Associate Figures ...Quentin Farkmee

Quentin Farkmee, heir to the Farkmee taffy fortune, was born in York, Upper Canada, on January 27, 1845. The Farkmee family, originally from Devon, were loyal Tories and one of the pioneers of industry in Upper Canada. When Quentin arrived on the scene the Farkmees were already quite rich thanks to the success of Farkmee Stiff taffy sticks, the fore-runner of modern day candy bars. Another business first for the family was the first use of roadside advertising in Canada. By mid-century many a rutted Upper Canada wagon route was marked by small Farkmee signs. Farkmee Stiff To Restore Your Spirits was one such slogan as was Farkmee Stiff, Sweet and Long.

By Confederation Farkmee had already availed himself of the best educational opportunities of both the new and old world. As a man of independent means, with four older brothers to run the family business, Farkmee was able to travel widely. By the age of 30 he had circumnavigated the globe twice. Though many know Farkmee as a writer of speculative fiction, it was not fiction but travel writing which brought the young Farkmee to the attention of the Canadian public. "Farkmee in the Transvaal", a travelogue of his visit to South Africa, was a best seller as were additional titles "Farkmee in the Khyber" and "Farkmee on the Seven Seas". A compellation of shorter works, "Farkmee In Exotic Places", was his final and most successful travel book.

Farkmee returned to Canada settling into the city of London Ontario in the new dominion in 1870. It was from this point that he embarked on the two careers that would occupy him for the rest of his life, speculative fiction and politics. Of these two politics was Farkmee's true calling. As Farkmee scholar A. Steele Dick says in his massive Farkmee opus Farkmee Whole, "Though his fiction was widely enjoyed and quite lucrative, Farkmee appears to have approached his craft as a pastime to be enjoyed between political campaigns." In spite of his political aspirations Farkmee enjoyed considerable success for his "speculations". Most of his books involved a thinly disguised Farkmee-like protagonist called Lord Farkham of Mars, a brave soldier and loyal subject of the Queen of the Solar System. Most notable of these were Farkham In The Valley Of The Moon and Farkham Where the Greebles Live. While Farkmee had a flare for a good tale, most of his stories were basically imperialistic fantasies of the white hero battling the savages and bringing civilization to the lesser races of the Solar system. In fact Farkmee displayed in his writings a Chauvinism that was extreme even by the standards of Victorian polite society.

In 1880 Farkmee threw his hat into the political ring declaring himself for the London municipal seat of River Ditch (later Ward 2). Running on the slogan Farkmee For A Better Tomorrow, he at first drew the scorn of the local London Newspaper, The London Free Pulpsheet particularly for the simplicity of his platform (Too Many Irish!). Gradually Farkmee's oratorical skills won him attention and then a following. By election day he had won a handy plurality and even the endorsement of the newspaper. This series of headlines from the Pulpsheet from August to November 1880 show the swing from derision to respect to celebration.

Farkmee was a regular part of municipal politics in London for more than 15 years. In 1895 he took leave from municipal politics and returned to writing for a number of years (Farkham In The Void his most notable accomplishment during this period). It was also during this time that he served several terms as Secretary General of the Canadian Society of Speculationists and engaged in an epic war of words with Emily Chesley, another fiction writer based in London.

As a women and a person of Irish descent Chesley -- the author of The Ice Creep, The Brain Beasts Of Blenheim, and the Africans of East Nissouri - represented both a race and a sex that Farkmee felt quite beneath his standard. Her writing was also an offence to Farkmee's conservative values. Chesley proved a worthy foe and gave as good as she got making good fodder out of Farkmee's wheezing corpulence (He remained addicted to taffy all his life). The whole episode came to a head in 1904 when Farkmee sought to have Chesley censured by the first Canadian Congress of Speculationists for writings that were "an offense to moral decency and Christian civilization." Chesley's spirited defense against the charge is legendary.

After the Chesley period Farkmee returned to the political life. He joined the Bland Food Party and became a member of Provincial Parliament for Middlesex for a number of years. Unfortunately things did not end well for Quentin Farkmee. He lost his seat in the general election of 1918. Soon after that he became ill with the first manifestations of a sexually transmitted disease contracted during the world travels of his youth. In 1929 the bottom fell out of the taffy market. Farkmee died penniless and insane at the Rector Sett Asylum in St. Thomas on March 21^st, 1932. In contrast to the earlier exuberant headlines in the Free Pulpsheet, these final headlines provide a sad denouement. Farkmee Sliding . . . Farkmee Crazy . . . Farkmee Blind . . . Farkmee Dead.

Associated Figures