Herbert L. Nown was a sergeant in the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles, lst Central Ontario Regiment. He was born in Northamptonshire on 31 May 1888 and was working as a painter in Toronto, Ont. when he enlisted. He was killed in action on 10 October 1916 at the age of 28. He was survived by his wife Alice of Toronto, Ontario and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Nown of Northamptonshire, England.
Milos Novotny, mathematician, was born in Czechoslovakia and educated at Charles University in Prague from 1949 to 1953. He taught at the Czech Technical University in Prague from 1953 to 1963. He arrived in Canada in 1968 for graduate study at McMaster University where he received his doctorate in 1972. His thesis was titled, "Integration and Laplace Transformation of Orthogonal Series." After graduating from McMaster University, he taught at the University of Guelph, Université de Montréal, and finally Champlain Regional College in St. Lambert.
Henry Eugene (Hank) Novak was a native of Hamilton, a McMaster student, and an RCAF officer during the Second World War. He was killed in action on January 17, 1945.
A more detailed biographical note by Dr. C.M. Johnston can be found at <a href="http://alumni.os.mcmaster.ca/s/1439/index.aspx?pgid=682">‘Discover McMaster’s World War II Honour Roll’</a>.
William Nobleman was born in Toronto in 1930. He attended the University of Toronto and Toronto Teachers College. He taught in public and secondary schools in Ontario from 1949 to 1956. He was also vice-principal and principal for several years. He served as a Board of Education member of various standing committees in the areas of management, property, finance and vocational advisory and was instrumental in the achievement of upgrading public and secondary school libraries. From 1957 to 1963 he was a representative for advertising sales for Chatelaine magazine in Toronto. In August 1963 he was appointed Director of Advertising for Saturday Night magazine. He was Director of Marketing in January 1965; Vice-President and General Manager in September 1966 and President in November 1969. In 1971 Saturday Night Publications Limited entered into agreement with Second Century Canada Publications Inc. to manage the publication of Saturday Night and Monday Morning and Nobleman also became President of Second Century. In 1981 he served as President of William Nobleman & Associates. Currently he is the managing director of Know the World Tour Organizers Inc., a company founded by his wife in 1989. He lives in Toronto.
William Charles Noble was born on 1 May 1941 to William T. Noble(1913-1989) and Lucy R. Noble (1913-2005). A graduate of the University of Toronto, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in 1968 (thesis entitled “Iroquois archaeology and the development of Iroquois social organization, 1000-1650 A.D.: A study in culture change based on archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnology”). Noble was the first Canadian-born student to graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary, which was the first university in Canada to establish an archaeology program. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University on 1 July 1971. Nicknamed “Barren Lands Bill”, Noble excavated many sites, including Cleveland (AhHb-7), Hamilton (AiHa-5), Thorold (AgGt-1), and Walker (AgHa-9). He was the author of numerous studies on Iroquois (Six Nations / Haudenosaunee / Rotinonshionni) culture, the Neutral (Chonnonton / Onguiaahra) people who lived along the western shores of Lake Ontario, and early Ontario archaeology. In the early 1990s he was Professor Emeritus after taking early retirement. Married twice, first to Jean MacLeod Slater and later to Jacqueline E.M. Crerar (Noble), he had two children, Gordon William Noble (1969-1988) and Elizabeth M. Noble. He died on 26 April 2009.
Frederick Niven, author, was born on 31 March 1878, in Santiago, Chile, where his father was in the British consular service. At the age of five he moved to Scotland and was educated in Glasgow. He visited Canada several times from the mid-1890s onwards. In 1920 he settled permanently in British Columbia, mainly for health reasons. Niven published over twenty novels, as well as short fiction, poetry, non-fiction and an autobiography titled Coloured Spectacles (1938). He wrote novels set in urban Scotland as well as the Canadian west, including a trilogy, Mine Inheritance, The Flying Years, and The Transplanted (1935-1944). He died on 30 January 1944 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Little is known about Richard Nisbet. His coat of arms (Argent three boars heads erased sable within a bordure sable) and his crest (a boar salient regardant) taken together with his motto "Vis Fortibus Arma", suggests that he may be of the Nisbets of Greenholm, a branch of the Nisbets of that ilk dwelling in Ayr. He refers to himself as a 'philomath' — a lover of learning or a student of mathematics.
A contemporary Richard Nisbet — an erstwhile planter of Nevis who subsequently relocated to Philadelphia — published at least two works defending the institution of slavery (especially as practised in the West Indies) before being consigned to a Philadelphia hospital for reasons of insanity. It is possible that this is the same Nisbet, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest it.
Samuel Nickle was born in Winnipeg in 1913/14 to Olga and Sam Nickle. The family moved to Calgary in 1917. In 1935 he started the Nickle Map Service Ltd. In 1935 in response to the Turner Valley oil boom. During the Second World War he served in the Calgary Highlanders and was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps in 1943.
Following the war he resumed his mapping business working in the oil and gas industry. He continued to support the Calgary Highlanders and was appointed to Honorary Colonel. He passed away on 26 January 1994.
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.
Peter C. Newman, author, journalist, and editor, was born in Vienna, Austria on 10 May 1929 as Peta Neumann to Jewish parents who lived in Czechoslovakia. The family left Breclav just before the Nazi take-over in 1938 and he moved to Canada in 1940 and became a citizen in 1945. He was educated at the University of Toronto. As a journalist he has worked for the Financial Post, Toronto Star and Maclean's magazine. He was editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star from 1969 to 1971 before moving on to Maclean's, transforming it into a weekly news magazine.
After eleven years of running Maclean's, he decided to stay on as senior contributing editor. He has written biographies of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, the Bronfman family, and a history of the Hudson Bay Company. He often challenged the establishment, while also being a chronicler of it. Including A Nation Divided: Canada and the Coming of Pierre Trudeau (1969), The Establishment Man: Conrad Black, A Portrait of Power (1982), The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister (2005), and When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada (2011). In 2004 he published his autobiography, Here Be Dragons.
He died 7 September 2023 at the age of 94, in Belleville, Ontario, from complications suffered from a stroke the previous year and Parkinson's.
Chester New was born in Montreal on 9 October 1882 and educated at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, and the University of Chicago. From 1913 he taught at Brandon College. In 1920 he came to McMaster and taught there as a Professor of History until 1950. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1937 and of the Royal Society in 1948. His books include Lord Durham (1929) and The Life of Henry Brougham to 1830 (1961). He died in Hamilton, Ont. on 31 August 1960.
Boyd Neel, conductor, was born in London England on 19 July 1905. He first trained as a naval officer in 1918, but then left the navy to study for a medical career at Cambridge University in 1923. He became House Surgeon and Physician at St. George's Hospital, London. During this period he conducted amateur orchestras and choirs. He eventually decided to establish a professional orchestra. It had its debut on 22 June 1933 in London. The Boyd Neel Orchestra performed in England, throughout Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand. After a concert tour of Canada, Neel was offered the position of Dean of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto which he held from 1953 to 1971. He founded the Hart House Orchestra in 1955. He died in Toronto on 30 September 1981. His memoirs, edited by J. David Finch, were published posthumously as My Orchestras and Other Adventures (1985).
Opal Nations was born in Brighton, England. He began his career as a singer. Later on he became a writer and editor. While living in Vancouver, he owned his own small press, Strange Faeces, which published a magazine of the same name. It featured poetry, fiction and art. He moved to Oakland, Ca. in 1981. Further biographical information can be found on his web page.
Paul Nash, artist, was born in London on 11 May 1889. He studied art at the Chelsea Polytechnic and then at the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1930 he began his illustrations for Sir Thomas Browne's Urne Buriall and The Garden of Cyrus (London: Cassell's, 1932). Nash was a water-colourist of great individuality although remaining within the fold of the English tradition. He died in Boscombe on 11 July 1946.
Robert Jack Mutart was born on 7 May 1923 to Reginald and Carrie Mutart. Following the death of his father in 1929, his mother remarried a man named A. Lebert. Robert enlisted for service in the Second World War on 25 March 1942, and served in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. Attaining the rank of Leading Signalman, Robert would serve in the Atlantic Theatre on minesweeping and convoy missions. He was honourably discharged on 25 October 1945, but continued to serve as a reservist until 1957. On 12 May 1945 he married Anne Mattiuz, with whom he had three children: Donna, Bobby, and Jimmy. After the war, Robert would become a dentist in Hamilton. Robert died on 3 February 1962 in Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 38.
Reginald Francis Mutart was born on 7 June 1897 in Mimico, Ontario to Charles and Augusta Mutart, and worked as a clerk prior to the First World War. On 22 May 1916 he enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, and was assigned to the 64th Battery Canadian Field Artillery, 2nd Division French Mortars. During his service in the war, he saw action in France, including at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. He was honourably discharged on 19 August 1919, having attained the rank of Gunner. Following the war he would work for the Canadian National Railways as a clerk. He would marry a woman named Carrie, with whom he had at least one child, a son named Robert Jack Mutart. Reginald died on 2 August 1929 in Niagara Falls, Ontario following injures sustained in a gas explosion in the cellar of his home.
Susan Musgrave was born on March 12, 1951 in Santa Cruz, California. She has lived in Hawaii, Ireland, England and Columbia and presently resides in Sidney, British Columbia. She is married to Stephen Reid whose fonds is also at McMaster. She has published novels, children's books, collections of essays and poetry. Her published works include Entrance of the Celebrant (1972), Selected Strawberries and Other Poems (1977), The Charcoal Burners (1980), The Dancing Chicken (1987), Great Musgrave (1989) Forcing the Narcissus (1994), The Situation in Which We Are Both Amateurs (1997), Things That Keep and Do Not Change (1999) and Cargo of Orchids (2000) and Origami Dove (2011), A Taste of Haida Gwaii (2016), More Blueberries (2019) (Chldren’s book) and Kiss Tickle Cuddle Hug (2010) (Children’s book).
Born in Cooksville, Ontario, Emily Murphy (née Ferguson) was educated at Bishop Strahan School in Toronto. A feminist and lawyer, she was appointed to the Women's Court in Edmonton in 1916, the first woman magistrate appointed to such a position in the British Empire. She also wrote several accounts of life and travel in Manitoba, Alberta, and Europe under the pseudonym of "Janey Canuck".
Iris Murdoch, novelist and philosopher, was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 15 July 1919, and educated at Somerville College, Oxford, and Newnham College, Cambridge. She was a fellow and university lecturer in philosophy at St. Anne's College, Oxford, from 1948 to 1963 when she became an honorary fellow. Her novel, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) won the Whitehead Literary Award for fiction in 1974 while The Black Prince won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the same year. In 1978, The Sea won the Booker Prize. She has also published several books of philosophy, beginning with Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953). Iris Murdoch died on 8 February 1999 in Oxford.
