Elias Rogers (June 23, 1850 – April 11, 1920) was a Canadian business magnate, banker, and politician. He was a major coal dealer in Canada and founder, with his brother Samuel, of the Elias Rogers Company in Toronto.[1]

His great-grandather was Timothy Rogers (1756–1834), a Canadian pioneer and Quaker leader who founded settlements in what became Newmarket and Pickering.

Biography edit

Rogers was born in Whitchurch, near Newmarket, to a Quaker family.[2] He began in the lumber business before switching to coal, purchasing the first coal mines in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.[1]

Rogers was elected to Toronto City Council in 1887 as alderman for St. Lawrence Ward. He ran for mayor of Toronto the next year on a temperance platform but was defeated by Edward Frederick Clarke, after one of Clarke's supporters, Member of Parliament Nathaniel Clarke Wallace, accused Rogers of being involved in a coal price fixing ring.[1][2]

He was president of National Life Assurance Company and vice-president of the Imperial Bank of Canada. He died in 1920 and is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.[1]

Rogers' nephew, Albert Stephen Rogers, was the father of Edward S. Rogers Sr., founder of the Rogers Vacuum Tube Company, whose son Ted Rogers, founded Rogers Communications.[3][4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Filey, Mike (June 1999). Mount Pleasant Cemetery: An Illustrated Guide. Hamilton, Ontario: Dundurn Press. p. 183. ISBN 9781554882335. Retrieved January 15, 2024 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ a b MacFadyen, Joshua (September 2021). "Supplying Fuel Wood to Central Canadian Urban Markets". Histoire sociale /Social History. LIV (111): 283–309. doi:10.1353/his.2021.0044. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
  3. ^ "Historicist: An Illustrated Business Quartet". January 23, 2010. Archived from the original on August 1, 2021.
  4. ^ https://about.rogers.com/news-ideas/ted-rogers-a-titan-and-a-visionary/