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Thomas Russell Wilkins, physicist, was born in Toronto on 6 June 1891. He graduated from McMaster University, then located in Toronto, Ontario, in 1912, before continuing on to the University of Chicago. From 1918 to 1925 he was head of the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Brandon College in Calgary, Alberta. During that time he also completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago. He spent one year, 1925-1926, at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, England. In 1926 he joined the Physics Department of the University of Rochester in New York. In 1928 he was appointed director of the Institute of Optics. He died in Rochester on 10 December 1940. Wilkins secured photographic recordings of cosmic rays and the disintegration of radium atoms.

John Wilkes, politician, man of fashion, and dilettante, was born in Clerkenwell on 17 October 1727 and educated by a Presbyterian minister, Leeson, at Alylesbury, Buckinghamshire before going on to the University of Leyden. Through marriage he gained an estate at Aylesbury and was before long separated from his wife. As a supporter of Pitt, he was returned in the general election of 1761, and together with Pitt's brother-in-law, he organized the Bucks. militia of which he was appointed colonel in June 1762. Foiled in his plan to either become an ambassador or the governor of Quebec, he began to write pamphlets, published anonymously, against the government. He was answered by Smollet in The Briton and helped to found The North Briton in order to have a vehicle for response. Its first issue was published on 5 June 1762. Wilkes had a very chequered career with repeated arrests, a conviction for libel, and a successful return to the House of Commons. The manuscript of 22 October 1764 was written in response to his conviction. He spent several years in exile in France. He died in London on 26 December 1796.

Roy McKeen Wiles was born on 15 October 1903 in Truro, Nova Scotia, and educated at Dalhousie University and Harvard University. He began his academic career at the University of Alberta as a lecturer in English in 1928. He came to McMaster University as an assistant professor of English in 1935, eventually rising to professor and then department chair. He also served as a lay reader for the Anglican Diocese of Niagara. He is the author of Serial Publications in England Before 1750 (1957) and Freshest Advices: Early Provincial Newspapers in England (1965). He died in Ottawa, Ontario on 9 March 1974.

Daniel Wilcox and his descendents resided in Hagersville and Caistorville, Ontario, and other nearby towns and villages, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.

John G. Wigmore was the son of Thomas B. Wigmore of Thorold, Ontario and served as a Leading Aircraftman with the RCAF during the Second World War. His older brother William (Bill) C. Wigmore was a Squadron Leader and flew in England, Gibraltar and Malta and was mentioned in dispatches.

Robert Whyte was born in 1874 and was married during the time he served with the London Scottish. His rank rose from Captain to Lieutenant Colonel. At the end of the war he attempted with Capt. R.M. Robertson to prepare a history of the Regiment that would be different than the official one by James H. Lindsay.

Walt Whitman, poet, was born on 31 May 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York. He began to work at age eleven as an office boy. His Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855. He died on 26 March 1892 in Camden, New Jersey. Henry Scholey Saunders (1864-1951) who compiled the photograph album was a Whitman devotee. He wrote a number of privately published books on Whitman, including Whitman Portraits, Toronto, 1922 (9 copies printed) and Whitman Portraits, Toronto, 1923 (4 copies printed). Both of these books, it would appear, were based on the photograph album he compiled. The album was given as a gift to Albert Ernest Stafford Smythe.

Joan White, wife of William (Bill) G. White an instructor in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the Second World War. She moved with him to Moncton, NB, and then to St. Thomas, ON (No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, RCAF Station Fingal).

Gordon White was a nature photographer. He was both a fellow of the Photographic Society of America and an associate of the Royal Photographic Society. This is designated by the abbreviations F.P.S.A. and A.R.P.S. which appear on his photographs. He lived in Port Colborne, Ontario. His photographs of birds and plants were exhibited in both the United States and Canada in various venues, including at the American Ornithologists’ Union.

Eric White, music critic and arts administrator, was born in Bristol on 10 September 1905 and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. From 1929 to 1933 he worked as a translator for the League of Nations. Later on, from 1942 to 1971 he was employed by the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) and its successor, the Arts Council. His most important book is considered to be Stravinsky: The Composer and His Work (1966), based on a long study. He also wrote The Rise of English Opera (1951) and A History of English Opera (1983). He died in September 1985 in London.

James F. Westhead (1907-1995) was a member of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps in 1941, commanding “C” Squadron of the Lord Strathcona Horse. He was promoted to the rank of Major around 1943. In the final years of World War II, Westhead was Deputy to the Military Governor of the Netherlands. In 1947, he re-enlisted with the Militia, eventually becoming Brigadier General of the 18th Militia Group in Northern Ontario. For more biographical information consult Westhead’s obituary, published in The Globe and Mail on 13 November, 1995.

H. G. Wells, novelist, was born in Bromley, Kent on 21 September 1866. After an apprenticeship as a draper, Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in South Kensington.

A prolific novelist, he is perhaps best remembered for his scientific romances beginning with The Time Machine (1895) and followed by The Wars of the Worlds (1898) about the invasion of earth by Martians. In 1934 he published Experiment in Autobiography. He died in London on 13 August 1946.

J.N. Weekes served aboard H.M.S. Sapphire. H.M.S. Sapphire was a light cruiser of 3,000 tons built in 1905. At the outbreak of the war the ship formed part of the 7th Battle Squadron and was on escort duty in the English Channel as the British Expeditionary Force crossed to France. Later on the ship took part in operations at Gallipoli and eventually was stationed at various Italian Naval Bases.

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.

Pelham Webb was an English poet who was killed in action at the Battle of Arras 9 April 1917. He was the son of of Dr. and Mrs. Pelham Webb, of London, and attending Abingdon School in Oxfordshire. He was a Second Lieutenant in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, D Compnay, 5th Battalion. His only book of poems Wandering Fire was published in Chelsea in 1916. He was buried in the British Tilloy Cemetery, Tilloy-les-Mofflaines, France.

The information in this file originally stated that Webb had been killed in 1914, but this is believed to be incorrect. There are no Pelham Webb's listed in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and while he does generally sign his name 'Pelham Webb', omitting the Arthur, one of the documents is initialed APW.

John Charles Weaver received his B.A. from Queen’s University in 1969. He studied at Duke University as a James B. Duke Commonwealth Scholar and completed his Ph.D. in 1973. A member of the Department of History since 1974, he was made an Associate Member of the Geography Department in 1988. In 1991 and 1993, he was a Visiting Research Fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University. He served as chair of the McMaster History Department from 1988 to 1993, and Dean of Graduate Studies from 1994 to 1999. Weaver’s research interests have included urban government, housing and suburbanization, criminal justice and, most recently, land policy on nineteenth-century settlement frontiers. He is the author of The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press, 2003) and Sorrows of the Century: Interpreting Suicide in New Zealand, 1900-2000 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press, 2013). The Great Land Rush received the Albion Award of the North American Conference on British Studies and the Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association. A prior book, Crimes, Constables and Courts, deals with the Ontario criminal justice system from the early 1800s to the 1970s. With Michael Doucet, he wrote Housing the North American City (1991). From 1987 to 1993, he edited the Urban History Review.

James Wreford Watson, geographer and poet, was born on 8 February 1915 in Shensi, China, and educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Toronto. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1953. He joined the McMaster University faculty as the first regular appointment in geography in 1939. He left for Ottawa in 1949, becoming chief geographer for the Government of Canada and holding a concurrent appointment at Carleton University, 1951-1954. He returned to Scotland and the University of Edinburgh in 1954 and held a number of appointments there, including Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Director of the Centre of Canadian Studies. He returned to Canada over the years, serving as a Visiting Professor at Queen's University, University of Manitoba, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Calgary.

Elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1954 and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1957, he received the Canadian Association of Geographers’ award for service to the profession in 1978. In addition to writing books about geography, he was also a published poet, beginning with Of Time and the Lover (1952). Watson died in September 1990 in Scotland.

Margaret Watkins was born Meta Gladys Watkins on 8 November 1884 in Hamilton, Ontario. Her parents were Frederick W. Watkins and Marion Watt Anderson. Mr. Watkins was an alderman, head of the YMCA, a trustee of the Centenary Methodist Church, a knight of the temperance movement, and a prominent dry goods merchant. He was owner of Pratt & Watkins and later Frederick W. Watkins stores. Marion Watt Anderson was from Glasgow, Scotland. She was active in art and music.

Watkins left home in 1908. She worked in various artists' communities, including the Roycrofters in East Aurora, New York from 1909 to 1910, and the Lanier Camp in Maine from 1911 to 1916. She lived in Boston from 1912 to 1915, where she published the occasional poem and designed costumes for amateur plays. She attended the Clarence H. White Summer School of Photography in Maine in 1914 and worked as an apprentice photographer with the Arthur Jamieson Studio in Boston. In 1915 Watkins moved to New York City and began work for Alice Boughton. She attended and taught at the Clarence H. White School of Photography. Watkins's photographic works were exhibited in a number of locations, including San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Java, Japan and London.

Watkins became a successful commercial photographer specializing in portraits and still life works. She was commissioned by Macy's and J. Walter Thompson to photograph items. Watkins also trained some of the best commercial photographers of her time including Paul Outerbridge, Ralph Steiner and Margaret Bourke-White. Watkins was actively involved with the Pictorial Photographers of America, The Art Center and the Zonta Club of New York. In 1928, Watkins left for a six-week holiday in Europe. When she arrived, she took over caring for her maiden aunts and never returned to New York.

Watkins continued to photograph in Europe and was a member of the West of Scotland Photographic Club and the Royal Photographic Society. She photographed trips to the USSR, Germany and France (1928-1933). She and her friend, Bertha Henson (nee Merriman), began an import/export business in the late thirties. Margaret Watkins died in Glasgow on 10 November 1969.

Frank Henry Waters was not a dominant journalist on the scale of James Louis Garvin. He was, however, trusted and enormously well-liked on Fleet Street. Because of his probity and discretion, many members of the Establishment confided in him. He started in the Beaverbrook newspaper empire in 1936 and then from 1945 to 1950 was Assistant Manager of The Times. He ended his career as Managing Editor of the News Chronicle.
Longer biographical sketch by Richard A. Rempel can be found in Library Research News 9, no. 2 (Autumn 1985): ii-iv.

Sir Sydney Philip Perigal Waterlow, born 12 October 1878 in Barnet, England, was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. After a short period as part of the diplomatic service, Waterlow returned to Cambridge to resume his studies in 1905. It was during this period that Waterlow attached himself to the Bloomsbury group, a group he kept in close contact until his death. After his second marriage to Margery Eckhard, Waterlow resumed work in the diplomatic service. From 1919 through 1929, Waterlow held the positions of acting First Secretary at the Paris Peace Conference, Director of the Foreign Division of the Department for Overseas Trade, and as Minister at Bangkok and Addis Ababa. In the decade following, Waterlow served as British Minister in Athens until 1939. Sir Sydney Waterlow died on 4 December 1944.