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Comiers was a mathematician and kabbalist.

Little is known about Richard Nisbet. His coat of arms (Argent three boars heads erased sable within a bordure sable) and his crest (a boar salient regardant) taken together with his motto "Vis Fortibus Arma", suggests that he may be of the Nisbets of Greenholm, a branch of the Nisbets of that ilk dwelling in Ayr. He refers to himself as a 'philomath' — a lover of learning or a student of mathematics.

A contemporary Richard Nisbet — an erstwhile planter of Nevis who subsequently relocated to Philadelphia — published at least two works defending the institution of slavery (especially as practised in the West Indies) before being consigned to a Philadelphia hospital for reasons of insanity. It is possible that this is the same Nisbet, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest it.

Sidney Grenfell served in the British Royal Navy from 1822-78. Born in 1806 to John Grenfell of Chelsea and entered the navy in 1822. He was the Captain of the HMS Amethyst from 8 July 1856 to 22 December 1860 (until paying off at Chatham). As part of his command of the Amethyst, he participated in the second Anglo-Chinese War or Opium War.

William Eric Windridge was born in Bexley, Kent in England on the 17th of July 1895 to Thomas Windridge. His occupation is listed as a clerk when he enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in September 1915 and he served with the 2nd Canadian Pioneer Battalion. He enlisted again in 1942 and served with the Veteran Guards of Canada until September 1945. Between the wars he married his wife, Edith, and they had one daughter, Dorothy, born in 1926. Edith passed away in March of 1943.

Catherine Wilson attended the University of Western Ontario. She was appointed as copywriter and publicist for McClelland & Stewart Ltd in 1969 and was promoted to Director of Marketing. In 1972 she was a consultant to the Department of the Secretary of State in Ottawa. She joined James Lorimer & Co. where she was General Manager from 1973 to 1976. She was the senior arts producer for the CBC radio program Sunday Morning in its first season from 1976-1977 and Assistant to the Publisher at Clarke Irwin from 1977-1978. From 1978 to 1980 she was a Communications Department consultant for the Government of Botswana, Africa. In 1980 she was appointed Vice-President and General Manager of James Lorimer & Co. Ltd. Wilson has also worked as Director of Publishing for the United Church of Canada from 1990-1996; as General Manager and Director of Human Resources from 1997-2002 and as Policy Consultant for Children’s Mental Health Ontario from 2004-2005.

FCB Crompton served with the Army Service Corps as a Lieutenant. He was demobilized on 13 April 1919. After the war, Crompton wrote Glimpses of Early Canadians: Lahontan (1925).

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.

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.

Herb Gibson, farmer, First World War soldier (787167), was born 11 November 1889 to William Russell Gibson (1848-1917) and Euphemia Nairn. After serving in the 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Militia, Herb worked on the family farm in Balderston, Ontario until March 1916, when, despite his father’s wishes he enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Trained at Valcartier, Quebec, he was initially appointed to the 110th Reserve Battalion for training and then transferred to the 4th Canadian Division to begin fighting in France. He was drafted into the 75th Battalion to replace their losses on the Somme and he arrived in France in December 1916. In March 1917, he was part of the offensive at Vimy Ridge, where he was shot in the right arm. After recovering in England, he returned to France in November 1917. In January of 1918 he learned that both his parents had died just before Christmas. Then in July, while lying at a listening post at Arras, Gibson was shot in the chest. He would see out the rest of the war while recovering in England and be sent back to Canada to be discharged in March 1919.

Due to the wounds Herb sustained, he was unable to work on the farm as he had prior to the war. He sold his farm and moved to Winnipeg to build houses with his brother. Herbert Gibson and May Bell Keays (1896/7-1999) were married in St. Vital, Manitoba on 10 February 1931, after she had finished caring for her younger siblings. They had two children and returned to Ontario in 1939, where Herb first worked at Batawa, Ontario, and then at the #6 Repair Depot RCAF Station, Trenton until 1955. He passed away on 17 October 1967.

John Stoughton Dennis was a surveyor, soldier, and public servant. Born in Kingston, Dennis had a long surveying career in Ontario and Manitoba, as well as serving as a militia officer, and public servant. He was appointed Canada’s first surveyor general in 1871. In addition, he was an active entrepreneur. The documents in this collection are related to a timber felling venture on the Magnetawan River near Parry Sound, Ontario.

Henry Giroux, an American sociologist, cultural critic, and political activist, is one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1943, Giroux excelled at athletics and attended Gorham State Teachers' College on a basketball scholarship. After graduating in 1967 he went on to pursue a Master's degree in history at Appalachian State College, an experience he would later describe as foundational owing to his exposure to radical politics as a teacher's assistant to a politically progressive professor. After completing his master's, he taught social studies at secondary school level for a number of years before completing his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon in 1977.

Since that time, Giroux has held positions at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State University; in 2005, he accepted a new post as the Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He has also held visiting professorships and teaching fellowships at a number of institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, Northeastern University, and Tokyo Metropolitan University.

A leading theorist of critical pedagogy, Giroux's work touches on cultural studies, youth studies, critical pedagogy, popular culture, media studies, social theory, and the politics of higher and public education. According to his faculty biography at McMaster University, "…he is particularly interested in what he calls the war on youth, the corporatization of higher education, the politics of neoliberalism, the assault on civic literacy and the collapse of public memory, public pedagogy, the educative nature of politics, and the rise of various youth movements across the globe."

A prolific writer and speaker, he is the author of over 60 books and more than 400 papers.

Charlotte Gray is a British-born Canadian author of non-fiction, specifically literary biographies and works about Canadian history. She has published 11 books and numerous articles.

Born in Sheffield, England in 1948, Gray went on to read history at Oxford, graduating in 1969. Following the completion of a post-graduate diploma at the London School of Economics, Gray embarked on a career in journalism, writing for The London Daily Standard and editing Psychology Today (UK edition).

In 1979, Gray immigrated to Canada, where she became a freelance magazine writer. From 1986-1993 she served as Ottawa editor for Saturday Night magazine, contributing articles for monthly issues of the magazine. In 1997 she shifted her focus to book-length works, releasing her first biography, Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King, to critical acclaim.

Gray’s non-fiction books have won or been shortlisted for most of the major non-fiction awards in Canada, including the Governor-General’s Award for Non-fiction (shortlisted, 1998), the Trillium Award (shortlisted), the Nereus Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Award (shortlisted), the Canadian Authors Medal for Non-fiction, the Canadian Authors Award for Canadian History, the Donald Creighton Award for Ontario History, the Ottawa Book Award, the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book, and many more. Gray’s first five volumes were best sellers, and several of her works have been adapted for television, including Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail (1999) and Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike (2010).

Gray appears frequently on radio and television as a commentator, and in 2004 participated in CBC’s The Greatest Canadian television series as an advocate for Sir John A. MacDonald. Since 2005, she has also held an appointment as Adjunct Research Professor in Carleton University’s Department of History.

Additional noteworthy accolades of Gray’s include honorary doctorates from Mount Saint Vincent University, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, York University, and Carleton University. In 2007, she became a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2009 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

List of Gray’s non-fiction books:

Mrs. King: The Life and Times of Isabel Mackenzie King (Penguin Viking, 1997)

Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Trail (Penguin Viking, Canada and Duckworths (UK) 1999)

Flint & Feather: The Life and Times of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) (HarperCollins Canada, 2002)

Canada: A Portrait in Letters (Doubleday Canada, 2003)

The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder (Random House Canada, 2004)

Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell (HarperCollins Canada and Arcade Publishing (US), 2006)

Nellie McClung (Penguin Canada, 2008)

Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike (HarperCollins Canada and Counterpoint (US), 2010)

The Massey Murder: A Maid, her Master, and the Trial that Shocked a Country (HarperCollins Canada, 2013)

The Promise of Canada: People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country (Simon & Schuster Canada, 2016)

Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise (HarperCollins Canada, 2016)

Norman Penner was born in Winnipeg, into a Mennonite family from Ukraine. He is the son of Jacob Penner, a revolutionary socialist and organizer of the Winnipeg General Strike, and Rose Shapack, a Russian Jewish immigrant. His parents met at an address by Emma Goldman. His father was a founder of the Social Democratic Party of Canada and the Communist Party of Canada and was elected to Winnipeg city council in 1933. As a child, Norman became a celebrated orator with the Young Pioneers. After high school, he worked as a full-time officer of the Communist Party of Canada from 1938 to 1941. He enlisted in the Canadian Army and served overseas during World War II. After returning to Canada, he became National Youth Director of the Communist Party. He unsuccessfully ran for office in the 1951 Ontario election and the 1953 federal election. He broke from the Communist Party in 1957 and later returned to school, earning a doctorate from the University of Toronto. He became a Political Science professor at York University’s Glendon College until his retirement in 1995.

Keith Patrick was born on Sept 22, 1918, in Saint John New Brunswick. He was the son of Hugh and Lily Patrick, and had six brothers: W.E. Robinson, Ronald, Edmond, Raymond, Kenneth Roland, and Murray. He received an elementary and high school education in Saint John, West Haven, Connecticut, and Lynn, Massachusetts. He was employed by American News Co. in Lynn at the outbreak of war, prompting him to return to New Brunswick to enlist. Keith served in the R.C.A.F. from 1940 to 1945 as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. He received training at Wireless School in Calgary and Bombing and Gunnery School in Macdonald, Manitoba. His overseas postings included Operational Training Units and Ferry Command in England; in Egypt with the RAF 108 Squadron; and in France with the 427 Lion Squadron.

He was on his second tour with the RCAF 427 Squadron when his Halifax bomber was shot down in Pas-de-Calais, France, on the night of June 12, 1944. Seriously injured, he and his pilot, Don Fulton, were sheltered by members of the French Resistance. They were liberated in September 1944. Keith retired from the RCAF in February 1945 at the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

After the war, he had a successful career as a Purchasing Manager with Ford Motor Co. in Saint John, Canadair in Montreal and Fleet Manufacturing and Horton-CBI in Fort Erie.

Keith married Phyllis Taylor on June 29, 1946. They had three children, Charmian, Janet, and Philip. Keith self-published his memoirs, To the Stars, with his daughter Janet Lee MacNeil in 2014. Keith passed away in 2021, in Kitchener, Ontario.

Samuel Nickle was born in Winnipeg in 1913/14 to Olga and Sam Nickle. The family moved to Calgary in 1917. In 1935 he started the Nickle Map Service Ltd. In 1935 in response to the Turner Valley oil boom. During the Second World War he served in the Calgary Highlanders and was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps in 1943.

Following the war he resumed his mapping business working in the oil and gas industry. He continued to support the Calgary Highlanders and was appointed to Honorary Colonel. He passed away on 26 January 1994.

Robert Jack Mutart was born on 7 May 1923 to Reginald and Carrie Mutart. Following the death of his father in 1929, his mother remarried a man named A. Lebert. Robert enlisted for service in the Second World War on 25 March 1942, and served in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. Attaining the rank of Leading Signalman, Robert would serve in the Atlantic Theatre on minesweeping and convoy missions. He was honourably discharged on 25 October 1945, but continued to serve as a reservist until 1957. On 12 May 1945 he married Anne Mattiuz, with whom he had three children: Donna, Bobby, and Jimmy. After the war, Robert would become a dentist in Hamilton. Robert died on 3 February 1962 in Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 38.

Sarah Elizabeth Russell was a granddaughter of Bertrand Russell, philosopher and peace activist. Her father, John Conrad Russell, was Bertrand Russell’s first son from his marriage to Dora Black. Her mother, Susan Lindsay, was the daughter of American poet Vachel Lindsay.

Sarah was the first daughter born to John and Susan (birthdate 16 January 1947), and the second child in their family (the first child, Anne Russell, was born to Susan Lindsay and adopted by John Russell prior to Sarah’s birth).

Sarah’s family initially lived in a small flat in Cambrian Road, Richmond, but by 1950, they had moved to the main floor of 41 Queen’s Road in Richmond with Bertrand Russell (Monk 316-317). In December 1952, Bertrand Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, and soon after she moved into the Queen’s Road home, Sarah’s parents moved out of it (Monk 355). Sarah’s parents separated in 1954 and divorced by 1955 (Monk 359-360).

Thereafter, Sarah and her sisters became the subjects of a protracted family custody dispute, the result of which was that Bertrand and Edith Russell won full custody of the children in 1961, with their father, John Russell, retaining visitation rights (Monk 400).

Sarah attended Kingsmuir School, a boarding school in Sussex, while the family resided at 41 Queen’s Road (Griffin 503). In 1956, Bertrand and Edith Russell moved the family to Plas Penrhyn, their home in Wales. Following this move, Sarah and her sisters attended Moreton Hall, a private girls’ boarding school in Shropshire (Monk 370; Griffin 503). Near Russell’s home in Wales lived the Cooper-Willis family: mother Susan Williams-Ellis, a renowned potter; father Euan Cooper-Willis, and daughters Siân and Anwyl, who were close friends of Sarah and her sisters.

Sarah left Moreton Hall, possibly as early as 1961, to complete her studies at Dartington Hall, a progressive co-educational boarding school in Devon. In 1966, she commenced a program in English Language and Literature at the University of Reading. She appears to have taken a break in 1970, when she was diagnosed with schizophrenia (Monk 500). Sarah returned to her program in 1977, and in 1979, she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in the second division of the second class.

In 1975, Sarah’s younger sister Lucy died by self-immolation (Monk 501-502). This event had a significant impact on Sarah and is addressed in her diaries (see Series 2).

Little is known of the later period of Sarah’s life, though Ray Monk, biographer of Bertrand Russell, writes that Sarah spent much of her life in psychiatric care (500).

A native of Hamilton, Percy McDonald graduated from McGill in 1913 in Civil Engineering but never practiced this profession. He became a war photographer with W.J. Johnson during the First World War. In 1923, McDonald earned a degree in dentistry from the University of Toronto and practiced dentistry until the outbreak of World War II, when he again took up military photography.

Sources: https://archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca/index.php/percy-ellicott-mcdonald-fonds