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John Henry McFarlane was born in Lanark, Ontario on 31 July 1870. He received his teaching certificate in 1895 after attending Ottawa Normal School. He taught elementary school for 45 years, serving as a principal for much of this time. Most of his career was spent in Haileybury, Ont. He married Rebecca Barnett and the couple had four sons. One of those sons was the author Leslie McFarlane, best known for his Hardy Boys series written under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. J.H. McFarlane is also the grandfather of Brian McFarlane, author and broadcaster. J.H. McFarlane retired in 1932; he was awarded the Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935. He died suddenly in Haileybury, Ontario on 3 January 1939.

Russell Magee was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1906. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1930 with a degree in medicine, followed by training in surgery. In 1942 he joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps. He served overseas in Europe until 1946. His wife, Agnes King Moffat, was also a medical doctor. Dr. Magee died in November 1972.

Sir John Coode was born at Bodmin on 11 November 1816. He was educated at Bodmin Grammar School before being articled to James Meadows Rendel of Plymouth. He went on to become probably the most distinguished harbour engineer of the nineteenth century. His greatest project was Portland harbour, begun in 1849 and completed in 1872 for which he received a knighthood. He was also involved with many harbour projects abroad including Columbo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He became a member of the international commission for the Suez canal in 1884 and served on the commission until his death in Brighton on 2 March 1892. He was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1889. His firm continued on after his death.

John Gilbert Browne was born in 1878, educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned in the 14th King’s Hussars in 1899. He saw action with his regiment during the South African War, 1900-1902, and was awarded the Queen’s South African Medal and the King’s South African Medal. Between 1906 and 1911 he was seconded for service with the West African Frontier Force in Northern Nigeria. By 1914 he had attained the rank of Major and that year attended a course at the Staff College, Camberley.

At the outbreak of war the College closed and in accordance with the British Army’s mobilization plans the majority of the officer students were immediately appointed to various Staff posts with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Browne was appointed Military Landing Officer (MLO) on the staff of the Commandant of No. 3 Base in France at the port of Boulogne. In collaboration with the Royal Navy’s Deputy Naval Transport Officer, Browne’s duties were to oversee the disembarkation of the BEF’s troops and the landing of their stores, equipment, horses, transport, and ammunition in accordance with detailed printed instructions and complex ship and railway timetables that had been prepared before the war.

Having completed his duties as MLO by early September 1914 Browne was assigned to the staff of General H.I.W. Hamilton, commanding the 3rd Division, “partly as an extra a.d.c., partly [for] G[eneral Staff] and party Q[uartermaster-General Staff] work”. On 10 October he was appointed as GSO2 [General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade] on the staff of the newly formed Cavalry Corps, commanded by Lt.-General E.H.H. Allenby, where he remained until the end of the month when he was recalled to England.

Browne did not serve in France or Flanders again, taking up various appointments and commands in England until 1916 and then serving overseas as an officer with the Middle East and Egyptian Expeditionary Forces until the end of the war. In peacetime he commanded his own regiment (by then amalgamated and renamed the 14/20th King’s Hussars) between 1921 and 1925 and from 1925 until he retired in 1933, he served in the Middle East commanding the Iraq Levies. His History of the Iraq Levies was published in 1932, as was the History of the 14th King’s Hussars, 1900-1922, of which he was co-author. During the Second World War he served in both the Home Guard and the Civil Defence. Brigadier-General Browne died on 12 February 1968.

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.

Julian Gould was the son of Mahalah and Frederick James Gould (1855-1938), a teacher, author, socialist and founder of the Propagandist Press Committee which later became the Rationalist Press Association. He served as Secretary of the Leicester Secular Society from 1899-1908. Born in London, Julian was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School and studied art at the Municipal of School of Art in Leicester. Gould won the silver medal for a shaded drawing of a man's head from life - the drawing was exhibited in a collection of students' work in South Kensington. He shared his father's socialist sympathies.

Gould was working as a printer's designer, but after the sinking of the Lusitania he joined the 16th Middlesex Regiment in May 1915. His battalion left for France in November 1915. He fought at The Somme in 1916 and the following year was killed in action at Monchy le preux, near Arras, on 31 May. The principal of the Art School remembers him as "a student of keen artistic temperament and much promise" in a letter of 13 June 1917. After his death, his father published a Memorial Notice of Julian Gould which reproduced some of Gould's drawings. The book received favourable notices in both The Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Guide. His father's regret was that his son would never paint "the vision of Emancipated Labour".

In March 1915, at the age of nineteen, during his third year in pre-med-sciences at the University of Toronto, D'Arcy Jerome Prendergast was recruited into the 25th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery. He served in the trenches for several months, and in the spring of 1916 he returned to England where he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. In 1917 Prendergast was a balloon observer attached to the Royal Flying Corps, 5th Kite Balloon Section. Later in the war, he commanded the 18th Balloon Company, sections no. 1 and 31.

Sir John William McNee, professor of medicine, was born on 17 December 1887 at Murieston, Mount Vernon, Glasgow, Scotalnd. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne and then Glasgow University. He specialized in pathology and in 1914, after studies at Freiburg, Germany received an MD degree with gold medal. During World War I he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, rising to the rank of major. He wrote several articles on gas poisoning, gas gangrene, and trench fever. He received the DSO in 1918 and was mentioned in war dispatches. After the war he was appointed to the teaching staff of University College Hospital, London, and went on to a distinguished career in medicine, receiving many awards and honorary degrees. After working for a time in the United States he returned to Britain to become regius professor of medicine at Glasgow University in 1935. He died at his home in Winchester on 26 January 1984.

Nancy Kennedy-Reid was born in Carnarvon, North Wales, on 2 August 1902 and educated in England. She emigrated to Canada in 1926 and trained as a nurse at the Montreal General Hospital in 1929. She travelled with The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada to England in December 1940. Once there she worked as an Assistant Matron, Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (R.C.A.M.C.) at No. 1 Canadian Hospital, Marston Green. The hospital moved to Hailsham, Sussex two years later. In June 1942 she was promoted to Matron. In November 1943 she was posted to No. 1 Canadian General Hospital, Andria, Italy, later moving to Rome. She returned to England in August 1944 to serve at No. 23 Canadian General Hospital, Leavesden, near Watford. Kennedy-Reid was appointed a member of the Royal Red Cross by George V. She returned to Canada on 1 January 1946 where she became the director of nursing at St. Anne's Hospital, St. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec. She retired in 1967.

Lte. Richard Hoken Joyce was a Canadian service man in the First World War. He enlisted at the age of 33 and served with the 58th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force from July 1915 to August 1919 when he was demobilized.

Ian Thomas is a Canadian composer, musician, and author. He was born on 23 July 1950 in Hamilton, Ont. Thomas began working as a musician in the 1960s with his first band “Ian, Oliver, and Nora”. With the addition of a two more members they became “Tranquility Base” and performed as the Pop-Group in Residence with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Thomas briefly worked as a producer for the CBC before returning to the stage. In 1973, Ian Thomas reached national and international success with the single “Painted Ladies”, garnering a Juno (Gold Leaf) Award for Promising Male Vocalist. Over the next two decades Thomas would release over a dozen albums under his own name as well as writing hits for a number of international musicians. In 1991, he joined a number of fellow Canadian musicians in “the Boomers” and would release another four albums with them into the early 2000s. Starting in 2003, he toured both as a solo artist and with “Lunch at Allen’s”. His career has won him a number of awards recognizing his quality as a musician and as a humanitarian. In addition to his performing career, Thomas wrote music for a number of movies and television shows as well as a stage-musical adaptation of Frankenstein. Thomas has worked on a number of projects with his brother, comedian Dave Thomas. Ian Thomas has authored two books, Bequest and The Lost Chord, published by Manor House Press. Copies of these books are included in the fonds

Wilson MacDonald, poet, etcher, and public speaker, was born in Cheapside, Ontario on 5 May 1880 and educated at Woodstock College and McMaster University. He published his first book of romantic poetry Song of the Prairie Land, and Other Poems in 1918. He died in Toronto on 8 April 1967.

Oswald Mosley was the father of Sir Oswald Mosley. Sir Oswald was created a baronet in 1720. He was fourth in descent from Anthony Mosley, brother of Nicholas Mosley who became the Lord Mayor of London in 1599. This creation of the baronetcy became extinct in 1779. The family lived in Rolleston, Staffordshire.

Betty M. B. Houghton, a British nurse, collected accounts of war experiences written by soldiers at No. 3 Military Hospital, Heavitree Hill, Exeter.

Dr. Frederick Burke Carron was born in Belleville, Ontario on November 3, 1870. He graduated from medicine at McGill University in 1896. Following graduation, he spent a year as an assistant surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital under the direction of Dr. James Bell. Eager to continue his studies, Carron traveled to England to pursue post-graduate work. He received degrees as a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London. During the Boer War, he enlisted in the Duke of Wellington's 3rd West Riding Regiment.

After the Boer War, and some extended traveling in Europe, Carron returned to Belleville and established a private practice. With World War I underway, he enlisted for active service with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. He served for a short time as medical officer to the 39th Battalion stationed in Belleville. From there he was appointed inspector of military hospitals in the Shorncliffe and Kent area in England. In September 1916 he was promoted to deputy assistant director of medical services for the Shorncliffe area. After numerous requests, on August 22, 1917, Carron was granted a transfer and made medical officer in charge of the 2nd Canadian Divisional Engineers. He accompanied his division to Passendale, Amiens, Arras and Cabrie.

In 1918 Carron was called back to England to re-enter hospital work. On December 25, 1918, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was appointed second in command of one of the largest Canadian special hospitals in England, Monk's Horton near Folkstone. Dr. Carron returned to Canada in 1919 and resumed his private practice in Belleville until his death in August 1935.

Jane Abbott was an American visitor to Vienna in 1914 when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo, leading to the outbreak of the First World War. Abbott travelled to Europe in April 1914, with her husband, Dr. Donald Putnam Abbott, a recent graduate of Rush Medical College in Chicago. Dr. Abbott was intending to further his medical training in Vienna, but this plan was abandoned following the assassinations. The Abbotts left Austria at the end of August, travelling by train across Europe to England. They returned to the United States at the end of September.

Albert Ernest Adams was born in Toronto on 12 July 1898. His father was Ernest Albert Adams, a bread wagon driver, and his mother was Sarah Heighes. Lying about his age in order to fight in the First World War, Adams volunteered with the 134th Battalion on 27 January 1916, after seven months served already as a private with the 48th Highlanders. By June 1916, while training at Camp Niagara, he received word that his parents had separated. Subsequently, after a short period at Camp Borden, Adams departed for England, arriving by the beginning of August 1916.

He trained at Aldershot and was then assigned to Camp Witley in Surrey as an instructor in musketry, earning the nickname "Babe" for being the youngest sergeant. Later, in March 1917, he took a machine gun course. One year later, in March 1918, he was transferred to 3rd Canadian Machine Gun Battalion, No. 1 Company, training briefly at the Canadian depot at Searford before shipping off to France within the month. He survived the battle of Amiens in August, but on 24 September 1918 a German aircraft dropped a bomb on the A and C batteries of No. 1 Company, killing over 30 men including Adams. He was buried in Wanquetin Communal Cemetery Extension at Pas de Calais, France.

Bruce Doherty was probably born during the 1890s in Mono, Ontario, where his father Joshua grew up and farmed after arriving from Ireland as a child. The family moved to Orangeville around 1909. Doherty served with the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, training at Armour Heights Camp in Toronto. Camp Mohawk in Deseronto and in Benbrook, Texas, the winter quarters of the RCF after the United States entered the war. Doherty survived the war but his date of death is not known.

Sgt. Haydon served with the Westminster Dragoons in Egypt in 1916-1917. He was wounded near Jerusalem in December 1917. In 1918 the Dragoons lost their horses, were reconstituted as a Machine-Gun regiment and redeployed to the Western Front. It was there that Haydon was killed on 20 October 1918 and eventually buried in the Harelbeke New British cemetery in Belgium.