Higgins, John Gilbert

The papers of John Gilbert Higgins, QC, MA were given to Memorial University Library by his son Gilbert Edward Higgins over a period of years starting in 1963. Monographs and periodicals were added to the book collections of the Library and the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, but for twenty years the boxes and filing cabinets of archival material remained unsorted. Some found their way into the Maritime History Archive but have since been reunited with those which were stored in the Library. In 1983 we began the process of organizing the collection which was of increasing interest to students of the Confederation period, but it was not possible to pursue this work continuously until 1986. The arrangement has now reached a point where it is possible to describe it in a finding aid and to make the collection accessible for research. There remains much that might profitably be done to refine this arrangement and to list material more fully for future access and security, especially in Series 2 which concerns the Board of Arbitration under Defence (Requisitioning of Land) Regulations of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act. This inventory is a preliminary effort. - - John Gilbert Higgins was born a collector and at an early age demonstrated due respect for the historical record. From scrapbooks began at the age of four to lists of artifacts and paintings in his Senatorial office very little of the paper record of his life had been discarded; and his life consisted of many layers, some of which are more fully documented than others. As a mirror of Newfoundland society there is 60 years of personal correspondence in Series 5 and the records of many of the organizations with which he was affiliated in Series 4. Historians will find significant material in Series 3.1 (the Responsible Government League) and Series 2 (Board of Arbitration records). Series 1 and 6 contain an important sample of the work of the legal profession in this period. - - Photographs and memorabilia, plans, posters and a large selection of legal documents from the practice of Sir James Winter in the nineteenth century make this a collection visually interesting for exhibitors, and genealogists will find a wealth of family history in Series 2. Manuscripts, drafts and working notes for his own writing in prose and poetry on a wide variety of subjects is also in Series 5. In short, almost all aspects of Newfoundland life in the first 60 years of the 20th Century may be glimpsed or illuminated in the papers of John Gilbert Higgins.