Item 17 - Letter to Edmund Osler, September 6, 1921

Walter Reginald Baker was born on May 25, 1852, in York, England.

He was a railwayman. He immigrated to Canada, where he worked for the Allan Steam Ship Company in Montreal from 1865 to 1872. In 1873, he became a local freight and passenger agent for the Canada Central Railway. He then worked as private secretary and Aide-de-Campe to the Earl of Dufferin, the Governor-General of Canada, from 1874 to 1878. Following this, he served as assistant secretary to the treasury board in Ottawa from 1878 to 1881. When the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR) was established in 1881, Baker moved to Winnipeg as the assistant to CPR Western Divisional Superintendent Alpheus Beede Stickney. He held this position until he was appointed railway purchasing agent in 1881. From May 1882 to June 1883, he was an assistant to William Cornelius Van Horne. After that, he became the General Superintendent and Treasurer of the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway. By 1911, Baker was Secretary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, based in Montreal. He made efforts to establish the Canadian Senior Golf Association, and he was referred to as the “Father of Senior Golf” in Canada.

He was married three times. His first marriage was in 1875 to Jane Helen Cruice (1857-1875) of Ottawa. After her, he married Belle Drysdale Patton (?-1907), and his third marriage was in 1909 to Elsie Dickie of Vienna, Austria. He died on April 1, 1929, in Montreal, Quebec.