The following is the entry on Josiah Blackburn found in the book “The Province of Ontario”. Much of it came from an obituary written by his daughter Victoria Grace. Portions of her description that were originally omitted/altered in this article have been reinserted (in square brackets).

JOSIAH BLACKBURN—A Canadian journalist of great power and sagacity, an active participant in the building of the city of London, Ontario, Josiah Blackburn, one of the most foremost newspaper men in the Dominion, lived a long, constructive and fruitful life, devoted to the service of his community. Genial and kind hearted, gifted intellectually, and an advocate of clean living and clean politics, he was surrounded by friends and employees who admired and loved him. A devoted husband and father, a broad reader, a lover of nature, and an amateur actor in the home theatricals, his domestic life was unusually happy, entertaining and blessed.

Born in London, England, In 1823, Josiah Blackburn was the son of the Rev. John and Sarah (Smith) Blackburn. On his paternal side, he came of North Country folk, the Blackburns of Lancaster and of Yorkshire having sprung from one stock. His forebears were "church" people, the famous old pirate, a legendary [though not authentic] ancestor, Blackburn of York, having repented of his sins, took orders and later became a prelate. His love for the violin brought to him the name of the "Fiddling Bishop of York", and it was in this character [fiddle under his chin] that his sculpture has a place among the York Minster niches. The Rev. John Blackburn, upon personal conviction, joined the Independent Church, and served that body with intellectual and oratorical brilliance during his thirty-five years pastorate of Claremont Chapel at Islington, London.

At his father's home, Josiah Blackburn met men of distinction in all walks of life, such as Sir Benjamin West, the distinguished American painter, then President of the Royal Academy; the English poet laureate, Robert Southey; Sir Henry Layard, the archeologist, excavator of Nineveh; [and many others of kindred accomplishment]. His full length portrait by the Royal Academician, Ewing, is still preserved In the Central Congregationalist Hall, London. [Other portraits by the subject's brother Samuel Blackburn, the portrait painter, together with several portrait engravings by the then royal engraver to the King of the Belgians, being in the possession of the Canadian branch of the family].

His father's mother was descended from the Juxon family of Suffolk, whose most distinguished member is the famous Bishop Juxon (1582-1663), Bishop of London and Lord High Treasurer of England under Charles I, and Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles II. It was this Bishop Juxon who received the disturbing request of the unfortunate Stuart monarch that he stand with him upon the scaffold. Upon that occasion, just prior to his execution, Charles gave a ring to Bishop Juxon upon which was engraved the single word, "Memento". This ring is now in the British Museum. [The motto used since that day by the second son of the daughters of the Juxon house, is in this instance--John Blackburn being Mary Juxon’s second son--attached to the Blackburn crest.] On his mother's side, Josiah Blackburn is the grandson of Robert Smith, the squire of Beslyns, a manor in Essex, England.

[Upon maturity and marriage Josiah Blackburn, who had been educated as a Congregationalist, well lessoned in the "Spiritual gongs and Hymns of Isaac Watts” returned to the communion of the Church of England of which his wife was a member.]

[As I remember my Father, the late Josiah Blackburn, his temperament was a mixture of kindliness, gaiety and repercussive wit, with only an occasional outbreak of sternness, never of temper. Intellectually, and this despite the fact that he was a man of quick emotions, his bent was scientific. His favorite authors were Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, John Stuart Mill and the other "giants" of his day. In a lighter scientific vein, he read Proctor and, of course, he was always keen for all the new ideas along lines of scientific industrial invention.]

Thus born In the days of George IV, Josiah Blackburn lived in the reigns of three British sovereigns and saw the great changes during a long life. Flint fire was supplanted by lucifer matches, sperm oil by coal oil, and coal oil was replaced by the earliest electric-lighted inventions. He came to Canada in 1850, having received his education in the City of London School at the famous Mill Hill School, also in Paris and in Continental travelling. He crossed in a wooden sailing vessel which took three weeks for the passage. He lived to see the application of steam power to steel ships, and was three years old when the first tiny railway was built in England… [and never, I believe, traveled any other way in that country but by coach, on horseback, or on his own two good legs, legs which to the last day of his health he loved to use on the long walks through the beautiful countryside round about London to which walks he inured both himself and his children. An acquaintance of the late Dr Graham Bell, his telephones, both at the Free Press and in his own home were among the first instruments in use in Canada. Yet how often have I heard him lament the fact that he could not live to see the general use of "horseless carriages", the better application of electricity for lighting and industrial purposes, the air-ship and many other mechanical improvements which he prognosticated.]

[Like the poet Goethe, Josiah Blackburn’s cry was always for "Light! more light!" Light intellectual and light physical were his passion. In respect of the latter he used to say that the introduction and general usage of brighter and better street and roadside illumination would do away with crime. Criminals are children; children of darkness. Make them children at least of light. Educate. Let the dark places become plain. Such were the fundamental tenets of his social creed. And further, he had such forgiveness of crime in his make-up that twenty years after a political ruffian of the early [eighteen] sixties had attacked him with steel knuckles and "broken and forever disfigured his nose, he instantly recognized the man when he came to the Free Press Office, on his return to Canada from the United States, to offer a tardy apology, forgave him his attack as "being the outcome of hot-trained, misguided youth, and later secured a post for him in London. And that post, I understand, this man worthily filled to the end of his days.]

Upon his arrival in Canada, Mr. Blackburn associated himself in the newspaper business, and became one of the oldest and ablest journalists in the Dominion. His first newspaper contact was with the "Paris Star," remaining with that paper until the year 1852. Then he purchased interest in the "London Free Press" and assumed control of it in 1853. From a little bankrupt sheet he built it into a highly respectable and respected metropolitan newspaper, one of the most influential and successful papers in Western Ontario. From the beginning of his management, the paper grew into a well-balanced, well-informed, valuable medium, maintaining a high standard of journalism. It is today considered one of the most valuable newspaper properties in the Province. He gave his personal guidance and ability to the work; and his steady brain, executive ability and personality carried the "Free Press" through financial, political and business troubles and discouragements with equanimity and consistent good humour. Settling in London in its early scattered condition, he has been a builder, in the greatest sense, in its progress and expansion. He opened his career with the "Free Press" in a small one-storied brick building on Talbot Street, with only the meagre mechanical equipment of pioneer days. He obtained the paper from Judge Daniel, who held a mortgage on it. The census of 1852 showed a population of 952,000 in Upper Canada, and 890,000 in Lower Canada; London was a small center for a great and growing agricultural community, and not yet begun to assume an industrial character. The circulation of the "Free Press" was limited to 1,000 or 1,500, the weekly edition going into the outlying country districts. The Great Western Railway had been completed from Suspension Bridge to London, and a year later had been extended to Windsor. In 1855-56 the city had built a line to Port Stanley. London was at that time an Imperial Military center, which was withdrawn a few years later, leaving the community smaller than ever. But his rare business ability, his editorial gift, and loyal employees carried the paper through its early years of struggle, and Mr. Blackburn's newspaper became one of influence and power. Politically, he was Liberal in the truest sense of that word. The Conservative party under Sir John A. Macdonald got its name because that party was foremost in the policy which should conserve Canada as a part of the British Empire, as against the annexationists of Lord Elgin's and a later day. Mr. Blackburn worked for Confederation along with the other "Fathers" of that movement, and associated himself in the work with Sir John because he saw in him a liberal, disinterested, generous-minded, a mind particularly chivalrous toward the French Roman Catholics in Canada, against whom the late George Brown, of the "Toronto Globe," was at that time waging his illiberal, though, to Mr. Blackburn, an honestly enough conceived campaign.

[To call Josiah Blackburn conservative in the sense of the laws of the Medes and Persians, "laudator temporis acti", and that sort of thing, is to miss the man. In all my experience of him I never knew him to "stay put" when there was something better to be gained by going forward.]

[My Father was an accomplished amateur actor as well as an excellent dramatic critic. In one of the large living rooms of his house in Albert Street, London, there was during many winters, a stage erected with footlights, curtain and all accessories. There together with a few chosen friends he delighted to play "many parts". He was, further, a reader of intelligence and expression. One of his favorite occupations when the day’s work was done, the magic "30" written at the bottom of the last article, was to read aloud to his family from the classics, the book of the hour, or most frequently, from some English review, scientific, political, or what not; since on days when the "mail from home" was in, the pockets of his overcoat were always stuffed with copies of such journals.]

[His chief recreation over and above the beloved walking, was a game of Whist (bridge not having been invented), and at Whist, like the late Sarah Battle of beloved memory, he stood for "a clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game".]

[Loving the City of London, Ontario as the scene of his life work, my Father saw in it, as one might say, something of his own creation. His pen was ever employed in the direction of civic progress and improvement. He had no patience with men who grumbled about paying municipal taxes. To all such “Go and live in a swamp!" was his admonition. Springbank as a source of a pure water supply might never have been realized had it not been for the enthusiasm with which he espoused the scheme. As for Victoria Park and our tree-planted boulevards, he worked for both with all the persuasion of his reason, and his genius literally salvaging the land that is now the park from the harpies of real estate.]

He was naturally the center of many a political battle; especially famous was the episode of the "Double Shuttle" in 1859 when a difference, above referred to, arose among Mr. Blackburn's political friends, growing out of the attitude of the "Globe" with respect to an attack made in its columns on the motives of the judges in the decisions they gave in that case. Mr. Blackburn took a course that was hotly denounced, but shortly afterward he adducted reasons why the Reformers should look to the late Sir John Sandfield Macdonald as their leader, and in 1862 that highly honoured gentleman was called to office at Quebec, and Mr. Blackburn was asked by his Government to conduct the "Mercury" in the interests of the Ministry, to which he agreed, availing himself of the valued services of George Sheppard. After the fall of the Sandfleld Macdonald Administration in 1864, a coalition of parties took place, on the basis of the confederation of the B.N.A. Provinces and the Hon. George Brown found himself in the same Cabinet with his ancient opponents. Sir John Macdonald and Sir George E. Cartier. Mr. Blackburn remained attached to that party, and declined to follow Mr. Brown into opposition when he retired from the ranks of the Coalition Government. The "Free Press" became a warm supporter of Sir John's Provincial administration when formed. In 1872, he was requested to aid in the establishment of the "Toronto Mail" devoting fifteen months in this work. In 1881, he was appointed one of the chief officers in the taking of the census. In 1884, he was named on a commission to proceed to Washington, D.C., to investigate methods of public printing adopted there.

Mr. Blackburn, though educated a Congregationalist, returned to the communion of the Church of England. The late Dean Innes, former rector of the St. Paul's Cathedral, and a former fellow student when they both attended the famous Mill Hill School in the Old England, called his friend "an honest doubter," yet those who remember his ponderings over the "Twelve Books" of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; the "Discourses" of Epictetus; the "Thoughts" of Seneca; Arnold's "Light of Asis" and Renan's "Vie de Jesu," feel and know how deeply a worship continually flooded his soul, and a member of his devoted family reminds that Mr. Blackburn may have learned the grace to know the truth in respect to any who were his detractors or his open enemies, that "The best revenge is not to be like them."

[Not a handsome man in the accepted sense off the term, Josiah Blackburn had a graceful buoyant figure, a light step, beautifully shaped hands and feet, and a shock of auburn hair which never turned grey and which was to the end of his days his crown of glory.]

[At this time of my life, looking back on a delightful and a delight-engendering parent who in company with his wife, my beloved mother, made a home from which none of their family cared to be absent for a longer period than duty or social necessity absolutely demanded, can honestly write "Their children arise and call them blessed".]

He died November 11, 1890, at Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Josiah Blackburn married, in 1852, Emma J. Delamore, a daughter of an English gentleman, who had taken up land in the Don Valley. Eight children were born to them, six girls and two boys; of the latter, Walter Josiah, deceased, was a former President of the Free Press Printing and Publishing Company, and Arthur Stephen, President of the "London Free Press."