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Marjorie Freeman Campbell was a local Hamilton historian. Her books include A Mountain and a City: the Story of Hamilton (1966) and Hamilton General Hospital School of Nursing (1956).

F/L Douglas Cameron was a game keeper in Perthshire, Scotland prior to 1939. After training for the Royal Air Force, he served as a gunner with No. 58 Squadron based at York and flew two tours in Whitley bombers. While with this squadron he was shot down by an FW190 fighter. Following this, he served with Coastal Command, until moving to No. 149 Squadron based at Lakenheath where he joined the crew of F/Sgt. R.H. Middleton of the Royal Australian Air Force. On the night of 27/28 November 1942 they flew to Turin, Italy to attack the Fiat Works. Their Stirling aircraft was hit by flak and severely damaged while returning from the target. Middleton, missing one eye, managed to fly the aircraft back to the English coast where four of the crew, including Cameron, baled out before the aircraft crashed into the sea killing Middleton and two other crewmembers. Middleton was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his efforts and Douglas Cameron the DFM.

Removed from flying operations Cameron served with No. 20 O.T.U. at Lossiemouth as Gunnery Leader. In May 1944 he went back to ops with S/L Ian Bazalgette as part of the Pathfinder Force and began operating with No. 635 Squadron. On 4 August 1944 their Lancaster was struck by flak. Cameron and the able crew were ordered to bale out over France while Bazalgette attempted to land the plane on a single engine to save the lives of two injured crewmembers who were unable to jump. Bazalgette was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his action. Cameron was able to evade Nazi soldiers and tracking dogs in the forest. He joined up with the French Resistance and became a saboteur until the area was liberated.

Following the war Cameron returned to Scotland to continue his career as a gamekeeper. He named his only daughter Margaret Middleton Bazalgette Cameron as his lasting tribute to the pilots he had flown with on Victoria Cross flights.

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.

Peter Calamai spent almost five decades as a newspaper reporter and editor working for major Canadian newspapers. He obtained a B.Sc. in physics from McMaster University in 1965, and while a student, he was editor-in-chief of the undergraduate student newspaper The Silhouette during which it was named the best student newspaper in Canada. Calamai remains involved in McMaster’s alumni community.

Best known for his award-winning 1987 adult literacy series, Calamai has worked on a number of high-profile stories in Washington, Europe, Africa, and Ottawa; he has worked as national and foreign correspondents for Southam News (1969-1990), editorial pages editor at The Ottawa Citizen (1990-1996), and national science reporter at the Toronto Star (1998-2008). Calamai has also worked as a freelance reporter, photographer, consultant, speech writer, and instructor.

An advocate for science, literacy, and journalistic professionalism, Calamai has been nationally recognized for his involvement in public issues and exceptional news reporting and writing through his Order of Canada (2014) and Diamond Jubilee Medal, among numerous other awards. Remaining dedicated to the promotion of accurate science reporting, he is a founding member of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association and the Science Media Centre of Canada.

Calamai passed away at the age of 75, in January 2019.

Percy Thomas Caiger was born on 3 November 1889 and entered the Post Office as a boy clerk in 1905. He became a career Civil Servant, retiring as Staff Officer with the Ministry of Food in 1947. During World War I he served as a Sergeant with the 60th (London) Divisional Cyclist Co. He was a founding member and Hon. Secretary of the Old Comrades' Association. He died on 27 February 1953.

L/Cpl. Eric Caiger served in the Royal Suffolk Regiment of Great Britain during World War II.

Juan Butler, 1942–1981, was a Canadian writer who was born in London, England and emigrated to Canada when he was 5. His three novels are Cabbagetown Diary: A Documentary (1970), The Garbageman (1972), and Canadian Healing Oil (1974).

William Joseph "Bill" Burniston was born in Wentworth County on 28 September 1920. He was hired to work at the Steel Company of Canada 20" Mill, Ontario Works in Hamilton, Ont. on 28 January 1941. One of his earlier jobs was as a mill hand catcher. He received postponements from military training during World War II because of his employment at Stelco. He married Virginia Wells on 20 February 1943 and the couple had one child, a daughter Tracey, in 1958. The Burnistons lived in Dundas, Ont., and also had a cottage at Turkey Point. If he worked until age 65, he would have retired in 1985. It is possible he took early retirement. Mr. Burniston's death date is not known.

Bill Burniston was an active member of Local 1005. His positions with the local included:

Executive Officer; Chairman and Secretary, Compensation, Safety and Health Committee; Chairman, Pensions, Welfare and Insurance Committee; Chairman and Secretary, Unemployment Insurance Committee; Chief Steward, 20" Mill, Ontario Works; Chairman, Div. 2 Grievance Committee; Chairman, Entertainment Committee; Chairman, Labour Day Committee.

He was also the Secretary of the Steelworkers Social Club of Hamilton which was incorporated in letters patent issued by the Government of Ontario in October 1947. The Club's affairs were legally wound up in 1962. Bill Burniston also contributed articles to Steel Shots.

Mabel Grace Burkholder was a local Hamilton historian who wrote a column, "Out of the Storied Past", for the Hamilton Spectator as well as published poems, books, and short stories about Hamilton.

Martyn Burke (1942-) is a novelist, journalist, film director, documentarian, and screenwriter. He graduated from McMaster with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences (Economics) in 1964. After graduation, he travelled to Vietnam as an independent freelance journalist covering the war. His dispatches were printed in the Toronto Telegram “Martyn Burke’s Vietnam War Diary,” and later became the basis of his first work of fiction. He is the author of several fiction books: The Laughing War (1980), Ivory Joe (1991), Tiara (1995), The Commissar’s Report (1984), The Shelling of Beverly Hills (2000), The Truth about the Night (2006), and Music for Love or War (2015). Following the Vietnam War, Burke returned to Canada to work as a producer at CBC television.

Burke is best known as a documentarian and his work has been broadcast by the CBC, BBC in the United Kingdom, TF-1 in France and CBS's 60 Minutes. In 1977, he co-produced Connections: An Investigation into Organized Crime in Canada, a two-part documentary series on the Mafia with CBC/Norfolk Communications Ltd. In 1988, Burke directed Witnesses, a documentary film which provided a behind-the-scenes view of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His documentary film, Under Fire: Journalists in Combat, featured interviews with journalists and photographers who had experienced war first-hand and won a Peabody Award in 2011.

His film and cable television credits include: co-writer of the cult comedy Top Secret; writer, HBO’s satirical The Second Civil War (1997); and writer/director of the Emmy-nominated television film, Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999).

Burke divides his time between Toronto and Santa Monica, California.

Anthony Burgess, novelist, critic, and composer, was born John Anthony Burgess Wilson on 25 February 1917 in Manchester. He was educated at the University of Manchester. His A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962 and made into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. He died in November 1993 in London, England.

Guiseppe Buonamici was an Italian pianist, teacher, and editor, born in Florence in 1846. He died there in 1914. He studied first with his uncle, Ceccherini and completed his studies with Hans von Bülow and Joseph Rheinberger at the Munich Conservatory (1868-1870), where was he was then appointed professor.

Hans von Bülow, conductor and pianist, was born in Dresden, Germany on 8 January 1830. He studied both music and law, the latter in Leipzig. In 1851 he gave up law and went to Weimar to study piano under Franz Liszt (1811-1866). He married Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857. Von Bülow toured as a pianist and also taught at the Stern and Marx conservatories in Berlin. In 1864 he became the conductor of the Court Opera in Munich, followed in 1867 by his appointment as director of the music conservatory there. From 1850-1855 he was Hoftmusikdirektor to the Duke of Meiningen. Von Bülow also composed some piano works and orchestral music. He died in Cairo on 12 February 1894.

Tim Buck, machinist, trade unionist, and communist, was born on 6 January 1891 in Beccles, England. He immigrated to Canada in 1910. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Canada in 1921 and became its general secretary in 1929, a position he held for 32 years. He spent two years in jail, 1932-1934, after the party was banned. He reorganized it as the Labor-Progressive Party in 1943. He stood for election in three federal election campaigns. He published many articles, pamphlets and books. See A Select Bibliography of Tim Buck. He died in Cuernavaca, Mexico on 11 March 1973.

John Gilbert Browne was born in 1878, educated at Wellington College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned in the 14th King’s Hussars in 1899. He saw action with his regiment during the South African War, 1900-1902, and was awarded the Queen’s South African Medal and the King’s South African Medal. Between 1906 and 1911 he was seconded for service with the West African Frontier Force in Northern Nigeria. By 1914 he had attained the rank of Major and that year attended a course at the Staff College, Camberley.

At the outbreak of war the College closed and in accordance with the British Army’s mobilization plans the majority of the officer students were immediately appointed to various Staff posts with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Browne was appointed Military Landing Officer (MLO) on the staff of the Commandant of No. 3 Base in France at the port of Boulogne. In collaboration with the Royal Navy’s Deputy Naval Transport Officer, Browne’s duties were to oversee the disembarkation of the BEF’s troops and the landing of their stores, equipment, horses, transport, and ammunition in accordance with detailed printed instructions and complex ship and railway timetables that had been prepared before the war.

Having completed his duties as MLO by early September 1914 Browne was assigned to the staff of General H.I.W. Hamilton, commanding the 3rd Division, “partly as an extra a.d.c., partly [for] G[eneral Staff] and party Q[uartermaster-General Staff] work”. On 10 October he was appointed as GSO2 [General Staff Officer, 2nd Grade] on the staff of the newly formed Cavalry Corps, commanded by Lt.-General E.H.H. Allenby, where he remained until the end of the month when he was recalled to England.

Browne did not serve in France or Flanders again, taking up various appointments and commands in England until 1916 and then serving overseas as an officer with the Middle East and Egyptian Expeditionary Forces until the end of the war. In peacetime he commanded his own regiment (by then amalgamated and renamed the 14/20th King’s Hussars) between 1921 and 1925 and from 1925 until he retired in 1933, he served in the Middle East commanding the Iraq Levies. His History of the Iraq Levies was published in 1932, as was the History of the 14th King’s Hussars, 1900-1922, of which he was co-author. During the Second World War he served in both the Home Guard and the Civil Defence. Brigadier-General Browne died on 12 February 1968.

Lorne A. Brown, who taught political science at the University of Regina in the 1980s, was active in the Central America Solidarity Movement. He was also a member of the Central America Working Group in Regina. In 1986 he decided to edit an anthology, assisted by Janice Acton and Miaja Kagis, to reflect the experiences of “Canadians who have worked in, travelled to, observed or been associated with developments in several Central American countries”, with an emphasis on Nicaragua. To accomplish this task, he contacted Canadian “solidarity activists in trade unions, the National Farmer’s Union, churches, teachers’ association” and other groups, including Tools for Peace. Although the anthology was never published, many activists were interviewed.

Barry Brown was an Irish book collector.

Boris Brott, conductor, violinist, and producer, was born in Montreal on 14 Mar 1944, the son of renowned conductor and composer Alexander Brott and cellist Lotte (Goetzel) Brott. He studied violin with his father and performed at the age of five with the orchestra of the Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra). He studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal and the McGill Conservatory. In 1959 he founded the Philharmonic Youth Orchestra of Montreal and led it in his conducting debut in that city. His first international success came in June 1962, when he won third prize at the Liverpool Competition.

Brott has held the following positions:
1963-1965 Assistant conductor to Walter Susskind with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
1964-1968 First conductor of the Northern Sinfonia at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
1964-1967 Principal conductor for the touring company of the Royal Ballet Covent Garden.
1968-1969 Assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
1967-1972 Directed >Lakehead Symphony Orchestra
1971-1973 Directed Regina Symphony Orchestra
1969-1990 Artistic director and conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra; under his leadership the orchestra grew from an amateur ensemble to a professional one with a 42-week season and 16,000 subscribers.
1972 Appointed conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra
1975 Assumed directorship of the CBC Winnipeg Orchestra
1982 to 1985 Artistic director and conductor of Symphony Nova Scotia
1983-1991 Led the Ontario Place Pops Orchestra
1987-1989 National president of the Youth and Music Canada (Jeunesses musicales du Canada)
1988 Founded (with his wife, author and attorney Ardyth Webster Brott) the Boris Brott Summer Music Festival in Hamilton
1989 Appointed associate director of Alexander Brott’s McGill Chamber Orchestra
1989 Founded the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, a mentor-apprentice program.
1995 Appointed music director of the New West Symphony, California
2002 Assumed leadership of McGill Chamber Orchestra
2004 Appointed principal conductor of youth and education concerts for the National Arts Centre

In addition, Brott has been guest conductor of symphonies and opera companies throughout Canada, Europe, the U.S., Israel, central and South America, Japan and Korea. Brott has produced, conducted, or hosted a large number of television and radio programs for the CBC, and the BBC and ITV in the UK, and recorded with various orchestras for CBC, Mercury, Pro-Arte and Sony Classical. In 1986 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received an American Music Award. In 1988 he received an honorary doctorate from McMaster University. He was named Knight of Malta (1990), International Man of the Year (Cambridge, England, 1992), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain (1996). In 2000, he conducted the Vatican premiere of Leonard Bernstein's controversial Mass before Pope John Paul II.