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John Churchill, military commander, was born in June 1650 in Musbury, Devonshire. He was created the first Duke of Marlborough in December 1702. He died on 17 June 1722.

H.M.S. Carnarvon was a Devonshire-class cruiser of 10,850 tons built for the Royal Navy in 1905. She served in various capacities prior to the start of the First World War, where she was assigned to Cape Verde Station to protect British ships. In October 1914, the Carnarvon was transferred to the South Atlantic where she was part of the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914. Throughout the rest of the war she continued to patrol against German raiders and escort convoys. In 1919, it became a training ship, before being sold for scrap in 1921.

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded in March 1963 to promote the establishment of an independent Québec. Pierre Vaillières jointed the FLQ in 1965 and provided its philosophical underpinnings. The group used radical tactics, being involved in over 200 bombings between 1963 and 1970. In 1970 the FLQ kidnapped cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and British trade commissioner James Cross. Laporte was later murdered. The FLQ, many of its members in prison, ceased activity in 1971.

The Simpson and Reid families were both based in Aberdeen, Scotland during the early nineteenth century.

Thomas Bassett Reid, the patriarch of the Reid family, originally hailed from London. He was active as a bootmaker in that city from at least 1786. In 1820 he dissolved a business partnership with one Edward Eld, leaving the latter in control of all its assets, and sometime afterward he moved to Scotland.

There he met Lilly McLachlan of Aberdeen, whom he subsequently married in 1828. The banns were published in Glasgow and the two were wed at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Edinburgh, where the couple settled. They had at least five children: Thomas, Alexander, George (b. 1832), Anne (b. 1835), and Amelia. Some time after Anne's birth, the family relocated to Aberdeen, which was to be their home for a generation.

Thomas the elder, the family patriarch, died sometime prior to 1851; his daughter Amelia died in 1857.

Thomas the younger served in the British Army; being appointed assistant surgeon in 1851 and full surgeon in 1858. During this time period — which coincided with the Rebellion of 1857 — he served for several years in India. His correspondence home provides a valuable insight into his life and impressions during this period. After returning home, he enrolled in medical school at the University of Aberdeen and subsequently became a licensed physician. He later set up a private practise in Aberdeen.

His younger brother George, an engineer, died at Suez (presumably during the construction of the canal) in 1865, leaving all his worldly goods to his mother Lilly.

Anne, a teacher by profession, married James Walker Simpson in 1861. By the time of their wedding, neither of James’ parents (James and Margaret) were still living.

Little is known of Alexander’s education and life save that he followed in his elder brother’s footsteps and became, like Thomas, a physician.

Over the course of the late nineteenth century, at least one branch of the family relocated to Canada. Alexander, his sister Anne, and her husband James Simpson all made the journey during this period. Alexander settled in Hamilton, and James is known to have relocated to Montreal some time prior to 1911.

In spite of time and distance, the Simpson, MacLachlan, and Reid families remained in contact for many years. Descendents of the family live in and around Hamilton to this day.

Ray Gardner had a long career as an editor and journalist. Born in Victoria, Gardner grew up in Vancouver and worked for the city's three dailies, including The Province, The Sun and the News Herald. In 1947 he won the prestigious Kemsley scholarship, then awarded annually to the "outstanding young newspaperman in Canada," and spent 14 months in the United Kingdom and Europe. While in the UK, he married Kay Gardner, whom he had met in Vancouver in 1945.

On his return to Canada, Mr. Gardner served as managing editor of the Edmonton Bulletin, and worked as a freelance writer for numerous Canadian periodicals, including Maclean's, Liberty and Reader's Digest. After serving as West Coast editor of Maclean's, he joined The Star in 1961, where he became editor of Star Weekly, a weekly magazine supplement distributed with The Star. When it folded in 1968, he moved over to the daily as an assistant managing editor, serving in a variety of roles. He was appointed ombudsman, the reader's representative at the newspaper, in 1982, and remained in that post until his retirement in 1986.

Robert and Susan Evans lived in London, England. They had two sons, Victor and Cecil and a daughter, Winifred. Not long before the start of the First World War they moved to a farm in Gaston, Oregon, and later to Portland. They maintained contact with a number of people in England, including Robert’s sister Emily, Susan’s sister Mary, and a family friend William Waterson.

Victor and Cecil Evans were brothers who fought in the First World War. Cecil (2557483) served as a gunner and Victor (2557484) was a driver.

Victor Roland Evans, 27 July 1896, and Cecil John Robert Evans, 7 April 1898, were born in London, England, to Susan and Robert Evans and later moved to Portland, Oregon. The brothers travelled together from Portland to Victoria, BC and enlisted on 1 March 1918.

Both brothers were sent to France and served with the Canadian Field Artillery.

Henri de Maillé, marquis de Carman, was a French nobleman who flourished in the late 17th century. In 1674 he married Marie Anne du Puy de Murinées; their only child, Donatien, was the maternal grandfather and namesake of Donatien Alphonse François — better known by his title, the Marquis de Sade.

Antony Fenwick (Tony) Pickard, O.B.E., C.D., R.C.N., was a career officer in the Royal Canadian Navy.

Born in Victoria, BC, he began serving as a cadet in 1928, taking various appointments before the start of the war. During the Second World War, he was commander of a corvette squadron that escorted merchant ships across the Atlantic.

His post-war service included acting as captain of HMCS Haida. He spent three years of his naval career in Hamilton, from 1956 to 1959, where he was chief of staff of Commanding Officer Naval Divisions (COND), based at HMCS Star on the Hamilton bayfront, the headquarters of Canada’s naval reserves. He was present for the independence celebrations in Sierra Leone in 1961 and after retiring in 1965, he was manager of one of Canada’s theme pavilions at EXPO67 in Montreal. He became administrator for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in 1968. He died in 1972.

Luca Codignola-Bo, born in Genoa, Italy, in 1947, took his Master's degree in History at the University of Toronto in 1974. New France historian William J. Eccles was his thesis director. He then taught early Canadian and American history at the universities of Bologna (1975-7), Pisa (1976-90), and Genova (1990-2016). At Genova he was also member of the University's Senate (2012-5). In 2008-12 he was Head of the Institute of History of Mediterranean Europe (ISEM) of Italy's National Research Council (CNR). Dr Codignola-Bo has been active in a number of international associations and institutions, such as the International Council for Canadian Studies (President 1985-7), the Italian Association for Canadian Studies (President 1988-90), the Italian Committee for North American History (President 1989-91), the Association internationale des études acadiennes (President 2004-6), the Association internationale des études québécoises (member of the Conseil d'Administration 2005-10), the European Science Foundation, Standing Committee for the Humanities (Italy's representative 2005-8). He was awarded the Northern Telecom Five Continents Award in Canadian Studies (1988), the Special Government of Canada Award (2001), and a Doctorate honoris causa (D.Litt.) by Saint Mary's University (2003). He was also elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2016). Over the years Dr Codignola-Bo has taught in several Canadian and American universities such as York (1990-4), Laval (1997, 2000), McGill (1998), Brown (2001), Toronto (2002), and Saint Mary's (2007, 2013-4). He has also been research associate at the Université de Montréal (1977, 1988, 1990, 1992), the University of Ottawa (1977, 1985), the University of London (1980, 1982-3, 2002, 2004), the John Carter Brown Library (1989, 2001), and the Library Company of Philadelphia (2003). At the time of the donation of his personal papers to McMaster University, Dr Codignola-Bo was Adjunct Professor (History) at Saint Mary's University (2005-17), Senior Fellow of the Cushwa Center for the History of US Catholicism of the University of Notre Dame (2016-8), and Professeur associé (Histoire) at the Université de Montréal (2016-9). He is best known for his work on the the Roman Catholic church in the North Atlantic area in the early modern era, and has also written on the history of early European expansion in the Atlantic region. Since 2016 Dr Codignola-Bo lives in Milan with his wife, Gabriella Ferruggia, a former professor of American literature. They have one daughter, Federica.

The brothers John Cowper Powys, Theodore Francis Powys and Llewelyn Powys were members of a family of eleven children born to the Reverend C.F. Powys, an Anglican clergyman and vicar of Montacute, and his wife Mary-Cowper Johnson, a descendant of the poet William Cowper.

John Cowper Powys was born on 8 October 1872 in Shirley, Derbyshire. He was a novelist, essayist, poet and lecturer. He attended Corpus Christi College (M.A.) and was awarded an honorary doctor of letters from the University of Wales. He was a lecturer in England and United States, spending nearly thirty years there, mostly based in New York city. He married Margaret Alice Lyon in 1896 and had one son. He published the novels Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932), and Owen Glendower (1940). His essays include The Meaning of Culture (1930), The Pleasures of Literature (1938), and The Art of Growing Old (1943). He died on 17 June 1963 in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Merionieth, Wales.

T.F. Powys was born on 20 December 1875, in Shirley, Derbyshire. He attended Dorchester Grammar School. He was a farmer and ran his own farm, White House Farm at Suffolk, before “retiring” to Dorset to write. A man who rarely left home or travelled in a car, he married Violet Dodds in 1905 and had three children. From 1904-1940 he settled in the village of East Chaldon and wrote novels short stories and essays. His works, such as Black Irony (1923) and Mr. Weston’s Good Wine (1927), are set in Dorset. He also wrote a number of short stories and fables. T.F. Powys died on 27 November 1953.

Llewelyn Powys was born at Rothesay House, South Walks, Dorchester on 13 August 1884 and spent his childhood in Montacute, Somerset. As an adult he lived for periods in Kenya, the United States, Dorset and Switzerland. He wrote 26 books, amongst them Black Laughter about life in Africa, Skin for Skin, a memoir of his residence in a Swiss sanatorium for tuberculosis, and Impassioned Clay, a statement of his philosophical outlook. He died in 1939.

Born in Winnipeg on 10 March, 1942, Marvyne Jenoff graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1964. She also studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem and the Sheridan College School of Design. She taught English as a second language from 1960 to 1996.

Her books include No Lingering Peace (1972), Hollandsong (1975), New Poet's Handbook (1984), The Orphan and the Stranger (1985), and The Emperor's Body (1995). She was the Fiction Editor of Waves from 1980 to 1985 and was a regular contributor to Montage, a MENSA newsletter from 1995 to 1998. Her poems and fiction have appeared in a variety of Canadian magazines.

Eugene McNamara was born in 1930 in Oak Park, Illinois. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from DePaul University in 1953 and 1955, respectively. He completed a Ph.D. in English Literature at Northwestern University in 1964. He began teaching in the Department of English at the University of Windsor in 1959. He was one of the first two instructors in the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English.

He has published in the genres of poetry, short stories and novels. Four of his short stories were selected for inclusion in the annual Best Canadian Stories. One of these stories appeared in Best American Short Stories in 1975. He founded the University of Windsor Review, now known as The Windsor Review in 1965 and was editor until 1987. His publications include Passages and Other Poems (1972), Screens (1977), The Moving Light (1986), Keeping In Touch: New & Selected Poems (1998), Waterfalls (2000), Grace Notes: Poems New & Selected (2004) and a novel, The Orphans Waltz (2008). Eugene McNamara is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at the University of Windsor. He has been active in the arts community.

Vista Productions was a small English recording company begun and directed by Michael Smythe (1932-1979). Most of Smythe’s recordings were of organ music, though he also recorded choral music and some chamber music. Although he did issue many of his recordings on his own labels, first Progress and then Vista, he also recorded for the larger companies: E.M.I, RCA, Decca and others. Smythe became well known for his authentic and natural-sounding recordings of the organ, all of which were done with a single microphone and very little editing.

Ernest Klein, linguist, author, and rabbi, was born on 26 July 1899 in Szatmar, Hungary. He was educated at the University of Vienna. He held a number of posts as rabbi in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and France before he immigrated to Canada where he held the post of Rabbi of Congregation Beth Yitshak in Toronto until his death in 1983. He is the author of A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1966-1967).

Richard Outram , poet, was born in Oshawa, Ontario in 1930. He was educated at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books of poetry. He married Barbara Howard in 1957. Together he and Barbara founded the Gauntlet Press in 1960, primarily in order to publish Richard's poetry, illustrated by Howard's wood engravings. Richard died in 2005.

Claire Culhane (née Eglin) was born on 2 September 1918 into a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Montreal. She later married Gerry Culhane, a member of the Communist Party and trade-union activist but the marriage did not last. In 1967-1968 Culhane worked as an advisor and hospital administrator with the Canadian Anti-Tuberculosis Hospital in Quang Ngai, South Vietnam. Upon her return to Canada, she became very involved in peace activism. In 1976 she was appointed a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee for British Columbia Penitentiaries. An author, one of her books was titled Why Is Canada in Vietnam? She died on 28 April 1996 in Vancouver.

Gabriel Fielding was the pen name of Alan G. Barnsley, physician, educator and author, who was born on 25 March 1916 in Hexham, Northumberland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and St. George's Hospital, London. His best known novel is The Birthday King (1962), the story of a Jewish-Catholic family living in Nazi Germany, which won the W. H. Smith Award. In 1966 Barnsley moved to the United States where he became Professor of English at Washington State University until 1981. He died in Bellevue, Washington on 27 November 1986.

Ruth Nichols, author, was born on 4 March 1948 in Toronto. She was educated at the Universities of British Columbia and McMaster. For a number of years after 1974 she lectured at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is primarily a writer of juvenile novels although she has written some historical novels as well.

Havergal Brian was an English composer and musical critic who was born in Dresden, Staffordshire. He died in Shoreham on 28 November 1972. In composition he was self-taught while earning his living from clerical jobs. He eventually found work as an assistant editor of Musical Opinion. He composed 32 symphonies.

Born in Manchester, Ralph Straus was educated at Harrow and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. His first novel, Heart's Mystery (1903), was privately published while he was still an undergraduate. He wrote thirteen further novels and a number of works of non-fiction, several pertaining to the history of printing. He reviewed fiction for the Sunday Times and the Bystander for a period of almost twenty years. In addition, he was a printer and book collector. He died on 5 June 1950.