George Anne Bellamy, actress, was born in Fingal, Ireland, on 23 April 1731, possibly 1733, although 1727 is a likely possibility as well. She appeared on the stage in both London and Dublin in the era of Sheridan and Garrick. Her life, however, was marked by gambling and extravagance and her later years by suffering and debt. Her memoirs were published in 1785 in six volumes, An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy. She died on 16 February 1788.
Lucy Benevides, originally from Bermuda, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Once the Air Force was re-opened to women in 1951, she re-joined, eventually rising to the rank of captain. She was stationed at Metz, France in the 1950s. RCAF No. 1 Air Division was located there during the 1950s and 1960s in order the meet Canada's NATO air defence commitments in Europe.
John Wilson Bengough, cartoonist, was born on 7 April 1851 in Toronto and educated in the Whitby district and grammar schools. In 1873 he founded Grip, a humorous weekly. He provided cartoons for the publication as well as articles and poems for twenty years. In 1892 he became the cartoonist of the Montreal Star before moving on to the Toronto Globe. His cartoons also appeared in the Morning Chronicle in London, England. An advocate of the single tax, prohibition and free trade, Bengough wrote a number of political pamphlets such as The Gin Miller Primer (1898). He also published two books of poetry, Motley: Verses Grave and Gay (1895) and In Many Keys (1902). Lecturing was another of Bengough's many skills, and he made several lectures tours across Canada and the United States giving "Chalk Talks"; in 1909 he made a lecture tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Louise Bennett, folklorist, poet, songwriter and performer, was born on 7 September 1919 in Kingston, Jamaica. She studied social work in Jamaica before going to England in 1945 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She returned to Jamaica in 1947 but in 1950 returned to England where she worked on the BBC. In 1953 she moved to New York City where she performed on radio and on the stage. It was there in 1954 that she married a fellow Jamaican, Eric Coverely. He had been born in 1911 and worked as a draftsman for the Jamaican Government Railway Corporation, as a calligrapher, and also as a theatre performer. In 1955 they returned to Jamaica where she wrote columns for the Gleaner and broadcast her “Miss Lou's views” on the radio using her affectionate nickname. She has published several books of poems and stories and recorded many songs. She was a both a Member of the British Empire and a Member of the Order of Jamaica, and was awarded many honours during her life. She received an honorary degree from York University in 1998; she and her husband had moved to Canada late in life. She died in 2006 and is buried in Jamaica.
Jayne Epstein was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1922 and educated at Wilbur Wright College, Indiana University and the University of Iowa. In 1941 she married Alwyn Berland. The couple had four children. In 1963 she moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1973. From 1966 to 1968 she was the poetry editor of the Wascana Review. She and her husband later moved to Hamilton, Ontario where he became the Dean of Humanities at McMaster University and she taught poetry. She published her poems in many journals and also published several books of poetry. She was a founding member of the Hamilton Poetry Centre. In 1988-89 the Berlands travelled to Nanjing, China where they taught English language and literature at the Normal University (NanShaDa). Jayne Berland died in January, 2015, in Dundas, Ontario.
Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, author, broadcaster and journalist, was born on 12 July 1920 in the Yukon territory, Canada, and was educated at Victoria College and the University of British Columbia. In 1942 he began his career in journalism at the Vancouver News-Herald. After World War II, he briefly wrote features for the Vancouver Sun, as well as beginning a radio career, before joining Maclean's in 1947. He served as managing editor from 1952 to 1958. He left Maclean's to join the Toronto Star as a columnist and associate editor. In 1962 he left the Star briefly for Maclean's and to launch a long career in television with both his own show and as a panelist on "Front Page Challenge".
Berton's books helped to popularize Canadian history for mass audiences. His Klondike: the Life and Death of the Last Great Goldrush (1958) won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction. Two other books by Berton have also won the Governor General's Award. Perhaps his most well-known books, among the many he has written, are his two books about the Canadian Pacific Railways, The National Dream (1970) and The Last Spike (1971). Berton was awarded several honorary degrees, was an officer of the Order of Canada, and chaired the Heritage Canada Foundation. He has published two volumes of autobiography, Starting Out, 1920-1947 (1987) and My Times: Living with History, 1947-1995 (1995). His later publications included Marching As To War (2001), Cats I Have Loved (2002), and his last book, Prisoners of the North (2004). Pierre Berton died on 30 November 2004, survived by his wife Janet.
Morris Biderman was born in 1908 in Chenchine, a small town near Kielce, Poland. He was the youngest of five sons; his father immigrated to Canada when he was four years old. Morris’s childhood memories of Poland include the Russian and German troops fighting in his town during the Great War, and the 1918 Kielce Pogrom, which prompted his family to join his father in Toronto. The family emigrated to Canada in 1920, living on Leonard Avenue, then later Bellevue Avenue, in Toronto; he attended Ryerson Public School until he dropped out at age 16. Morris then entered the trades as a needle worker and became involved in Leftist politics. He joined the Freedom Choir (Freiheit Gesang), which was held at Alhambra Hall, 450 Spadina Avenue, which housed the Labour League (a Toronto-based, Communist-led secular Jewish organization) and in 1927 he joined the Young Communist League. He worked as an under presser and was later hired as an operator for sportswear at Eaton’s, where he worked until 1937.
In 1937, Morris joined the Labour League and became manager of Der Kamf, the Communist weekly Yiddish newspaper, later renamed Der Vochenblatt. When the Communist party was briefly outlawed during the Second World War, Der Kamf was closed, and Morris returned to work in the sportswear industry. In 1942, he became president of the Labour League. In 1945, he was elected as the first national secretary to the newly founded United Jewish People’s Order. In 1955, Morris was one of eight delegates in a delegation chosen by the Canada-Soviet Friendship Society who visited the Soviet Union. Following the revelations of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech in 1956, Morris broke with the Communist Party and resigned from the UJPO at their annual conference held in December 1959 at Toronto’s Union Station. He later co-founded a new organization, the New Fraternal Jewish Association. In 2000, he wrote his memoir, A Life on the Jewish Left: An Immigrant’s Experience (Toronto: Onward Publishing).
Morris married Minnie Usprich (1909-2001) in September 1929. Morris’ older brother Dave Biderman is the father of Ruth Borchiver.
Katharine Birkmyre was the daughter of Rev. Canon Thomas Skelton (1834-1915). She was married to Henry Birkmyre who was possibly connected to the firm of Birkmyre Brothers, a jute and linen manufacturer. The couple lived at 67 Cadogan Gardens in London.
Lance Corporal Gerald John Blake (300028) served with the London Rifle Brigade, British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. He was born in 1885 or 1886 to John and Saima Blake of London. He arrived in France in October 1914 and was present for the Christmas truce. Blake died on 1 July 1916, at the age of 30, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He is buried at the Thiepval Memorial, Pier 9, face D.
Sid Blum was involved in various social welfare and human rights organizations in Canada, including the National Committee on Human Rights.
Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic, born in London on 1 November 1896. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Queen's College, Oxford. He spent many years at Oxford University teaching. In 1943 he joined the staff of the Times Literary Supplement. At the time of his death, 20 January 1974, he was a professor at Oxford.
Boesner, Johann-Joseph, Baron de
Baron de Boesner was an Austrian banker and perhaps a diplomat. Around 1807 he was in the employ of le comte de la Fare, Bishop of Nancy, for the business affairs of King Louis XVIII in a relation to the court of Vienna.
Robert Bolt is an English playwright and screenwriter born in 1924 in Sale, near Manchester, England where he was educated. His most well-known play, A Man for All Seasons, on the life of Sir Thomas More, opened in London in 1960.
Ruth Ann Borchiver was a social worker and psychologist. Her father, David Biderman, joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1921. She grew up speaking Yiddish and attended leftist shules. As a teenager, she briefly taught Yiddish at the Morris Winchevsky Shule in Toronto before pursuing a career in social work. She was head of Jewish Child and Family Services until the late 1950s. In 1991, she completed a Doctor of Education in applied psychology at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation, based on interviews with former members of the Communist movement in Canada, was titled: “A Social-Psychological Analysis of Millennial Thought in the Communist Party of Canada: 1921-1957.
Gordon Bottomley was an English poet and playwright, born in Keighley, Yorkshire on 20 February 1874 who began his working life as a bank clerk. He died on 25 August 1948 in Oare, England.
Born on 3 November 1893, Arthur Stanley Bourinot was a poet and lawyer. After completing his education at the University of Toronto and his legal training at Osgoode Hall, he was called to the bar in 1920. He practised law in Ottawa until his retirement in 1959. He produced more than a dozen chapbooks of poetry between 1915 and 1966. He won the Governor General's Award for Under the Sun (1939). Bourinot was also an active member of the literary community in Canada. He edited the Canadian Poetry Magazine (1948-54 and 1966-8) and Canadian Author and Bookman (1953-4, 1957-60). He died on 17 January 1969.
Arthur N. Bourns was born on 8 December 1919 at Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, and educated at Acadia University and then McGill University, graduating in 1944 with a doctorate in chemistry. He joined the Department of Chemistry at McMaster University as an Assistant Professor in 1947, after teaching at Acadia University and the University of Saskatchewan. He had begun his career as a research chemist in 1944 at the Dominion Rubber Company. Dr. Bourns became a full Professor in 1953, and served as both a chairman and a dean before becoming Vice-President, Science and Engineering, in 1967. In 1972 he was appointed president of the university, a post he held until 1980. He had a distinguished academic career, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1964 and serving as a member of the National Research Council, 1969-1975. Dr. Bourns was awarded four honorary degrees. He married Marion Blakney in 1943 and the couple had four children.
Sylvia Lorraine Bowerbank was born on July 19, 1947 in Hamilton, Ontario and spent her early years at Baptiste Lake. It was during this period that she developed her appreciation of nature which was to influence her throughout her life. She attended Carleton University, the University of Toronto and Simon Fraser University, receiving her B.A. (1970) and her Ph.D (1985) in English from McMaster University.
It was at McMaster that she began as Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies and Arts and Science in 1986. At the time of her death in 2005, she was Professor of English and Cultural Studies. She was one of the founders of the Women’s Studies Program and was also a Co-Chair of the President’s Committee on Indigenous Issues. She sat on international editorial boards for journals and executive committees for international associations and was also the vice-president, then the president of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association. During her career, she received several honours for her contributions to undergraduate education: she was nominated six times for teaching awards and received a McMaster Student Union Teaching Award (1986-87). She also received the McMaster Student Environmental Recognition Award (2002) and a Special Recognition Award from the President’s Committee on Indigenous Issues and Indigenous Studies Program (2002).
Her scholarship has been foundational in a number of fields: early modern cultural studies, focusing on women’s texts and history; ecocriticism; literature and science studies; and indigenous cultures. She published widely in books and journals. Her book on seventeenth century women’s writing, entitled, Speaking for Nature: Women and Ecologies in Early Modern England (Johns Hopkins U.P.) was published in 2004.
Alexander Brady and others were charged with treason on 1 June 1838 in the township of Pelham where they were accused of gathering together in an unlawful manner with rifles, pistols, and swords. Only John W. Brown was found guilty.
John Brand, antiquary, topographer, and clergyman, was born on 19 August 1744 at Washington, in the county of Durham and educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. On 6 October 1744 he was given the perpetual curacy of Cramlington, a chapel of ease to St. Nicholas at Newcastle. On 29 May 1777 he was elected a fellow in the Society of Antiquaries, later becoming resident secretary. He was appointed to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Mary Hubbard in 1784. He is the author of several works including Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (1777). He died on 11 September 1806 in his rectory.
