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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.

The Book Society of Canada Ltd. was incorporated on 29 May 1945. Its founding president was John C.W. Irwin (1900-71) who worked from 1927 to 1929 as Assistant Manager of the Educational Department of the Macmillan Company of Canada Limited. In 1930 he and his brother-in-law, W.H. Clarke, began Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited. Together they developed and managed the publishing company of Clarke Irwin along with the Canadian branch of the Oxford University Press (from 1936 onwards). Irwin left Clarke Irwin in 1944 to form The Book Society. The latter was a school textbook publishing company. In the 1960s The Book Society published approximately a dozen books per year, many of which were approved by various departments of education across Canada. The founder's son, John W. Irwin, left teaching in 1960, joined the firm, and worked in various capacities of the company. He became President of the firm in 1971. In 1973 The Book Society acquired an educational publishing firm, Bellhaven House Limited (see boxes 56, file 14, and 59, file 1 for authors' contracts and questionnaires), and in 1982, a trade firm, Peter Martin Associates Limited. When Clarke Irwin went into receivership, The Book Society acquired its assets in June 1983. Clarke Irwin was maintained by The Book Society for a short period as a separate entity and reconstituted under the name, Clarke Irwin (1983) Inc. In 1984 The Book Society was renamed as Irwin Publishing Inc. At that time two-thirds of the company's business was in the area of educational publishing and the remainder in trade. The total business sales were {dollar}3 million, 5% of which came from foreign rights revenue.

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.

Boievoi Karandash (The Militant Pencil) is an organization in Moscow that sells Soviet art in poster form. The posters were intended to satirize Soviet bureaucracy. The publisher of the posters is Khudozhnik RSFSR, and the series is Na Obcshii sud.

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.

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.

Sid Blum was involved in various social welfare and human rights organizations in Canada, including the National Committee on Human Rights.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Laura Beecroft, a missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, began a period of work with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Girls' Training School in Jerusalem, Palestine during the year of 1912. Laura was a missionary and teacher of several subjects including history, Bible studies, and English grammar, composition, spelling and reading. Laura remained in this position until 1915, when in January of that year she relocated to Cairo, Egypt and studied Arabic. Later that year, Laura joined her mother and sister in New York until 1920 when she returned to the American Missionary School in Jerusalem for an unknown period of time.

Samuel Beckett was an Irish author and playwright, born at Foxrock, near Dublin on 13 April 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he read English, French, and Italian. He lived mainly in France from 1932 onwards. His most famous play, En attendant Godot was published in 1952. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1969. He died in Paris on 22 December 1989