Notes

Louis Roy is credited with being the first printer in Upper Canada. Born in Montreal, he apprenticed with William Brown in the offices of the Quebec Gazette. John Graves Simcoe, the new Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada invited him to set up a newspaper in Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake). Roy made the journey there from Montréal in 1792. His employment agreement included a monthly salary and a supplement for living expenses. He purchased a second-hand screw press and was filling print orders by January 1793. One of his first jobs was an eight-page brochure featuring a speech which Lord Simcoe made at the opening of the first session of the Upper Canada legislature. Lord Simcoe’s wife, Elizabeth, kept a diary of her adventures in Upper Canada, where she recorded that Roy ‘cannot write good English’. Roy was the first to hold the title of King’s Printer in the staunchly loyal English colony, and his Upper Canada Gazette was never used as a forum for the free discussion of political issues. Lord Simcoe well understood the value of a printer and used the press to further his goal of building a community built on aristocratic and conservative principles.

While there were printers of the Upper Canada Gazette after Louis Roy, they were not given the title of King’s Printer; John Bennett was the next printer to be given that position.