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Lot Essay
Archer Baker (b.1845), Businessman, was the European head of the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.) for over twenty-five years. Baker was born in Yorkshire and then migrated to the United States. Shortly afterwards, he moved from New York to Canada. In 1881, he was General Superintendent of the Eastern Division of the C.P.R. In 1885, the company sent him back to England, where he started the first European office in Liverpool. Sir Thomas Shaughnessy in Montreal ran the Head office of C.P.R., and Baker later held the equivalent position in London, with new offices in Trafalgar Square. By 1909, C.P.R. was spending more money than the Canadian Government promoting immigration. Archer Baker was sixty-five years old when this drawing was executed by 'Elf'.
Situated opposite the Nelson Monument [the European office] forms one of the landmarks of Trafalgar Square, and Archer Baker, to whose shrewd brain the magnitude of Canadian Pacific interests in Europe is so largely due, may well be proud of this, the tangible proof of his success. Yet no man is more modest.
Vanity Fair, 'Men of the Day', No. 1212, 1910.
Situated opposite the Nelson Monument [the European office] forms one of the landmarks of Trafalgar Square, and Archer Baker, to whose shrewd brain the magnitude of Canadian Pacific interests in Europe is so largely due, may well be proud of this, the tangible proof of his success. Yet no man is more modest.
Vanity Fair, 'Men of the Day', No. 1212, 1910.