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Harold Martin Troper (1942-) completed an MA in history from the University of Cincinnati in 1966 and a PhD in history from the University of Toronto in 1971. The author of several books, including The Ransomed of God: The Secret Rescue of the Jews of Syria (1999) and Old Wounds: Jews, Ukrainians and the Hunt for Nazi War Criminals in Canada (1988), he is a Professor in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at OISE, University of Toronto. With Irving Abella, he co-authored None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948 (1982), the story of the Canadian government’s refusal to allow Jewish immigration from Europe during the Holocaust.

Leon Trotsky, Communist theorist and government official, was born in 1879, in Yankova, Ukraine. He served under Lenin as commissar of foreign affairs and of war, 1914-1924. He lost the struggle for power with Stalin after Lenin's death and was exiled. He was assassinated in Mexico on 20 August 1940.

Bernard Trotter was born in Toronto on June 16, 1890. He attended the Horton Academy in Wolfville and completed his high school work at Woodstock College. In the fall of 1907 he went to California to improve his health, accompanied by his older brother, Reginald. He first worked at a lemon ranch and then taught privately for two years before returning to McMaster University in Toronto in 1910. In the late summer and fall of 1912 he helped design and build "Valhalla", the Trotter summer place on Lake Cecebe. Trotter obtained his B.A. from McMaster in 1915 and began graduate work at the University of Toronto before leaving for England in March 1916. Ill health had prevented him from being accepted for military service in the Canadian army; determined to serve, Trotter won a commission in the British army. After training, he crossed to France with his Leicestershire Regiment in December 1916. On May 7, 1917, he was killed by a shell just as he and his men were completing their final transport convoy of the night. Trotter was buried the next day in the Military Cemetery at Mazingarbe. He was 26 years old.

Trotter had been active in student life, serving for a year as editor of the McMaster Monthly, the journal in which some of his poems first appeared; a poem was accepted for publication in Harper's Magazine in 1914. His themes were often chosen from nature; they evoke the Nova Scotia of his boyhood, California and Northern Ontario. His father, the Baptist minister and McMaster Professor Thomas Trotter, collected his poems and they were published in 1917 by McClelland and Stewart as A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and Peace.

Valerie Tryon was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1934 to Kenneth and Iris Tryon. Her career as a concert pianist began while she was still a child. She made her first concert appearance when she was nine years old, in the Royal Hall, Harrogate. She was one of the youngest students ever to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Music, where she received the highest awards in piano playing, including the Macfarren Gold Medal and a bursary which took her to Paris for further study with the distinguished teacher Jacques Février.

Her participation in the 1956 International Liszt Piano Competition in Budapest gained for her an hors concours and brought her to the attention of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Thereafter, she appeared regularly on BBC radio, BBC television, and several times in the BBC Promenade Concerts. Her career eventually took her to North America where she has appeared in such cities as Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

She now lives in Canada but spends a part of each year in her native Britain. Tryon has returned to Hungary since the 1956 Competition, forming over the years a deep affection for Budapest and the Hungarian people. In 1994 the Hungarian Ministry of Culture awarded her the Ferenc Liszt Medal for her lifelong commitment to, and promotion of Liszt’s music.

There is no information available about van Aernum except the lease.

Bernard van Dieren was born in Rotterdam on 27 Decmber 1887 and moved to England in 1909 where he became a music critic. He began composing at an early age, and his works include both vocal and orchestral pieces. He published two books, Epstein and Down Among the Dead Men. Van Dieren died in 1936.

Jo Vellacott was a British-Canadian historian, professor, feminist, Quaker, and peace activist. She was born in Plymouth, England on 20 April 1922 to Harold F. Vellacott, a surgeon, and Josephine Sempill. She attended the University of Oxford and, after pausing her studies to work as an aircraft mechanic during the Second World War, graduated with a Master of Arts in 1947. She would then move to South Africa, where she met and married Peter Newberry in 1950. In South Africa she had two children, Mary and Douglas, before returning to the United Kingdom, where they had their daughter Susan. The family emigrated to Canada in 1955, where Peter would join the Air Force and Jo worked as a schoolteacher. She then attended the University of Toronto, where she received a Master of Arts in History in 1965, and McMaster University, where she received her PhD in 1975.

Vellacott and Peter would separate in 1976, and divorce in 1979. She took Fellowships in the United Kingdom for several years, before becoming the Scholar-in-Residence at Queen’s University in Kingston, where she then became Assistant to the Dean of Women. Following her departure from Queen’s, she worked for several years at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, retiring in 1987, and becoming an independent scholar.

Vellacott focused much of her career on women’s history, feminism, pacifism, and Quakerism. A Quaker since her 40s, she was active in the Thousand Islands Monthly Meeting near Kingston, and was a longtime peace activist. She wrote several books and dozens of articles on topics including pacifism, Bertrand Russell, women and politics, and more. She moved to Toronto, where she died in 2019.

Fredrick W. Vickers was born in St. Catharines, Ontario to William John Vickers, a painter and decorator, and Jane Ethyl Vickers (nee Rooke). Fred attended Memorial Public School and St. Catharines’ Collegiate and Vocational School. He then attended McMaster University on a Gordon C. Edwards scholarship in Modern Languages and graduated in 1937 with a BA. After training at the Ontario College of Education in Toronto (1937-38), he returned to St. Catharines’ Collegiate and Vocational School, becoming a full-time teacher in 1940. Around this time he was introduced to Margaret Cotter Sargent by her brother-in-law, James Shaver.

In 1942 he volunteered for active service in the Canadian military, beginning training in early August. He was appointed a Second Lieutenant on 17 April 1943. On leave in July 1943 after his training, Fred and Margaret became engaged, but afraid of leaving her a widow, Fred postponed the wedding until after the war. Not long after, he was sent to England where he eventually joined the Fifteenth Canadian Field Regiment. He remained in Europe until the very end of 1945 or early 1946, when he returned with his regiment. On 26 January 1946, he and Margaret were married. They had their first child, John, in December of that year, and a daughter, Anne, in February of 1950. Fred worked as a teacher, Vice-Principal, District Inspector, Education Officer, and Head of Romance Languages over his career with the Ministry of Education, before retiring in 1975. Margaret died in August of 2008 at the age of 94, and Fred in December of 2009, just after his 94th birthday.

George Stephen Vickers, was born on 19 December 1913 in St. Catharines, Ontario, the son of William Vickers and Jane E. Vickers (nee Rooke). After attending St. Catharines Collegiate Institute, he entered McMaster University and took his B.A. (Hons.) in English and History in the spring of 1936. While at McMaster, he also took a few courses in Fine Art, where he met Elizabeth Smith. In the fall of 1937 he entered the graduate program in Fine Art at Harvard University. In the summer of 1939, he sailed to Europe to begin his doctoral studies but had to return with the outbreak of World War II. On 3 June 1940, he married Elizabeth Smith, and until 1942, they lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where their daughter, Hannah, was born. They would have a son, Daniel, in 1952.

In 1942, they returned to Canada, where Stephen became a machinist in Hamilton and then joined the Canadian Signal Corps. Between 1943 and 1945, he served as a corporal at Camp Vimy in Barriefield, Ontario, mainly as an instructor. At the war’s end he was discharged, and he returned with his wife and daughter to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard. In 1946, however, he was offered a permanent position in Fine Art at the University of Toronto. He dedicated his career to teaching – both graduate and undergraduate – and to building the Fine Art Department at Toronto. He also played a role in designing the first secondary school program in art history for the province of Ontario and was the primary author of Art and Man (1964), the first high school textbook in art history published in Canada. He retired in 1980. On 1 November 1993 he was struck by a car near his home. Two days later he died of a massive coronary at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Catherine Wilson attended the University of Western Ontario. She was appointed as copywriter and publicist for McClelland & Stewart Ltd in 1969 and was promoted to Director of Marketing. In 1972 she was a consultant to the Department of the Secretary of State in Ottawa. She joined James Lorimer & Co. where she was General Manager from 1973 to 1976. She was the senior arts producer for the CBC radio program Sunday Morning in its first season from 1976-1977 and Assistant to the Publisher at Clarke Irwin from 1977-1978. From 1978 to 1980 she was a Communications Department consultant for the Government of Botswana, Africa. In 1980 she was appointed Vice-President and General Manager of James Lorimer & Co. Ltd. Wilson has also worked as Director of Publishing for the United Church of Canada from 1990-1996; as General Manager and Director of Human Resources from 1997-2002 and as Policy Consultant for Children’s Mental Health Ontario from 2004-2005.

Harry J. Waisglass was a pioneer in labour relations and mediation. He retired as Director of McMaster University's Labour Studies Programme in 1981. Before coming to McMaster in 1975 he had worked as a researcher for the United Steelworkers of America, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and other labour organizations. He also held the position of Director-General of Research and Information at the Canadian Department of Labour for some years. He passed away at the age of 93, in October 2014.

Alan Walker, Doctor of Music, F.R.S.C., university professor and writer, was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England on 6 April 1930. He was educated at the Guildhall School of Music and at Durham University, where he specialized in piano, theory, harmony and counterpoint. In his early career, he lectured at the Guildhall School of Music from 1959 to 1961, and at London University from 1954 to 1970.

Walker was a producer at the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1961 to 1971, and has contributed to programmes at the BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He served as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music at City University in London from 1984 to 1987 and has been a Professor of Music at McMaster University since 1971, where he was Chairman of the Department from 1971 to 1980 and again from 1990 to 1993. Walker is the recipient of numerous honours, including the Hungarian Liszt Society Medal in 1980, the American Liszt Society Medal in 1984, and the Pro Cultura Hungaria Medal in 1995. He was awarded an honorary doctorate, D. Litt (honoris causa), from McMaster University in 2002. In January 2012, he received the Knight's Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, one of Hungary's highest honours.

He is the author of A Study in Music Analysis, 1962, An Anatomy of Musical Criticism, 1968, Franz Liszt, 1971, Robert Schumann, 1976, Franz Liszt: Volume One, 1983, (for which he won the James Tait Black Award in 1983, and Yorkshire Post Music Book of the Year Award in 1984), Franz Liszt: Volume Two, 1989, Franz Liszt: Volume Three, 1996, and The Death of Franz Liszt, 2002. He co-authored, with Gabriele Erasmi, Liszt, Carolyne, and the Vatican: The Story of a Thwarted Marriage, 1991, and was the editor of Symposium on Chopin, 1967, Symposium on Liszt, 1970, Symposium on Schumann, 1972, The Diary of Carl Lachmund: An American Pupil of Liszt, 1995, and Hans von Bülow: a life and times, 2009. He has written over 100 articles for learned journals including a major entry on Franz Liszt for the latest edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001. His biography, Fryderyk Chopin, was launched in October 2018 to much acclaim and has subsequently been translated into numerous languages.

Frank Norman Walker was born in 1892 and graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1918. He was a member of the Toronto Academy of Medicine and worked at the Toronto General Hospital. He published widely in the field of medicine in Canadian and American journals. He was awarded a McLaughlin Travelling Fellowship in 1964 and upon his return to Canada was associated with the Department of Anaesthesia, Victoria Hospital, London, Ontario.

Besides being a doctor, Walker had varied interests. He ran as a Liberal candidate for the riding of Woodbine in the federal election of 1926. He was also a member of the Board of Education for Toronto, and for twelve years was a member of its Library Board, twice serving as Chairman. He was elected to offices in the Ontario, Canadian and American Library Associations during the years 1945-1954.

As a historian Walker published several books on the topic of 19th century engineering in Canada and the United States. In Daylight Through the Mountains, which was published by the Engineering Institute of Montreal in 1957, Walker documents the letters and works of engineer brothers Walter and Francis Shanly. The book was co-authored by his wife, Gladys Chantler Walker. Other published works are Four Whistles to Wood-up; Stories of the Northern Railway of Canada (1953) and Sketches of Old Toronto (1965), which concentrates on the personalities and highlights of the city of Toronto in the period 1791-1851. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature (1967) cites Sketches of Old Toronto in the bibliography under the entry for “Toronto”. His date of death is unknown.

Doug Ward was active in the Company of Young Canadians.

Harold LeRoy Ward was born in the environs of London, Ont. on 10 July 1921. He attended Dorchester School. During World War II, he was a flying officer, specifically a wireless air gunner, in the Royal Canadian Air Force. After the war he worked for the CPR as a train dispatcher. He was the husband of Violet Jean (née Wright) for 67 years. They had two daughters, Sharon (later Kormendi) and Cicily (later Squire). He died in his eighty-ninth year at Victoria Hospital in London on 21 May 2010.

Iris Amy Warden, author and illustrator, was born in 1904 presumably in England.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Jackie Washington (1919-2009) was the grandson of a Virginia slave. The second of thirteen siblings, Washington began his musical career at age five when he started singing with The Four Washington Brothers. By the early 1930s, Washington and his brother Ormsley became a self-taught musician, learning the guitar and piano. Before serving in World War II, he worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railroad, which inspired his lifelong interest in trains. During this time, the Washington family played host to many talented touring musicians including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Lionel Hampton.

After obtaining a medical discharge from the army, Washington worked in Hamilton at the American Can Company, eventually forming a musical duo with Sonny Johnston. The two soon developed a weekly radio show on CKOC and in 1948 Washington became Canada’s first black disc jockey for CHML radio. His career showed continuing promise in the 1960s when the musician took full advantage of the burgeoning coffee house scene in order to establish himself as a folk musician. When folk festivals gained popularity in the 1970s, Washington became a fixture at such events as the Home County Folk Festival in London, Ontario and the Festival of Friends in Hamilton, Ontario.

In spite of health problems (Washington was diagnosed with diabetes in 1970), he continued to work, recording his first album, Blues and Sentimental, in 1976. In the late 1980s, Washington continued to tour as part of a trio “Scarlett, Washington and Whitely,” with Mose Scarlett and Ken Whitely. During his later years, Washington was upheld as an important musician both locally and nationally. He was recognized with an honorary doctoral degree conferred by McMaster University in 2003. The Jackie Washington Rotary Park was named in his honour in 2004.

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.

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.

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.