In September 2019, Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General renamed the Durham County Courthouse, the Lieutenaant-Colonel Samuel S. Sharpe, DSO, MP, Courthouse.
Samuel Simpson Sharpe was born in Zephyr, ON in March 1873. Completing his studies in Uxbridge, ON, he went on to study at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall, graduating in 1895. He practiced law in Uxbridge and was elected as the Member of Parliament for Ontario North in the 1908 federal election. He was re-elected in 1911 and was considered for the position of Minister of Militia and Defence. He was once again re-elected in the 1917 elections, while commanding the 116th Battalion in France.
From an early age, Sharpe displayed interest in military life, joining the 34th Ontario Regiment at the age of 16 and rising to the rank of major. Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, he was asked to raise a battalion from Ontario County, leading to the creation of the 116th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Under Sharpe`s command, the Battalion arrived in England in the summer of 1916 and was deployed to the trenches of France in February 1917. The Battalion fought at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917, the attack on Avion in preparation for the Battle of Hill 70 and the Battle of Passchendaele. In early 1918, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).
The heavy combat and the deaths of many of the young men he had recruited, placed enormous stress on his health. A few months after receiving the DSO, he was hospitalized in England for general debility and in May 1918, was repatriated to Canada where he was hospitalized for nervous shock, at Montreal`s Royal Victoria Hospital. On 25 May 1918, Sharpe jumped from a hospital window, to his death. He was laid to rest in Uxbridge.
