John Dryden

John Dryden was a Canadian farmer and politician who served as Ontario's Minister of Agriculture under Premier Oliver Mowat. As minister he implemented agricultural reforms including traveling dairies and dairy schools that brought instruction directly to rural communities, and he established an experimental farm near Wabigoon Lake in 1895, after which the town of Dryden, Ontario was named in his honor. He represented the riding of Ontario South as a Liberal member of the Ontario legislature from 1879 to 1904 and served on the board of governors of McMaster University. This John Dryden, distinct from the seventeenth-century English poet of the same name, is not to be confused with that earlier literary figure.