ABSTRACT
Stephen Butler Leacock was born in Swanmoor, Hampshire, England, on December 30, 1869, one of eleven children born to Peter and Agnes Leacock. His parents migrated to Canada in 1876, when Stephen was seven years old. Leacock's father became a farmer in Ontario near Lake Simcoe, in the township of Georgina, county of York. Leacock writes that because of economic hardships on the farm 'my brothers and his inevitably driven off the land, and have become professors, business men, and engineers instead of being able to grow up as farm laborers'. Leacock received his high school education at Upper Canada College in Toronto, from which he graduated with high honors in 1887. He was awarded his BA from the University of Toronto, again with distinction, in 1891. The Orillia Public Library contains an extensive Leacock Memorial Collection as well as a fine portrait bust by Elizabeth Wyn Wood.
