Article

Moses Harvey

Published Online February 26, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Moses Harvey, clergyman, essayist, naturalist (b at Armagh, Ire 21 Mar 1820; d at St John's 3 Sept 1901). He was of Scottish descent and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1844. After serving in Maryport, Eng, he immigrated to Newfoundland in 1852.

Harvey, Moses

Moses Harvey, clergyman, essayist, naturalist (b at Armagh, Ire 21 Mar 1820; d at St John's 3 Sept 1901). He was of Scottish descent and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1844. After serving in Maryport, Eng, he immigrated to Newfoundland in 1852. His ministry at St Andrew's Free Presbyterian Church in St John's was long and successful, but he is best known as a champion of Newfoundland and prolific writer of hundreds of publications. He contributed over 600 articles to the Montréal Gazette, some under the pen name "Delta." Elected to the Royal Soc of Canada in 1892, he served with distinction as secretary to the Newfoundland Fisheries Commission, calling for the establishment of a "world class marine sciences research laboratory in Newfoundland." His name is associated with early specimens of the giant squid Architeuthis from the 1870s. Truly a Victorian savant and an outstanding man of letters, Harvey was author of Across Newfoundland with the Governor (1879), Text-Book of Newfoundland History (1885) and A Short History of Newfoundland: England's Oldest Colony (1890).