Pieter Tas (1868-1947) was born in Holland but became best known as a musician in England. From 1907 to 1910 he was resident conductor of the private orchestra of the Duke of Devonshire. His son Pierre Tas (1902-1971) was a well-regarded violinist and teacher.
Jonathan Swift, satirist, cleric and politician, was born in Dublin, Ireland.
William Burton Hurd was born in Brockville, Ontario in 1894. He was a Rhodes scholar, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and president of the Canadian Political Economy Association. In 1921 he became Professor of Political Economy at Brandon College and was appointed Dean of Arts in 1928. He came to McMaster University as Professor of Political Economy in 1935, became Associate Dean of Arts in 1939, and chaired the Department of Political Economy from 1947 to 1949. A regular contributor to economic, political, and banking periodicals, he was an expert on population problems and the author of several books, including Origin, Birthplace, Nationality and Language of the Canadian People and Racial Origins and Nativity of the Canadian People.
During the First World War Marion S. Simpson of Hamilton, Ont. wrote letters of encouragement and sent parcels, mainly socks, to Canadian soldiers overseas.
Geoffrey Handley-Taylor was born in 1920 in Horsforth, Yorkshire, England. Known primarily for his specialist bibliographies, he compiled the standard bibliographies of Winifred Holtby, John Masefield and C. Day-Lewis, and the Authors of Today checklists of counties. Handley-Taylor was also responsible for several select national bibliographies of Monaco and Iran. He was founder-donor of the Winifred Holtby Memorial Collection, Fisk University, Nashville, 1955. He was also a member of numerous English literary societies.
Greenwood, John Danforth Herman
John Danforth Herman Greenwood (1889-1975) was an English composer born in London and educated at the Royal College of Music in London. Most of his professional activity was as a composer, conductor and musical director for film and theatrical productions. He wrote scores for nearly fifty films. During World War I he worked on the staff of the BBC European Service as Assistant Music Supervisor.
Stanley Gray was born in 1944 and grew up in the working class, east end of Montreal. He graduated from McGill University (B.A.) and Balliol College (B. Phil.). Gray taught at McGill University and was one of the main organizers of Opération McGill. He was dismissed from the Political Science department in 1969 when a compromise could not be reached over his political activities. Thereafter, he became a leader of the Front de libération populaire (FLP). When it began to decline in importance after the 1970 provincial election, he was instrumental in forming another organization, the Patriotes québecois. Gray was also a prominent member of the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Gray wrote a thesis for Oxford (D. Phil) on Marxist theory with an historical analysis of working class struggles in England, the United States, and Quebec.
Denis Martin Shaw, Professor Emeritus, McMaster University School of Geography and Geology, was born on 20 August 1923, in Lancashire, England to Norman Wade and Sylvia (Shackleton) Shaw. He attended the King Edward VII school in St. Anne’s and continued his education at Emmanuel College in Cambridge. There, he received his BA in 1943 and later in 1948 his MA, after having served as a Signals Officer for three years. In 1946 Shaw married Doris Pauline (Paula) Mitchell. They had 3 children: Geoffrey, Gillian, and Peter Shaw. Soon thereafter he enrolled at the University of Chicago for a doctorate. By 1951 he had joined the Department of Geology at McMaster University. Shaw divorced Paula Shaw in 1975, and married Susan Evans in 1976. He died in Hamilton on 6 October 2003.
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.
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.
Dian Fossey, primatologist, educator, and author, was born in San Francisco, California, on 16 January 1932. She was educated at San Jose State College (B.A, 1954) and Cambridge University (Ph.D., 1976). With the encouragement of Louis Leakey she founded the Karsoke Research Centre in 1967 in Rwanda to study mountain gorillas. She made several television appearances on programs such as National Geographic, wrote many journal and magazine articles and published a book, Gorillas in the Mist (1983). She was murdered in late December 1985 in Ruhengeri, Rwanda.
William Halse Rivers, psychologist and anthropologist, was born on 12 March 1864 in Luton, near, Chatham, Kent. He was educated at Tonbridge School and St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1897 he became a lecturer in psychology at Cambridge; in 1902 he was elected a fellow of St. John's College. He was most interested in the relationship between mind and body, playing a fundamental role in the establishment of both experimental psychology and social anthropology as academic disciplines in Britain. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908 and won the Society's gold medal in 1914. He died on 4 June 1922. His father Henry Frederick Rivers was a speech therapist.
Born in Hamilton, Ont. in 1881, Ella Reynolds was the only daughter of Robert and May Reynolds. She was a journalist, poet and author. She worked at The Hamilton Spectator from 1912 until 1945. In addition to writing music and theatre reviews at the Spectator, she wrote a book column entitled "Under the Study Lamp" and a weekly column entitled "Wren's Nest" under the pen name Jennie Wren. When the Hamilton chapter of the Canadian Women's Press Club was formed in 1927, she became its first president. In retirement she devoted her time writing poetry and reading mystery novels. Ryerson Press published her book of poems Samson in Hades in 1957. Reynolds died in 1970.
William Ready was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1914. He began his career as an acquisitions librarian at Stanford University. He was chief librarian at Marquette University before coming to McMaster University. He was responsible for bringing the J. R. R. Tolkein fonds to Marquette; at McMaster his most famous acquisition was that of the Bertrand Russell fonds. He was also a writer, publishing short stories and book reviews. His autobiography, Files on Parade, was published posthumously in 1982. He died on 12 September 1981 in Victoria, British Columbia, not long after he had retired from McMaster University.
Klaus H. Pringsheim was the son of Klaus Pringsheim, a conductor and composer. He was born in Germany in 1923 but he grew up in Japan where his father taught music. He remained in Japan until after the Occupation at the end of World War II. He then studied Political Science in the United States at both Berkeley and Columbia. He taught in the Political Science Department at McMaster University for 23 years. Upon retirement, he became president of the Canada -Japan Trade Council, a post he held from 1989 to 2000. He died on 6 February 2001. He published an autobiography, Man of the World: Memoirs of Europe, Asia and North America in 1995.
Cyrus Eaton was born in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1883 and educated at McMaster University, receiving a B.A. in 1905. After moving to the United States, he had a successful business career in steel, coal, railways, public utilities and agriculture. In the 1950s he agreed to finance the Pugwash conferences, named after his birthplace. The conferences brought together scientists who were trying to diminish the threat of nuclear war. In 1964 Eaton travelled to the Soviet Union and met with Nikita Khrushchev in an attempt to bring more understanding between capitalism and communism. Mr. Eaton was the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards. He died in 1979.
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, composer, scholar and teacher, was born at Bournemouth on 27 February 1848. He was educated at Eton College and Exeter College, Oxford. He composed piano music and songs throughout his career while writing much less chamber and orchestral music as he grew older. He joined the staff of the Royal College of Music when it opened in 1883 and remained on staff until his death. For a brief period, 1900-1908, he also taught music at Oxford. He was knighted in 1898. He died in Rustington, Sussex, on 7 October 1918.
Born in 1933, Victor DiBello was a musician and conductor. In 1950, after playing in the East York Collegiate Orchestra, he founded the Pro Arte Orchestra of Toronto, originally an amateur group but later becoming a professional ensemble. As well as conducting the Pro Arte Orchestra, he was the conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic from 1959 to 1962 and Music Coordinator, later Music Director, at the Stratford (Ont.) Festival in the 1960s.
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.
Guy Philip Debenham (MD and FRCS), surgeon and engraver, was born in Scarborough, England on 27 January 1923, the son of Leonard Debenham and Anna (née Archer-Shee). He was educated at Stonyhurst College, and at the age of 21 he graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Edinburgh. Between 1945 and 1948 he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Middle East and was awarded the Palestine Medal for his service. After emigrating to Canada in 1958, he practiced medicine at several locations (Bassano, Alberta, and in Parry Sound and Hagersville, Ont.). In 1965 he and his family moved to St. Catharines where he worked as a surgeon at the Hotel Dieu Hospital and St. Catharines General Hospital. In the early 1970s he moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake. In 1990 he was the recipient of the Glen Sawyer Award from the Ontario Medical Association. He retired from the medical profession in 1991. Married twice, first to Marjorie (died in the early 1980s) and then to Diane Wheatley, he died on 1 December 2002.
Debenham was also a dedicated wood engraver. He took up engraving in the 1950s. Many of his works were exhibited at the annual Wayzgoose in Grimsby, Ont. and elsewhere in Canada, the UK, and Japan. He printed all his work on his 1862 Albion press which was donated posthumously to the MacKenzie Heritage Printery in Queenston, Ont. Debenham’s imprint was the Larchwood Press, which issued booklets, cards, and calendars. Gillian Debenham’s Piccolo’s Progress (1970), a children’s story written by Guy Debenham’s sister, is the first imprint of this fine press, published in an edition of 100 numbered copies.
