Jacques Copeau was a French theatrical manager and director. He was a co-founder of the Nouvelle Revue française in 1908. He founded and became manager of the Théâtre de Vieux-Colombier in 1913. In 1921 he established the École du Vieux-Colombier in Burgundy. By 1936 he was producer at the Comédie-Française and its president in 1940.
Lester E. Denonn was born in 1901, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y. He studied philosophy at New York University (B.A.) and Cornell University (M.A.). After graduating from New York University with a degree in law in 1928, he began his career as a lawyer specializing in banking law, which ended with his retirement from Simpson Thatcher and Barlett in 1973. He wrote many reviews for the American Bar Association journal and lectured widely on legal problems. He married Bess Schwinner and the couple had two children, a son Andrew, and a daughter, Alice Epstein.
Denonn edited The Wit and Wisdom of Bertrand Russell (1951), Bertrand Russell's Dictionary of Mind, Matter, and Morals (1952), and then with Robert E. Egner, The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (1961). He also edited The Wit and Wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1953). Denonn planned to complete a bibliography of Russell and to assist himself in this task collected a large library of books by and about Russell. He was an active member of the Bertrand Russell Society. He died on 12 June 1985.
Anton Felton was Bertrand Russell's literary agent. Russell hired him in 1966 to prepare his papers for sale and market the Autobiography. Felton, C.A. (later) M.Phil. (Oxon.), already had his own accounting firm, Felton and Partners, and thus he was also retained as Russell's accountant and that of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. Felton set up a separate firm, Continuum 1 Ltd., to handle the literary affairs of Russell and his other literary client, Len Deighton. There is one slim file of material pertaining to Deighton in the fonds. Felton was named as one of Russell's three literary executors in Russell's will and was responsible for Russell's estate until 1995 when the estate was wound up. Felton employed Barry Feinberg to do much of the work of the firm pertaining to Russell. Christopher Farley, Russell's secretary from 1966 until Russell's death in 1970, a director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, and another of Russell's literary executors, worked closely with Felton and Feinberg on all matters pertaining to Russell and Russell's estate. Kenneth Blackwell was another employee until Archives I was sold to McMaster University on 28 March 1968. Since his retirement Felton has published a work in an area of long-standing private interest: Jewish Carpets: A History and Guide (1997).
Carrie Webster was born on 29 November 1898 in Leeds. Her father was Dr. Hugh Webster, one of the original members of the Independent Labour Party. He became a member of the Hull City Council and served for 25 years. Most of Carrie’s life was spent in Hull. She cared for her father who died in 1952 at the age of 85. Carrie became a life-long friend of Constance Malleson; their correspondence begins in 1925. She died in November 1992.
Saul Jacob Frankel was born in Montreal on 6 August 1917. Educated at McGill University he obtained his Ph.D. in 1958. He joined the Political Science Department at McGill in 1954 and taught there until 1969, rising to the rank of Professor. During 1966-1967 he chaired the Royal Commission on Employer-Relations in the Public Services of New Brunswick. He moved to McMaster University where he became Dean of Social Sciences from 1969-1976. From 1976 to 1987 he served as a full-time Board member and Adjudicator of the Public Services Staff Relations Board in Ottawa. He died in 1992.
Mulberry Harbours were artificial harbours, assembled and built in Britain, and transported to France during World War II. The initial components for the two harbours, one for the American sector, and one for the British-Canadian sector, arrived in France on D-Day, 6 June 1944. By D-Day plus 7, the harbour erected in the British sector at Arromanches, Mulberry B, was operational. Mulberry A, in the American sector at St. Laurent, was so badly damaged by a storm that it could no longer be used. Colonel Vassal C. Steer-Webster headed the War Office branch co-ordinating all aspects of the invention, design, development, trials and siting of the harbours.
Harford Montgomery Hyde, lawyer, legislator, and author, was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 14 August 1907. He was educated at Queen's University, Belfast and Magdalen College, Oxford. In World War II he served in the British Army Intelligence Corps. He was a practising lawyer from 1934 to 1950 and then represented Belfast in the British Parliament from 1950-1959. He was a prolific author of historical and biographical works beginning with Rise of Castlereagh (1933). His books include Mexican Empire (1946) which won the Macmillan Centenary Award and Trials of Oscar Wilde (1973). Hyde was a collector of Wilde. Another of his books was about Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), three-time Prime Minister of Britain, titled Baldwin: The Unexpected Prime Minister (1973).
Thomas McClure was born and raised in Hamilton, Ont. and lived there all his life. He started work in the Sheet Mill at the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco) in 1928, joining the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers of North America. He became a major force in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in the late 1930s. He was elected to the Stelco Works Council in the 1930s as well. He was elected president of Local 1005 in 1944 and again in 1945. He played a vital part in negotiating the first contract between Stelco and Local 1005 and served on the negotiation committee many times after that. In 1968 McClure retired from Stelco and was awarded an honorary membership in U.S.W.A. He died on 8 June 1976.
Larry Sefton was born in Iroquois Falls, Ontario, in 1917. He started his working life and his union career almost simultaneously at the age of sixteen in the mines of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. In 1941 he was elected Recording Secretary of Local 240, International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. After the 1941-1942 strike was over, Sefton moved to Toronto. He joined the staff of the United Steel Workers of America, and this organization remained the base of his activities from then on. He was involved with the Stelco strike of 1946. Sefton ran unsuccessfully for the C.C.F. Party in the 1949 federal election. In 1953 he became Director of District 6 of the Steelworkers. He travelled extensively throughout Canada and abroad in this job. In 1958 he became Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress. He retired from his district directorship in 1972. He died in May 1973.
Peter Such, novelist, playwright, poet, and editor, was born in London, England in 1939. He emigrated to Canada in 1953, and obtained a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1960 and 1966 respectively. He has taught at several high schools, colleges, and universities in Ontario. In 1972 he helped to establish the Canadian Studies Programme at York University. In 1971 he founded the literary magazine, Impulse, and between 1975 and 1977, he was managing editor of Books in Canada. His novels include Fallout (1969), Riverrun (1973), and Dolphin's Wake (1979). He is also the author of Soundprints (1972), an introduction to the work of six Canadian composers, and Vanished Peoples (1978), a history of Newfoundland's aboriginal people. Such's other literary accomplishments include television scripts and films, plays and librettos.
Born and educated in Chicago, Robert John Longini (1915-1962) became interested in photography at the age of eleven and worked as a documentary film maker and photographer all his life. Among his influences were Robert Capa, the Life magazine photographer and father of modern war photography; Wallace Kirkland, a personal friend who also photographed for Life; and Lázló Moholy-Nagy, the Bauhaus painter and photographer who was head of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where Longini also taught. A lieutenant in the U.S. Army 163rd Signal Photographic Company, Longini served in North Africa and Italy; he was the official Army photographer at the Casablanca Conference and also the cameraman for the Army documentary The Battle of San Pietro.
Allan Burgess Dove, wire engineer and metallurgist, was born in Ayr, Scotland on 9 April 1909. He immigrated to Canada with his family in 1913. He attended Queen's University where he graduated with a BSc. in Chemical Engineering in 1932. Throughout his career Dove worked at Stelco's Canada Works in Hamilton, Ont. and Lachine, Que. as a Plant Engineer, Wire Mill Engineer, Superintendent, and Senior Development Metallurgist. An active member of the Wire Association International and other professional organizations, he edited the Steel Wire Handbook (4 vols., 1967-1980) and co-edited Ferrous Wire with Robert F. Dixon and Regina Robert (2 vols., 1990). In addition to his professional and scientific career, Dove was active in the Canadian military, beginning as a Private with the 91 Princess Louise Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada in 1925. After his retirement in 1974, Dove remained a consultant to Stelco as well as for other clients. He died on 24 July 1989.
Gordon William Parkinson was born on November 18, 1898 in Byron, Ontario. He was the second child of Robert John Parkinson and Katherine Ellen (Hull) Parkinson. In 1904, the family moved to Granton, Ontario. Gordon left his home to work for James McCormick Leather in London, Ontario, to learn the trade of harness maker.
At the age of 17, on April 12, 1916, he voluntarily enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and trained at Merwin Heights in London. He was part of the 142nd Battalion known as “London’s Own Battalion.” On July 8, 1916, his battalion left for Camp Borden by train. On November 1, 1916, the battalion left for England, and Gordon entered Dibgate Camp on November 11, 1916. Gordon crossed the channel to France on March 29, 1918, and was in active service with the First Division Canadian Corps. Throughout his time away from home, Gordon regularly wrote to his father, the family, and to his older brother Bob. He also sent home various items such as souvenirs, and a book titled “Atlas of the War.” Gordon was in the 1st Battalion, First Division Wing, D Coy, when he was killed in action on October 1, 1918. Gordon was buried in the Sancourt British Cemetery in France on October 17, 1918.
John D.C. McTavish served with the Canadian Intelligence Corps holding the rank of captain. The Corps was founded on 29 October 1942. He served in the military before that although it is not known what unit he was with. McTavish served with the Corps in Singapore, leaving England in December 1946, stopping in Cairo and New Delhi en route. He returned to England and from there sailed for Canada arriving in October 1946. He was married to Estelle Mary McTavish and they had at least one son. They lived in Victoria, BC, and at one point he describes the Thames in relation to the Cowichan River. Although he was married, McTavish became involved with two women while in England. Both of them wrote to him when he left England for the Far East. He had returned to Victoria, BC, by 1949, when he was working for Empire Life Insurance.
Information regarding McTavish's birth and death dates are unknown, however the following obituary appeared in The Times Colonist, 5 July 2002, and given the area, name, and the logical dates, it is presumed to be him:
MCTAVISH John D.C. 1913-2002, passed away peacefully on Saturday, June 29, 2002. He will be missed by all his family and friends and will remain in our hearts and minds forever. An afternoon tea party at his home will be held in his honour at 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 9, at at 2837 Gorge View Drive.
Ralph Ellis was an active labour leader in Hamilton for more than twenty years. During that time he was employed as a machinist at the American Can Company. He was active in the CCF party, becoming president of the Hamilton West Riding Association and also running for alderman in the 1950s. In the 1960s he became involved in the crusade to make Canadian labour unions independent of American influence. This activism led to his expulsion from the Hamilton and District Labour Council in 1971 after a membership of twenty years. He went on to chair the National Committee for Independent Canadian Unions. He passed away November 16, 2008 in his 88th year.
John Innes Merrylees began his service as a rifleman with the 1st Battalion, 5th City of London Regiment, on the Western Front. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. He later became a captain in the Middlesex Regiment, attached to the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment which formed part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
John Hays was born in Elgin, Scotland, in November 1896, the son of James and Jemina Hays. At the time of his enlistment in Toronto he was living in Hamilton, Ont. with his parents. He listed his occupation as a farmer. He was assigned to the 19th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force as a private. He served with different units during the war until his death on 9 May 1917.
Wilson Thomson was an illustrator for Blue Book magazine which published fiction in the United States. Apart from that, nothing more is known about him or his career.
William Force Stead, poet and clergyman, was born 29 August 1884 in Washington, D.C. and educated at the University of Virginia. He went to England with the U.S. consular service, serving as Vice-Consul in Liverpool and Nottingham. He left the service to study at Queen's College, Oxford. He was ordained into the Church of England and appointed assistant chaplain of the Anglican church in Florence, Italy. He returned to England around 1926 and was elected a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. From 1927 to 1933 he served as college chaplain. In 1939 he returned to the United States where he became professor of English at Trinity College in Washington, D.C. He died on 8 March 1967 in Baltimore, Maryland. His best work of poetry is Uriel, A Hymn in Praise of Divine Immanence (1933). He was also a reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement. His academic scholarship involved the poet Christopher Smart (1722-1771). In 1939 Stead edited Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam by Christopher Smart.
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.
