author
Edward Francis Wilson
1844–1915
An Anglican missionary, educator, and writer, he spent much of his life working in Canada and left behind books that reflect his religious work and his views on Indigenous communities. His story is closely tied to the early history of church-run residential schools in Canada.
1 Audiobook
Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians
by Edward Francis Wilson
About the author
Born in London, England, in 1844, Edward Francis Wilson became an Anglican clergyman and moved to Canada in the 1860s. He worked in Ontario and later in Manitoba and British Columbia, building a reputation as a missionary, educator, ethnologist, and author.
He is especially known for founding the Shingwauk Home and the Wawanosh Home in the Algoma region, institutions created for Indigenous children, and for later establishing the Washakada Home in Manitoba. He also wrote extensively about missionary life and Indigenous languages and communities, presenting himself as both a religious worker and observer.
Today, Wilson is remembered in a more complicated light. Alongside his energetic writing and organizing, his legacy is bound up with the history of Canada’s residential school system, and modern readers often approach his work as part of that larger and painful history.