as private secretary to three federal ministers of justice. The following seven years he was librarian at the Ottawa Public Library, before becoming Canadian Secretary of the International Joint Commission in 1912, a post he occupied until his death.

Burpee helped found the Canadian Historical Association in 1922 and was its first president until 1925. He also was president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1936/37. He published many books and articles mainly related to Canadian history and geography and was the founding editor of the Canadian Geographical Journal. He received the Royal Society of Canada's J. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal in 1931.{{Cite web |title=Past Award Winners |url=https://rsc-src.ca/en/awards-excellence/past-award-winners#TyrrellMedal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240629010729/https://rsc-src.ca/en/awards-excellence/past-award-winners#TyrrellMedal |archive-date=June 29, 2024 |publisher=The Royal Society of Canada}}

Burpee was a supporter of many causes, from the need for a national library to the independence of Poland. On the latter he published a 1939 wartime article "Poland’s fight for freedom" in the Canadian Geographical Journal. On his way to Warsaw in 1946, Burpee died at Oxford, England. He is buried there, although he is also memorialized on a stone in Beechwood Cemetery.

• Burpee, Lawrence J. The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Canadian History; London and Toronto, Oxford University Press 1926.
• Burpee, Lawrence J. ed with introduction, notes and chronological tables: An Historical Atlas of Canada; Toronto, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd 1927
• Burpee, Lawrence J. trans. Journals and Letters of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye and His Sons. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1927.
• Burpee, Lawrence J. The Discovery of Canada; Toronto, The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd, 1948
• Burpee, Lawrence J. The Discovery of Canada; Ottawa, The Graphics Publishers Ltd., 1929

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{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lawrence-johnston-burpee "Lawrence Johnston Burpee]"' at The Canadian Encyclopedia. David Evans published 01/15/2008
• [http://www.cha-shc.ca/english/past_pres.html Presidents of the Canadian Historical Association].
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110514085502/http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/75/history/default.html History of Canadian Geographic].
• Kitchen, P.: [http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/202/301/nlnews/nlnews-pdf/2000/3205-e.pdf The Call for a National Library], National Library News 32(5), May 2000. (With a 1909(?) image.)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080326012456/http://www.uoguelph.ca/~lbruce/photos/Burpewal.htm A photo] from 1926.
• Roy-Sole, Monique: [https://web.archive.org/web/20101121060817/http://canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/nd04/insidestory.asp In tune with the times], Canadian Geographic, November/December 2004.

{{Archival records|title=Lawrence Johnston Burpee fonds}}

{{wikisource|works=or}}

• {{Gutenberg author |id=28364}}
• {{FadedPage|id=Burpee, Lawrence J.|name=Lawrence J. Burpee|author=yes}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Lawrence Johnstone Burpee}}
• {{Librivox author |id=2693}}
• [http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll In the Lawrence Johnstone Burpee fonds at U. British Columbia, there are copies of his passports, letters to and from one of his daughters, and some unpublished works by Lawrence J. Burpee.]
• [http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/special/F04burpeefonds.htm The Lawrence J. Burpee Collection at the Victoria University Library at the University of Toronto]
• [https://archives-manuscripts.dartmouth.edu/repositories/2/resources/1017 Lawrence J. Burpee Manuscripts] at Dartmouth College Library

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{{s-bef|before=Reginald W. Brock and George A. Young}}

{{s-ttl|title=President of the Royal Society of Canada|years=1936–1937}}

{{s-aft|after=Archibald G. Huntsman}}

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Category:1873 births

Category:1946 deaths

Category:19th-century Canadian civil servants

Category:20th-century Canadian civil servants

Category:Canadian librarians

Category:Canadian non-fiction writers

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada

Category:Writers from Halifax, Nova Scotia

Category:Presidents of the Canadian Historical Association

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