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.
Boyd Neel, conductor, was born in London England on 19 July 1905. He first trained as a naval officer in 1918, but then left the navy to study for a medical career at Cambridge University in 1923. He became House Surgeon and Physician at St. George's Hospital, London. During this period he conducted amateur orchestras and choirs. He eventually decided to establish a professional orchestra. It had its debut on 22 June 1933 in London. The Boyd Neel Orchestra performed in England, throughout Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand. After a concert tour of Canada, Neel was offered the position of Dean of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto which he held from 1953 to 1971. He founded the Hart House Orchestra in 1955. He died in Toronto on 30 September 1981. His memoirs, edited by J. David Finch, were published posthumously as My Orchestras and Other Adventures (1985).
The New Democratic Party (NDP) was founded in Ottawa in 1961 by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), affiliated unions of the Canadian Labour Congress, and New Party clubs. It is a democratic, socialist party.
In 1969 the Waffle was established as a caucus in the New Democratic party. Led by Mel Watkins and James Laxer, it was militantly socialist and nationalist. Forced to leave the NDP in 1972, it operated independently until 1974.
Chester New was born in Montreal on 9 October 1882 and educated at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, and the University of Chicago. From 1913 he taught at Brandon College. In 1920 he came to McMaster and taught there as a Professor of History until 1950. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1937 and of the Royal Society in 1948. His books include Lord Durham (1929) and The Life of Henry Brougham to 1830 (1961). He died in Hamilton, Ont. on 31 August 1960.
Peter C. Newman, author, journalist, and editor, was born in Vienna, Austria on 10 May 1929 as Peta Neumann to Jewish parents who lived in Czechoslovakia. The family left Breclav just before the Nazi take-over in 1938 and he moved to Canada in 1940 and became a citizen in 1945. He was educated at the University of Toronto. As a journalist he has worked for the Financial Post, Toronto Star and Maclean's magazine. He was editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star from 1969 to 1971 before moving on to Maclean's, transforming it into a weekly news magazine.
After eleven years of running Maclean's, he decided to stay on as senior contributing editor. He has written biographies of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, the Bronfman family, and a history of the Hudson Bay Company. He often challenged the establishment, while also being a chronicler of it. Including A Nation Divided: Canada and the Coming of Pierre Trudeau (1969), The Establishment Man: Conrad Black, A Portrait of Power (1982), The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister (2005), and When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada (2011). In 2004 he published his autobiography, Here Be Dragons.
He died 7 September 2023 at the age of 94, in Belleville, Ontario, from complications suffered from a stroke the previous year and Parkinson's.
Ruth Nichols, author, was born on 4 March 1948 in Toronto. She was educated at the Universities of British Columbia and McMaster. For a number of years after 1974 she lectured at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is primarily a writer of juvenile novels although she has written some historical novels as well.
Samuel Nickle was born in Winnipeg in 1913/14 to Olga and Sam Nickle. The family moved to Calgary in 1917. In 1935 he started the Nickle Map Service Ltd. In 1935 in response to the Turner Valley oil boom. During the Second World War he served in the Calgary Highlanders and was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps in 1943.
Following the war he resumed his mapping business working in the oil and gas industry. He continued to support the Calgary Highlanders and was appointed to Honorary Colonel. He passed away on 26 January 1994.
Little is known about Richard Nisbet. His coat of arms (Argent three boars heads erased sable within a bordure sable) and his crest (a boar salient regardant) taken together with his motto "Vis Fortibus Arma", suggests that he may be of the Nisbets of Greenholm, a branch of the Nisbets of that ilk dwelling in Ayr. He refers to himself as a 'philomath' — a lover of learning or a student of mathematics.
A contemporary Richard Nisbet — an erstwhile planter of Nevis who subsequently relocated to Philadelphia — published at least two works defending the institution of slavery (especially as practised in the West Indies) before being consigned to a Philadelphia hospital for reasons of insanity. It is possible that this is the same Nisbet, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest it.
Frederick Niven, author, was born on 31 March 1878, in Santiago, Chile, where his father was in the British consular service. At the age of five he moved to Scotland and was educated in Glasgow. He visited Canada several times from the mid-1890s onwards. In 1920 he settled permanently in British Columbia, mainly for health reasons. Niven published over twenty novels, as well as short fiction, poetry, non-fiction and an autobiography titled Coloured Spectacles (1938). He wrote novels set in urban Scotland as well as the Canadian west, including a trilogy, Mine Inheritance, The Flying Years, and The Transplanted (1935-1944). He died on 30 January 1944 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
William Charles Noble was born on 1 May 1941 to William T. Noble(1913-1989) and Lucy R. Noble (1913-2005). A graduate of the University of Toronto, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in 1968 (thesis entitled “Iroquois archaeology and the development of Iroquois social organization, 1000-1650 A.D.: A study in culture change based on archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnology”). Noble was the first Canadian-born student to graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary, which was the first university in Canada to establish an archaeology program. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University on 1 July 1971. Nicknamed “Barren Lands Bill”, Noble excavated many sites, including Cleveland (AhHb-7), Hamilton (AiHa-5), Thorold (AgGt-1), and Walker (AgHa-9). He was the author of numerous studies on Iroquois (Six Nations / Haudenosaunee / Rotinonshionni) culture, the Neutral (Chonnonton / Onguiaahra) people who lived along the western shores of Lake Ontario, and early Ontario archaeology. In the early 1990s he was Professor Emeritus after taking early retirement. Married twice, first to Jean MacLeod Slater and later to Jacqueline E.M. Crerar (Noble), he had two children, Gordon William Noble (1969-1988) and Elizabeth M. Noble. He died on 26 April 2009.
William Nobleman was born in Toronto in 1930. He attended the University of Toronto and Toronto Teachers College. He taught in public and secondary schools in Ontario from 1949 to 1956. He was also vice-principal and principal for several years. He served as a Board of Education member of various standing committees in the areas of management, property, finance and vocational advisory and was instrumental in the achievement of upgrading public and secondary school libraries. From 1957 to 1963 he was a representative for advertising sales for Chatelaine magazine in Toronto. In August 1963 he was appointed Director of Advertising for Saturday Night magazine. He was Director of Marketing in January 1965; Vice-President and General Manager in September 1966 and President in November 1969. In 1971 Saturday Night Publications Limited entered into agreement with Second Century Canada Publications Inc. to manage the publication of Saturday Night and Monday Morning and Nobleman also became President of Second Century. In 1981 he served as President of William Nobleman & Associates. Currently he is the managing director of Know the World Tour Organizers Inc., a company founded by his wife in 1989. He lives in Toronto.
Henry Eugene (Hank) Novak was a native of Hamilton, a McMaster student, and an RCAF officer during the Second World War. He was killed in action on January 17, 1945.
A more detailed biographical note by Dr. C.M. Johnston can be found at <a href="http://alumni.os.mcmaster.ca/s/1439/index.aspx?pgid=682">‘Discover McMaster’s World War II Honour Roll’</a>.
Milos Novotny, mathematician, was born in Czechoslovakia and educated at Charles University in Prague from 1949 to 1953. He taught at the Czech Technical University in Prague from 1953 to 1963. He arrived in Canada in 1968 for graduate study at McMaster University where he received his doctorate in 1972. His thesis was titled, "Integration and Laplace Transformation of Orthogonal Series." After graduating from McMaster University, he taught at the University of Guelph, Université de Montréal, and finally Champlain Regional College in St. Lambert.
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.
Henry Carl Nunn was born in Bolton, Ontario, on the 21st of July, 1883. Son of George Nunn and Emma Jane Cole, he had one sister, Nell. He grew up in Bolton until the family moved to Hamilton in his teens. After a number of early jobs, he started his own business selling mail order hardware and building materials. Quickly, he became a pioneer in North America of pre-fabricated homes. Nunn was the founder and President of the Halliday Homes Company, which was famous for the “Bunkie” style home. The company survived the Depression under Nunn’s ethical and hardworking guidance and then prospered in the years following.
He married Margaret Johnston in 1908, and they went on to have two children, Roger and Phyllis. Outside his work, Nunn was a committed naturalist with a particular interest in ornithology. He was Chairman of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and promoted the appreciation of birds and wildlife throughout his life. He was also active in his church and lived his faith in his daily life. Additional biographical and genealogical details can be found in Box 6, file 19.
Frank O'Connor is the pseudonoym of Michael O'Donovan, born in county Cork, Ireland in 1903, and primarily known as a short story writer. He died in Dublin on 10 March 1966.
Liam O'Flaherty, novelist, was born on 28 August 1896 on Inishmore in the Aran Islands, Ireland. He was educated at University College, Dublin. After World War I, he travelled through the United States and Canada, paying his way by working as a labourer and clerk. He returned to Ireland in 1920 and helped to found the Irish Communist Party in 1922. Later that year he was forced to flee to England. His novel, The Informer (1925), about a man who betrays his friends, won the James Tait Black Prize in 1926. He also wrote Famine (1937) about the potato famine of the 1840s. He died in Dublin on 7 September 1984.
Lettice O'Hanlon of Orior, also called Lettice O'Hanlon, was the great-great-grandniece of Major General Henry Pringle. Pringle, born ca. 1727 in Ireland, served for many years in the military in North America. He later served in Spain.
André Obey was a French dramatist, born 8 May 1892 in Douai. Between 1931 and 1933 he wrote four plays for the Théâtre de Vieux-Colombier, winning the Brieux prize for La bataille de la Marne in 1931. He died on 14 April 1975.
