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McMaster University was founded in 1887 in Toronto, Ont. and named after Senator William McMaster who had bequeathed sufficient funding to endow an Christian institution of higher learning. It opened in Toronto in 1890. Inadequate facilities and the gift of land in Hamilton prompted the institution to relocate in 1930. Until 1957 the Governors of the University were elected by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. In that year, the University became a non-denominational institution.

The head of McMaster University was given the title of Chancellor until 1950 when George P. Gilmour was given the title of President and Vice-Chancellor and a new Chancellor, E. Carey Fox was chosen. Gilmour had been Chancellor of McMaster University since 1941. Since 1950 seven presidents have headed McMaster University: George P. Gilmour, 1950-1961; Henry G. Thode, 1961-1972; Arthur N. Bourns, 1972-1980; Alvin A. Lee, 1980-1990; Geraldine A. Kenney-Wallace, 1990-1995; Peter J. George, 1995-2010; Patrick Deane, 2010-present.

Denis Martin Shaw, Professor Emeritus, McMaster University School of Geography and Geology, was born on 20 August 1923, in Lancashire, England to Norman Wade and Sylvia (Shackleton) Shaw. He attended the King Edward VII school in St. Anne’s and continued his education at Emmanuel College in Cambridge. There, he received his BA in 1943 and later in 1948 his MA, after having served as a Signals Officer for three years. In 1946 Shaw married Doris Pauline (Paula) Mitchell. They had 3 children: Geoffrey, Gillian, and Peter Shaw. Soon thereafter he enrolled at the University of Chicago for a doctorate. By 1951 he had joined the Department of Geology at McMaster University. Shaw divorced Paula Shaw in 1975, and married Susan Evans in 1976. He died in Hamilton on 6 October 2003.

Anna Porter (née Szigethy), publisher and author, was born in Budapest during World War II. In 1956, at the age of 12, she and her mother immigrated to New Zealand to escape the Soviet presence in Hungary. She has B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Canterbury. In the late 1960s, she worked as a proofreader with Cassell’s in England and in sales and as an editor with Collier Macmillan. In 1969 she was hired as an editorial coordinator with McClelland & Stewart and then became Vice-President, Editor-in-Chief, until 1978. From 1978 until 1992, she was the President of McClelland-Bantam Inc. (Seal Books). From 1986 until 1991, she was the Executive Chairman of Doubleday Canada Ltd. In 1979, with Michael de Pencier, she established Key Porter Books. She was the CEO and publisher of Key Porter Books from 1981 until July 2004 when she sold a majority interest in Key Porter Books to H.B. Fenn Limited.

Porter is the author of three novels: Hidden Agenda (1985), Mortal Sins (1987), and The Bookfair Murders (1997). She has also written three works of non-fiction: The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies (2006), Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (2007; awarded the Canadian Jewish Book Award for History and the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize), and The Ghosts of Europe: Journeys Through Central Europe's Troubled Past and Uncertain Future (2010; awarded the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize). She has also written numerous pieces for magazines and newspapers. Porter serves on the boards of many companies and organizations. In recognition of her varied achievements, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991. In 2003, she was awarded the Order of Ontario. She has been awarded honorary degrees from Ryerson University, St. Mary’s University, and the Law Society of Upper Canada. She is married to Julian Porter, Q.C. and has two daughters, Catherine and Julia, and three grandchildren. She currently lives in Toronto.

The National Committee for Independent Canadian Unions, based in Toronto, was formed in 1973 and operated until 1976. One of the donors of the fonds, Terence W. Barker, wrote of the organization: "it operated ... as a fellow traveller of the Canadian Liberation Movement (Marxist/Leninist/Maoist). Not surprisingly, perhaps, it was dissention-ridden from start to finish." Barker believes he was the last official spokesperson for the National Committee at the founding congress in Ottawa in October 1976 of the Canadian Voice for Independence, one of the successor organizations to the National Committee for Independent Canadian Unions. Barker also included some records of other associations either affiliated with the National Committee or of which Barker was a member, including the North York High School Teachers' Association, 1976-1982 and the Metropolitan Association of Supply Teachers, 1971-1975.

Andrew Gordon Chisholm, K.C., was a London, Ont. lawyer. While still studying law, he joined the 7th Fusiliers and served as a lieutentant in the North-West Rebellion of 1885. He ran for Parliament after that as a Conservative but was defeated.

He was called to the bar in 1888 and made a K.C. in 1921. He acted as solicitor for the Six Nations of the Grand River for about forty years. During that time he recovered for them lands valued at $300,000 and some $35,000 in cash according to a letter of 14 April 1942 to the Deputy Minister of Justice. Chisholm died suddenly on 11 January 1943 at the age of 79 while a Petition of Right was still before the courts.

Murray Thomson was born in Honan, China in 1922. His father was a United Church missionary. Thomson came to Canada at an early age. He was a student at the University of Toronto when the Second World War began. He enlisted in the air force and became a pilot although he never flew in a combat mission. Murray received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Toronto.

As an undergraduate, he co-founded the Humanist Group, a citizen’s group for social change. His first job after graduating was a position in the adult education division of Saskatchewan’s socialist CCF government. Thomson received an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. In 1955 Thomson went to Thailand on a UNICEF research fellowship. He then spent four and a half years in India working in adult education for the American Friends Service Committee. Upon his return to Canada in 1962 he became peace education secretary for the Canadian Friends Service Committee in Toronto. In 1970 he became director of the CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) programme in Thailand. In 1972 he became the Regional Field Director of the South East Asia CUSO Programme. He also worked with the Canadian Friends Service Committee in South-East Asia sponsored by the Canadian Friends Service Committee, the peace and development wing of Canadian Quakers.

Thomson was the co-founder of the inter-church peace group, Project Ploughshares, a founder of Peace Brigades International in 1981 and of Peace Fund Canada. He helped establish the United Nations World Disarmament Campaign. In 1990, Thomson was awarded the Pearson Peace Medal. In 2001 Thomson received the Order of Canada. Thomson has been an active pacifist and lives in Ottawa. He died on 2 May 2019, in Ottawa, Ontario, at the age of 96.

Local 5167 consists of seven units, from DARTS, Macassa and Wentworth Lodges, Royal Botanical Gardens, Good Shepherd Centres, Hamilton International Airport and the City of Hamilton with both outside and inside working groups. This Local came about from the merger of the working groups from Town of Dundas, Town of Stoney Creek, Town of Flamborough, Town of Glanbrook, City of Hamilton, Hamilton International Airport and the organizing of Good Shepherd Centres –Women’s Services in early 2000. Union members of this local previously belonged to either Local 5 or Local 167.

Charles Hamilton Mitchell was a noted civil engineer and decorated World War I intelligence officer. He was born in Petrolia, Ontario in 1872 to the Reverend George A. Mitchell and Agnes Mitchell (nee Beckett). He had a brother, P. H. Mitchell, with whom he later went into business. Mitchell was educated primarily at the School of Practical Science at the University of Toronto. After his graduation in 1894, he worked as a city and consulting engineer in hydraulic and hydro-electric power plant design and construction until 1906. In 1901 he married Myra Ethlyn Stanton. They had one son, Donald Russell Mitchell, who died in infancy.

In 1899 Mitchell joined the Canadian Militia as a Lieutenant. He served in the 44th Lincoln and Welland Regiment and the Corps of Guides prior to the outbreak of World War I. From 1914 to 1915, he served as an intelligence officer in the 1st Division under Lord Byng. He continued to occupy increasingly senior intelligence roles in the Canadian Corps (1915-16); in France (2nd Army, 1916-1917); and in Italy (British Forces HQ, 1917-1918). He received numerous decorations, including a DSO, CMG, CB, VD, Legion of Honour (France), Order of Leopold (Belgium), Croix de Guerre (Belgium), Order of the Crown of Italy, and the Order of Bath. In 1918 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and became a senior intelligence officer at the War Office in London.

In 1919, Mitchell returned to the Canadian Army. Shortly thereafter he was appointed Dean of Engineering at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. He continued to serve both in this role and as an influential consulting engineer until his death in 1941. At the time of his death he was reportedly newly involved in World War II intelligence work.

Harold Hamilton Leather was born on 23 May 1893 in Hamilton, Ont., the son of Thomas Edwin Leather and the former Helen McIntyre Skinner. He was educated at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ont. He served in World War I, joining the Imperial Service Corps in England as a private. He returned to Canada in 1919 with rank of captain.

While in England he married Grace C. Holmes, of Toronto, in 1918. They had one child, Edwin. Harold Leather established his own company, Leather Cartage in 1924 in Hamilton, which was sold in the 1950s, with Leather remaining a director until his death in 1981. During World War II, he was in charge of the Canadian Red Cross parcels scheme. For this service he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire and received medals from six foreign countries.

After the war, he became chairman of the Canadian Red Cross for six years, and subsequently was named an honorary counsellor of the national organization. Among many other activities, he served on the board of directors of McMaster University and the Stratford Festival until his retirement at the age of 80. He died in Hamilton in 1981.

Sir Edwin Hartley Cameron Leather was born in Toronto, Ont. on 22 May 1919, the son of Harold Hamilton Leather and the former Grace C. Holmes. He was educated at Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ont. and the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. He married Sheila Greenlees on 9 March 1940; the couple has two daughters. During World War II, he served overseas with the Canadian Army.

After the war he remained in England, becoming a parliamentary candidate in 1945. He was Conservative Member of Parliament for North Somerset from 1950-1964. He was knighted in 1962. In 1973 he succeeded the murdered Sir Richard Sharples as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda and remained in this position until 1977. He was for several years an executive and then director of Hogg Robinson Ltd. as well as serving on the board of directors of several other companies. He died in Bermuda on 5 April 2005.

Sir Edwin wrote on politics, business and religion for many newspapers and magazines, as well as being a public speaker and broadcaster. He was also the author of three novels.

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.

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.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) was formed in 1963 by a merger of the National Union of Public Employees and the National Union of Public Service Employees.

The workers at Artistic Woodwork Co. staged a four month strike in Toronto in 1973. Strike issues included the rights of immigrant workers to organize, the use of undercover strike breakers, and the role of the police. There were 108 arrests during the strike, including strike supporters such as a United Church minister. An agreement was eventually reached but within three years a decertification vote was held. In 1992 the CTCU joined the Canadian Auto Workers as Local 40.

Local 205 received its charter on 27 June 1900 from the Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators of America. Meetings to organize the local began in August 1899, after the failure of Local 27. Members of Local 205 work for a variety of different contractors. This history of Local 205 has been written in two-coil bound, mimeographed books. The first on is located with the fonds and was written by George McMenemy. The second book has been catalogued for Archives and Research Collections. The International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades officially changed its name to International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, in August 1999, to better reflect its membership of men and women.

Local 1795 received its charter from the International Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers on 8 December 1954. Members of this local are glaziers. The International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades officially changed its name to International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, in August 1999, to better reflect its membership of men and women.

The date that Local 414 received its charter is not known. The first Canadian local was chartered in 1890. The first extant records for Local 414 date from 1902. Local 414 merged with Local 1260 in April 1954.

Born in the Netherlands in 1942, Gerard Brender à Brandis immigrated to Canada with his family in 1947. After graduating from the Fine Arts programme at McMaster University, he set up his own studio in Carlisle, Ontario. Although he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he studied wood engraving and the art of making books on his own. In 1969 he established the Brandstead Press, and during the 1970s and 1980s, Brender à Brandis gained both a national and international reputation for his delicate work in wood engraving and linocutting. Best known for his botanicals, interior studies and landscapes, Brender à Brandis is also an accomplished bookwright, producing limited edition books combining the arts of paper-making, wood engraving, typesetting, printing, book binding, and spinning, dyeing and weaving flax into linen covers. He has had solo exhibitions as well as numerous group shows. His work is represented in both public and private collections, and public and university libraries throughout Canada and the United States. Brender à Brandis currently resides in Stratford, Ontario.

Gary Lautens was born in Fort William, Ont., the son of Joe and Bertha Lautens. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Hamilton, Ont. where his father had accepted a position at the Hamilton Spectator. Gary Lautens graduated from Hamilton Central Collegiate Institute and then went on to McMaster University, obtaining a bachelor's degree in history in 1950, while writing for the campus newspaper, the Silhouette. After graduation Lautens joined the Hamilton Spectator and within a few years began to write a sports column, "The Gab Bag". In 1962 he joined the Toronto Star, quickly becoming a columnist. He won a National Newspaper Award in the Sports Writing category in 1965.Then, branching out from sports, he began to write a humorous, general-interest column, often relating the problems and delights of his family. He had married Jackie Lane in 1957 and the couple had three children. He published several collections of his columns in book form during his lifetime, twice winning the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. In 1982 he was appointed Executive Managing Editor of the Toronto Star, a position he held until 1984 when he became editor emeritus. He was an active supporter of McMaster University. He died in 1992. Two collections of his columns have been published posthumously. Jackie Lautens has written about her husband's life in the introduction to Peace, Mrs. Packard and the Meaning of Life (1993).

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.