(9 Feb. 1832 or 1833-29 Aug. 1923), journalist. (R.H. Constable, Robert H. Constable) ) Born London, Eng. The year following his birth he came to Canada with his family, who settled in the Port Stanley/ St. Thomas area of Ontario. Robert Henry Constable pursued a varied career of many years in newspaper publishing and the printing trade. He worked in 1863 and1864 on the Plaindealer of Cleveland, Ohio. It is said that he roomed at this time with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, who were his colleagues on the Plaindealer. The biographies of Twain and Ward show that this statement is most unlikely to have been true where they were concerned. However, Ward had sufficient connection with the Plaindealer to make it possible Constable struck up some acquaintance with him. Constable founded newspapers in Ingersoll, Dundas and Ridgetown and Niagara Falls before coming to Alexandria to be the founding editor of a Liberal (Reform) newspaper there.
This newspaper was known at first as the Glengarry Review, with the first issue being dated 13 Feb. 1885. The name was soon changed to the Glengarrian. Constable was impressed by how completely Alexandria was a Roman Catholic town. If his memories were correct, there were only Protestant church services once every six weeks. According to a 1919 magazine article, “Although Constable was an Orangeman, his best friend was the parish priest,” who helped him to canvass for subscribers. The parish priest was Fr Alexander Macdonell, afterwards the first bishop of Alexandria. It appears from recollections that appeared in the Glengarry News Christmas special issue of 1903 that Constable handled only the business side of the paper and that editorial policy was directed by John A. MacDougald. Constable found GC “uncongenial” and sold out. He was already editing a newspaper at Smithville, Ont., by Jan. 1886. (Cornwall Freeholder 8 Jan. 1886) Soon after Constable left it, his Alexandria newspaper in a surprise switch became a Conservative publication. (see Stilwell ). The Glengarry News (Liberal in politics) was founded in response to this coup. The Glengarrian was Alexandria’s first newspaper. There had been one earlier GC newspaper, J.C. McNeil’s Glengarry Times at Lancaster. The Glengarrian ceased publication in 1913, ten years before the end of Constable’s remarkably long life.
At the age of 87 Constable was still working, by this time in Woodstock, Ont. Though prosperous at times, he had had economic misfortunes and seems not to have been a man with whom wealth stuck. In the Ingersoll fire of 1873, he had been burned out without insurance. He died at Woodstock. He was thought to have been at the time of his death an Orangeman for longer (77 years) than any other Ontarian. He was a Mason also for about 55 years. He was married to (1) Miss Annie M. Harvey, and (2) Mrs H. Palin.
The Daily Sentinel-Review (Woodstock-Ingersoll), 30 Aug. & 4 Sept. 1923 * Golden Wedding, ibid. 15 Oct. 1907 * funeral of Mrs Constable, ibid. 6 April 1915 * birthday tributes (biog. material) ibid. 21 Feb. 1918, 9 Feb. 1922, 9 Feb. 1923 *P. Wilson, “The Daddy of Them All? Yes, Likely So: Robert Henry Constable, 87 and Still Working,” Printer & Publisher (Aug. 1919), with portrait * GN supplement 1903 * publication of first issue of Glengarry Review recalled, DTL, Standard Freeholder 16 Feb. 1946