Please join us at Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives (PAMA) for a presentation on the life and times of railway promoter George Laidlaw, “The Prince of Bonus Hunters”, by his great great grandson Doug Paterson.

Presentation is free with admission.

Visitors are welcome to visit the exhibition All Aboard: The Railways of Peel.

George Laidlaw emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1855. His ability to raise money to build railways was legendary as he oversaw the construction of 500 km of railway in southern Ontario, including the Credit Valley Railway and the Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway.

Doug Paterson is a retired banker living in his ancestral Laidlaw family home on Balsam Lake. He has an interest in family history and by good fortune has access to a trove of historical information and artifacts. He is currently writing a book on the Laidlaw and Corby families, titled “Rails and Rye”.