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Vickers, Fredrick William
RC0159 · Person · 1915-2009

Fredrick W. Vickers was born in St. Catharines, Ontario to William John Vickers, a painter and decorator, and Jane Ethyl Vickers (nee Rooke). Fred attended Memorial Public School and St. Catharines’ Collegiate and Vocational School. He then attended McMaster University on a Gordon C. Edwards scholarship in Modern Languages and graduated in 1937 with a BA. After training at the Ontario College of Education in Toronto (1937-38), he returned to St. Catharines’ Collegiate and Vocational School, becoming a full-time teacher in 1940. Around this time he was introduced to Margaret Cotter Sargent by her brother-in-law, James Shaver.

In 1942 he volunteered for active service in the Canadian military, beginning training in early August. He was appointed a Second Lieutenant on 17 April 1943. On leave in July 1943 after his training, Fred and Margaret became engaged, but afraid of leaving her a widow, Fred postponed the wedding until after the war. Not long after, he was sent to England where he eventually joined the Fifteenth Canadian Field Regiment. He remained in Europe until the very end of 1945 or early 1946, when he returned with his regiment. On 26 January 1946, he and Margaret were married. They had their first child, John, in December of that year, and a daughter, Anne, in February of 1950. Fred worked as a teacher, Vice-Principal, District Inspector, Education Officer, and Head of Romance Languages over his career with the Ministry of Education, before retiring in 1975. Margaret died in August of 2008 at the age of 94, and Fred in December of 2009, just after his 94th birthday.

RC0935 · Person · 1922-2019

Jo Vellacott was a British-Canadian historian, professor, feminist, Quaker, and peace activist. She was born in Plymouth, England on 20 April 1922 to Harold F. Vellacott, a surgeon, and Josephine Sempill. She attended the University of Oxford and, after pausing her studies to work as an aircraft mechanic during the Second World War, graduated with a Master of Arts in 1947. She would then move to South Africa, where she met and married Peter Newberry in 1950. In South Africa she had two children, Mary and Douglas, before returning to the United Kingdom, where they had their daughter Susan. The family emigrated to Canada in 1955, where Peter would join the Air Force and Jo worked as a schoolteacher. She then attended the University of Toronto, where she received a Master of Arts in History in 1965, and McMaster University, where she received her PhD in 1975.

Vellacott and Peter would separate in 1976, and divorce in 1979. She took Fellowships in the United Kingdom for several years, before becoming the Scholar-in-Residence at Queen’s University in Kingston, where she then became Assistant to the Dean of Women. Following her departure from Queen’s, she worked for several years at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, retiring in 1987, and becoming an independent scholar.

Vellacott focused much of her career on women’s history, feminism, pacifism, and Quakerism. A Quaker since her 40s, she was active in the Thousand Islands Monthly Meeting near Kingston, and was a longtime peace activist. She wrote several books and dozens of articles on topics including pacifism, Bertrand Russell, women and politics, and more. She moved to Toronto, where she died in 2019.

Van Dieren, Bernard
RC0270 · Person · 1887-1936

Bernard van Dieren was born in Rotterdam on 27 Decmber 1887 and moved to England in 1909 where he became a music critic. He began composing at an early age, and his works include both vocal and orchestral pieces. He published two books, Epstein and Down Among the Dead Men. Van Dieren died in 1936.

Van Aernum, Hendrick
RC0794 · Person · [17--]-[18--]

There is no information available about van Aernum except the lease.

ARCHIVES205 · Corporate body

The first Society of Friends Preparative Meeting in Upper Canada was held at Yonge Street, 6 June 1804, authorized by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The first Yonge Street Monthly Meeting was held in September 1806. In 1812 Yonge Street Monthly Meeting allowed an indulged meeting to be held at the house of John Haight which was situated near Pickering. In 1819 a Preparative Meeting was established at Pickering in the newly built meeting house which was used until 1833-34 when a new meeting house was built. There was a split in 1828 between Orthodox members and a Hicksite faction with the Hicksites forced to establish a new meeting house about two miles away. This split was not unique to Pickering but reflective of a wider movement both in British North America and the United States which is often referred to as the Great Separation. Friends who were followers of Elias Hicks separated from the existing body of Friends.