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James King was born in Springfield, Mass. on 14 June 1942. He received his M.A. in 1969 and Ph.D in 1970 from Princeton University. He was Assistant Professor of English at Loyola College, 1970-71, and from 1971-77 at McMaster University. He became Associate Professor of English at McMaster in 1977 and Professor of English in 1983. He was Chair of the McMaster Association for Eighteenth Century Studies from 1984-88.

He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1993. King has received several prestigious awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 1980-81, and the Killam Research Fellow Award, 1988-90. His scholarly works have gained him the rank of University Professor. He is co-editor of The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, (4 vols., 1979-86) and the author of many biographies. He is also a novelist.

Stelio Cro was born in Rome, Italy, on 7 April 1936. He was educated in Rome up to the junior high school years; he finished his secondary school at the Scuola Cristoforo Colombo, the Italian school run by the Italian Government in Argentina. In 1963 he obtained a Licenciatura en Letras at the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras of the University of Buenos Aires; in 1966 he obtained a Doctorate at the Facolta de Lingue e Letterature Straniere of the University of Venice, Italy.

After teaching at the University of Buenos Aires and at Florida State University, he joined McMaster University in 1972. He retired from the Department of Modern Languages in June of 1996, as Professor Emeritus. In 1995 he was awarded the McMaster Student Union Teaching Award for the Humanities. Cro is the author of nine books.

C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 29 November 1898 and educated at Oxford. He was a literary scholar, critic and novelist, fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1925-1954 and afterwards professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge. In addition to scholarly works, he wrote popular religious and moral books such as The Problem of Pain (1940).

However, he is best known as an author of children's books — most notably the Chronicles of Narnia, the most popular of which is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). He died at The Kilns, Headington Quarry, near Oxford on 22 November 1963.

Timothy Leary was born 22 October 1920 in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the 1950s and 1960s he taught psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University. He was a proponent of the drug culture in the 1960s and experimented with consciousness-altering drugs such as LSD.

A prolific author, he wrote an autobiography, Flashbacks (1983). He died on 31 May 1996.

James Rennell Rodd, diplomat and author, was born in London on 9 November 1858 and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He served as British Ambassador in Rome, 1908-1919. Later, he was Conservative Member of Parliament for St. Marylebone, 1928-1932. He was created 1st Baron Rennell of Rodd in 1933.

He published 3 volumes of memoirs, Social and Diplomatic Memoirs (1922-1926) in addition to his poetry and prose.

Antonio D'Alfonso was born in Montreal in 1953. He attended English and French schools and studied at Loyola College where he earned a B.A. in Communication Arts in 1975. He completed an M.Sc. in Communications Studies from Université de Montréal.

In1978 he founded Guernica Editions, where he edited 450 books by authors from around the world. The company is dedicated to the bridging of cultures in Canada and publishes both original works and translations in three languages: English, French, and Italian. In 1982 in collaboration with three writers he founded the trilingual magazine Vice Versa and in 1986 they founded the Association of Italian-Canadian writers. As an author himself, he has published over 20 books in French and English. He has won the Trillium Award for his novel, Un vendredi du mois d'août in 2005. He is also an independent filmmaker and scriptwriter. In 2010 his film Bruco won the Best Foreign Film and Best International Director of a Feature Film at the New York International Film and Video Festival (Los Angeles). He has lived in Mexico City, Rome and Toronto. He has taught at University of Toronto and University of California, San Diego and presently teaches film in the French Department at McGill University.

Born in Winnipeg on 10 March, 1942, Marvyne Jenoff graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1964. She also studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem and the Sheridan College School of Design. She taught English as a second language from 1960 to 1996.

Her books include No Lingering Peace (1972), Hollandsong (1975), New Poet's Handbook (1984), The Orphan and the Stranger (1985), and The Emperor's Body (1995). She was the Fiction Editor of Waves from 1980 to 1985 and was a regular contributor to Montage, a MENSA newsletter from 1995 to 1998. Her poems and fiction have appeared in a variety of Canadian magazines.

E. H. Cookridge was born Edward Spiro on 8 May 1908 in Vienna, the son of Paul and Rosa Cookridge Spiro. He was educated at the Universities of Vienna, Lausanne, and London. He worked as a foreign correspondent and editor for various British and American newspapers and later became a broadcaster both on the British Broadcasting Corporation and the American Broadcasting Company. As a correspondent he wrote under a number of pseudonyms including: Peter Leighton, Peter Morland, Ronald Reckitt, and Edward H. Spire. From 1939 to 1945 he served in Intelligence for the British Army. His first book was Secrets of the British Secret Service (1948). He was a prolific author, one of his most popular books being The Third Man: The Truth about Kim Philby (1968). Cookridge died in 1979.

H.M.S. Carnarvon was a Devonshire-class cruiser of 10,850 tons built for the Royal Navy in 1905. She served in various capacities prior to the start of the First World War, where she was assigned to Cape Verde Station to protect British ships. In October 1914, the Carnarvon was transferred to the South Atlantic where she was part of the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914. Throughout the rest of the war she continued to patrol against German raiders and escort convoys. In 1919, it became a training ship, before being sold for scrap in 1921.

Marjorie Stibbards Harris Batten, freelance writer, editor, and noted Canadian gardening authority, was born in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, in 1937, the eldest of Bernard and Kay Stibbards ’s three children. Her father was a Baptist minister and the family moved frequently across Canada. She was tragically orphaned in her teens, losing her mother to cancer and her father soon after in an airplane crash. Harris graduated from McMaster University in 1959 with an Honours BA in English, and began graduate studies at University of Toronto, studying with Northrop Frye.

She married musician and TV producer Barry Harris with whom she had two children, Christopher and Jennifer. After separating from Harris, she met fellow writer Jack Batten, to whom she has been married since 1968. The couple still reside in the Toronto Annex home in which they raised her children and Batten’s son and daughter, Brad and Sarah.

In the early 1960s Harris worked for Toronto art dealer Dorothy Cameron which led to a position as modern-living editor and writer at Maclean’s magazine. Well into the1980s, Harris continued as a freelancer, writing on a wide range of topics for nearly every major Canadian magazine. In the early 1970s Harris was also a writer, producer, and commentator for CBC Radio on such shows as “Gerussi,” “This Country in the Morning,” and “Ideas”. In addition, she wrote and co-authored numerous general interest books in the 1970s and 1980s.

What Harris describes as her “epiphany” occurred in 1988 when she combined her writing talents and passion for gardening to create The Canadian Gardener. Published in 1990, it launched Harris into a new career, and was the first of nearly 20 gardening monographs she has written. Recognition for her expertise led to gardening columns in Chatelaine and The Globe & Mail, and to editorship roles with Toronto Life Gardens and Gardening Life. She continues to be much sought-after for speaking engagements, public appearances, and garden tours, and is a regular garden commentator on television and radio programs and online forums.

Barry Brown was an Irish book collector.

Edward Lacey was born in Lindsay, Ontario of French-Canadian and Irish descent. After attending separate and public schools in Lindsay, he went to the University of Toronto, winning the Edward Blake scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature and majoring in French and German. He graduated with a B.A. in the fall of 1959 and then moved to Texas to pursue his M.A. in Linguistics and Languages. There he met Randy Wicker (formerly Charlie Hayden), student politician and gay activist, and Byron Black, who remained lifelong friends. He received his M.A. degree in 1961.

Between 1961 and 1983 he worked as a translator or taught English as a second language and literature in Mexico, Trinidad, Brazil, Greece and Thailand. He also worked as a proofreader and editor in Thailand from 1984 to1987. In 1991 he taught English or worked as an editor in Indonesia and Thailand, until an accident in Bangkok permanently disabled him. He died of a heart attack in 1995.

Lacey’s publications include: The Forms of Life (1965), the first gay-identified book of poetry published in Canada; Path of Snow: Poems 1951-73 (1974); and Third World: Travel Poems (1994). His collection of letters entitled A Magic Prison: Letters from Edward Lacey (1995) was edited by David Helwig. Lacey has also translated books from French, Spanish and Portuguese. His own work has appeared in anthologies such as Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine, An Anthology of Gay History: Sex, Politics & Culture (1991).

The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded in March 1963 to promote the establishment of an independent Québec. Pierre Vaillières jointed the FLQ in 1965 and provided its philosophical underpinnings. The group used radical tactics, being involved in over 200 bombings between 1963 and 1970. In 1970 the FLQ kidnapped cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and British trade commissioner James Cross. Laporte was later murdered. The FLQ, many of its members in prison, ceased activity in 1971.

Hugo Sonnenschein was born in Kyjov in what is now the Czech Republic in 1889. He wrote under the name of Sonka and his first book of poems was published in 1907 while he was a student in Vienna. During the First World War he served on the Balkan front, but was taken into custody for pacifist activities on several occasions. Following the war he turned to politics and founded the Red Guard as well as being active in the communist community, though he was later kicked out of the Communist Party. Die Legende vom weltverkommenen Sonka, was published in 1920, and is considered his major work. In 1943, he and his wife, Rosa, were sent to Auschwitz. He survived, but after the war he was accused of collaborating with the State Police and in 1947 sentenced to a twenty-year sentence. He died in 1953 in Mirov prison.

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.

Morley Calvert was a conductor, bandmaster and composer. He was born in Brantford, Ontario. His music education included an LSRM certification in 1946, and A Mus. degree from McGill in 1950 and a B. Mus. degree from McGill in 1956. He founded and was the director of the McGill University Concert Band from 1960-1970 and the director of the Lakeshore Concert Band from 1967-1972. In 1958 at Ayers, QC, he founded the Monteregian Music Camp, which offered summer training for high school students which ended in 1970

Calvert’s professional activities included the position of accompaniment for Maureen Forrester. He was invited to join the American Bandmasters Association (ABA), and was the conductor of the Barrie Central Collegiate Band from 1972-1985. He was President of the Ontario Chapter of the Canadian Bandmasters Association from 1981-1983 and national executive vice-president from 1981-3. He was the artistic director of the Civic Concert Choir of Hamilton in 1987 and of the Weston Silver Band in 1988. At the time of his death, he was teaching music at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. Calvert’s compositions, recordings and performances include Suite from the Monteregian Hills published in 1961; Romantic Variations (1976, 1979) was commissioned and privately recorded by the Youth Band of Ontario and the Arizona State University Band; Introduction, Elegy and Caprice (1978) was commissioned as the test piece for the first European Brass Band Championships at Royal Albert Hall in London in 1978 and recorded by the Black Dyke Mills Band.

R.H. De Pencier served in the Canadian Contingent of the South African Constabulary in the South African War. From Montreal, De Pencier was part of the Volunteer Rifles and received the Queen’s Medal. His regimental number was 1662.

Stuart Ivison was an active member of the Canadian Baptist community and served as a chaplain during the Second World War in England, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Ernest Hauber Stuart Ivison was born 26 March 1906 in Wheatley, Ontario. Joining the Talbot Street Baptist Church during the end of high school and through his work with the church made the decision to enter the ministry. Starting at McMaster University in 1925, Ivison joined the debating team, worked on the McMaster Monthly and was the first editor of The Silhouette.

After graduating in 1930, Ivison was ordained and began his first ministry at a church in Brockville. Two years later he moved to Ottawa to fill a vacancy at First Baptist Church. On 5 August 1931, he married his wife Marjorie, and they had three children: Donald, Duncan and David. As a consequence of his role at Ottawa First Baptist he was often a liaison between the government and the Baptist Convention after the start of the Second World War. He was asked to join the National Defence Headquarters by Bishop Wells of the Anglican Church of Canada. He enlisted in July 1941 and served at Headquarters for two years. In 1943 he requested to go through basic training and serve overseas. Ivison served most of his time with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, until just before the end of the war when he became Staff Chaplain at Army Headquarters. Following his service he returned First Baptist in Ottawa and was an active member of the Baptist community in Canada.

For a detailed account of his life, including a wealth of contextual details for this archive, researchers should consult the oral history recorded in 1986 that is housed in Box 2, File 25.

George Baldwin Read served with the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and with the Canadian Artillery as a Captain in the Second World War. Born in 1886 in Ireland, he was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Cork Artillery Militia in 1903. Family legend says that he left home and travelled the world, working in Hawaii, Australia, and ending up in Canada in 1909. While there, he met and married Gwendolen Pym and they had two children, Montague (1914) and Michael Richard (1915).

Read returned to England and became a Captain with NO. 10 Coy. RGA, where he served at Queenstown Harbour. He was later promoted to Admiral and served in France and Belgium.

During the Second World War he served as a Major, possibly as a spotter on Partridge Island. He retired in April 1951.

Roy J. Adams (b. 1940) is an academic with interests in the area of labour issues. He has lectured and held positions around the world. In 2003 he convened the Hamilton Civic Coalition, an organization of top civic leaders dedicated to improving the quality of life in Hamilton