Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald called Earnscliffe home for many years before his death in 1891.

SINCE 1930 successive British High Commissioners to Canada have lived at 'Earnscliffe', a Victorian house in grey stone on the south bank of the Ottawa River. It is the house which Sir John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada, made famous. He owned and lived in it for several years before his death there in 1891.

In 1955 Norman Reddaway produced a comprehensive history[pdf] of Earnscliffe to mark its centenary. He served on the staff of the High Commission for the United Kingdom in Canada from 1952 to 1955. It involved an enormous amount of research, absorbed the greater part of his leisure for six months, and could never have been completed so satisfactorily if he had not possessed the natural gifts of an historian and unbounded enthusiasm.  This story illustrated and brought to life much of the history of Ottawa over the previous  hundred years; and behind the owners of the house loom the movements and events, of much more than local significance, which brought them to Ottawa.

In 2005, both Earnscliffe and the City of Ottawa celebrated their 150th anniversaries. In this special year, the British High Commission partnered with the City of Ottawa by participating in the annual Open Doors Ottawa event in which more than 2,000 visitors came to see this magnificent home. We continue to participate in Open Doors Ottawa most recently in 2009.