Chesterfield, Albert Alexander

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Chesterfield, Albert Alexander

1877-1959

A.A. Chesterfield was born in Kent, England in 1877. He was orphaned at 12 and then sent by his grandmother to live with his Aunt and Uncle in Quebec, he left behind a brother and a sister. After his completion of high school he left his Aunt and Uncle in 1895 to work as an apprentice clerk and fur trader with the Hudson's Bay Company. Over the next few years he worked at posts in both Rigolet on the Labrador coast, in Great Whale River, and at Fort George. There he took great interest in studying the Inuit and Cree peoples of the land, documenting their ways of life, he also wrote several articles on his observations. It is unclear where he first received training as a photographer. Later in 1895 he met a missionary doctor named Wilfred Grenfell, with whom he became very close friends and would often leave the post travelling out of the Post on the local ships for days at a time.

In 1905 Chesterfield moved back to Montreal where he soon found himself the co-owner of a press photography company with E. Bruce McLaren on Bluery Street. He developed an interest in documenting what he saw as typical Canadian behavior, which meant everything from fishing to maple sap tapping to winter scenes. Unfortunately a fire broke out in their studio, and most of Chesterfield's equipment and negatives were destroyed. Chesterfield then gave up photography and tried his hand at journalism. He published several articles before he retired.

In the 1930s he married Mary Emma McCracken and also ran for Public Office. Later in his life they moved from Montreal to eastern Ontario where he is said to have lived a quiet life. Chesterfield has been cited as a unique character, who very rarely volunteered information about his earlier life. As he grew older his eye sight began to fade, and he burned his canoe from his days among the Cree, stating that no one would be able to handle it but he. After his death in 1959, Mrs. Chesterfield donated what was left of her husband's work to Queen's University. Sadly she passed away in the early 1980s.

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