David Williams Higgins (30 November 1834 – 30 November 1917) was a Canadian journalist, politician, and author.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of William B. Higgins and Mary Anne Williams, Higgins moved to Brooklyn with his parents and was educated there. He went to San Francisco, California in 1852 and in 1856 he founded the Morning Call newspaper, which he sold in 1858, when he moved to British Columbia. He settled in Victoria, British Columbia and was editor and proprietor of the British Colonist. He organized and was first president of the Victoria fire department and was a member of the Board of Education from 1866 to 1869.
He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for the electoral district of Esquimalt in 1886. He was re-elected in 1890 and 1898. From 1890 to 1898, he was Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. He was defeated in 1900.
He later wrote two books: The mystic spring and other tales of western life (Toronto, 1904) and The passing of a race and more tales of western life (Toronto, 1905).
Famous quotes containing the words david, williams and/or higgins:
“They commonly celebrate those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you can say of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What breaks capitalism, all that will ever break capitalism, is capitalists. The faster they run the more strain on their heart.”
—Raymond Williams (1921–1988)
“Politics is a choice of enemas. You’re gonna get it up the ass, no matter what you do.”
—George V. Higgins (b. 1939)