Jane Shen was active as a poet during the period from approximately 1969 to 1971 when she was a student at the University of Toronto. Her poems were published in Alphabet, Catalyst and Descant, among others, and were also read on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Anthology series.
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.
Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and pianist, was born in Raiding near Sopron on 22 October 1811. He made his debut at the age of nine and subsequently studied in Vienna with Czerny and Salieri. Later on in Paris he came to know all the principal artistic figures of the period and was influenced by Hector Berlioz, Frederic Chopin and Nicolo Paganini. He lived with Mme. D'Agoult (better known by her pen name, Daniel Stern) between 1833 and 1844 and they had three children. Their daughter Cosima became the wife of Hans von Bülow and later married Wagner.
Liszt's reputation as a performer rests mainly on the great tours of Europe and Asia Minor which he undertook between 1838 and 1847. In 1848 he was persuaded by Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, whom he had met in Kiev a few months earlier, to give up his career as a travelling virtuoso and to concentrate upon composition. He accepted an appointment to settle at Weimar where he lived with the princess for the next twelve years, a period during which he wrote or revised many of the major works for which he is known.
In the face of increasing opposition at Weimar and hoping that the Pope would sanction a divorce for the Princess, Liszt moved to Rome in 1861, composing mainly religious music for the next eight years. Invited to return to Weimar to give master classes in piano in 1869 and given a similar invitation to return to Budapest two years later, he spent the remaining years of his life making regular journeys between Rome, Weimar and Budapest. He died on 31 July 1886 in Bayreuth, Bavaria.
Garnet Watson Lynd was born in Port Credit on November 6th, 1882, the son of Benjamin and Ida Lynd. He attended the local public school and later, for eight years, worked in the local starch factory during which time he commuted to Toronto to attend night school. He obtained his matriculation and registered in Victoria College. He was ordained in 1913 in the Presbyterian church. Following his ordination he ministered in various Ontario communities until he retired in 1951. His ministry, however, continued after his retirement. For fifteen years he was the Secretary of the Toronto West Presbytery and its Chairman from 1958 to 1960. Prior to this he had been Chairman of the Toronto Presbytery and the Dufferin-Peel Presbytery. He was a Director of the Ontario Temperance Federation and a member of the South Peel Board of Education. He was also a Director of the South Peel Retarded Children's Association. At time of his death he was engaged in writing a history of the Port Credit community. He died on May 6th, 1961.
Edith Finch was born to Edward Bronson Finch, a physician, and his wife, Delia, on 5 November 1900 in New York city. She was educated at Bryn Mawr college and St. Hilda's College, Oxford. Returning to Bryn Mawr, she was employed from time to time as an instructor of English literature, but she never became a permanent member of the faculty. She published biographies of Wilfred Scawen Blunt in 1938 and Carey Thomas, a president of Bryn Mawr, in 1947. She was a close friend of Lucy Martin Donnelly, English professor at Bryn Mawr, and a friend of both Bertrand Russell and his first wife Alys. She married Bertrand Russell in December 1952 and supported him in his many social activist causes. She died on 1 January 1978.
Rupert Crawshay-Williams, author and humanist, was born in London in 1908 and educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He worked for Gramophone Records and High Fidelity Reproduction until 1939 and was a regular reviewer for the periodical Gramophone Records. He was a founding member of the Classification Society and an honorary associate of the Rationalist Press Association. In the 1940s he moved to Portmeirion, Wales where he met Bertrand Russell. He published a memoir, Russell Remembered, in 1970, as well as two books of philosophy. He died on 12 June 1977.
Lady Constance Malleson, actress and author , was born on 24 October 1895 in Castewellan castle, the country home of her parents, Hugh, the 5th Earl Annesley and his wife Priscilla. Constance Malleson was educated in Dresden and Paris as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. She acted in many West End productions in London, as well as in repertory theatre, using the stage name of Colette O'Niel. She also appeared in the two films Hindle Wakes and The Admirable Crichton. Colette toured South Africa with Dame Sybil Thorndike and Sir Lewis Casson in 1928; later on in 1932 she toured the Middle East with them. In 1915 she had married Miles Malleson. They divorced in 1923. She worked for various social causes, including mental hospital reform and the blood supply system. Opposed to World War 1, she met Bertrand Russell through her association with the No-Conscription Fellowship. She lectured in Sweden in 1936-37 and in Finland during 1941 and 1946. She wrote several books including the autobiographical After Ten Years (1931). Her sister Mabel M. Annesley was a well-known wood-engraver; Constance Malleson edited her unfinished autobiography, As the Sight Is Bent. She died on 5 October 1975 in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.;Priscilla, Countess Annesley was the wife of Hugh, the 5th Earl of Annesley. After the death of her husband, Priscilla began a long affair with Prince Henry of Prussia. Percy French married Priscilla's sister, Ettie Armitage-Moore, in 1890. French was an accomplished painter, poet, singer and composer.
Fraser Sutherland was born in Pictou county, Nova Scotia. He was educated at King's College, Halifax and Carleton University. He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree. He was a reporter and staff writer for several newspapers and magazines, among them the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Wall Street Journal before he became a freelance writer and editor in 1970. He was the founding editor of Northern Journey from 1971-1976, a columnist for Quill & Quire, and the managing editor of Books in Canada. During 1981-82 he was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1982-83 he taught at David Thompson University Centre, Nelson, B.C.
His published fiction, poetry and criticism includes books such as The Style of Innocence (Clarke, Irwin, 1972), Madwomen (Black Moss, 1978), John Glassco: An Essay and Bibliography (ECW Press, 1984), The Monthly Epic: A History of Canadian Magazines 1789-1989 (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1989), Jonestown: A Poem (McClelland & Stewart, 1996), Peace and War, with Goran Simic, privately published, 1999, and The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy (with Steve Rivkin, Oxford University Press, 2004).
Fraser Sutherland passed away 28 March 2021 in Toronto.
Robert Briffault was a novelist, social anthropologist, and surgeon. He was born in Nice, France in 1876, educated at the University of Dunedin and Christ Church University and began medical practice in 1901 in New Zealand. In May 1896 he married Anna Clarke; the couple had three children, Lister, Muriel, and Joan, born from 1897 to 1901. After service on the Western Front during World War I, he settled in England, his wife having died. In the late 1920s he married again, to Herma Hoyt (1898-1981), an American writer and translator, best known for her English translations of modern French literature. The Brifffaults became clients of the literary agent William Bradley and were befriended by his wife, Jenny. Briffault is the author of several books, including The Mothers (1927) and Europa (1935). He died in Hastings, Sussex, England on 11 December 1948.
Robert Mayer, businessman and philanthropist, was born on 5 June 1879 in Mannheim, Germany. He was educated at the Mannheim Gymnasium and Conservatoire. He moved to Britain in 1896 and was naturalized in 1902. In 1919 he married Dorothy Moulton, a soprano, who encouraged Mayer to lend his support to music. The Robert Mayer Concerts for Children began in March 1923. In 1932 Mayer was a co-founder of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In later years his philanthropic interests expanded to include the improvement of relations between countries. In 1979 he published his autobiography, My First Hundred Years (1979). He died on 9 January 1985 in London.
Robert Whyte was born in 1874 and was married during the time he served with the London Scottish. His rank rose from Captain to Lieutenant Colonel. At the end of the war he attempted with Capt. R.M. Robertson to prepare a history of the Regiment that would be different than the official one by James H. Lindsay.
William Ready was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1914. He began his career as an acquisitions librarian at Stanford University. He was chief librarian at Marquette University before coming to McMaster University. He was responsible for bringing the J. R. R. Tolkein fonds to Marquette; at McMaster his most famous acquisition was that of the Bertrand Russell fonds. He was also a writer, publishing short stories and book reviews. His autobiography, Files on Parade, was published posthumously in 1982. He died on 12 September 1981 in Victoria, British Columbia, not long after he had retired from McMaster University.
Leslie McFarlane, journalist, author, playwright, screen writer, and film director, was born Charles Leslie McFarlane in Carleton Place, Ontario on 25 September 1902. His parents were John Henry McFarlane and Rebecca Barnett. Leslie worked as a journalist for the Sudbury Star and other newspapers in Northern Ontario before briefly moving to the United States in the mid-1920s. There he came in contact with the Stratemeyer Syndicate.
Returning to Canada, McFarlane began to write for the Syndicate's Dave Fearless series in 1926, writing seven books under the name of Roy Rockwood. Later the same year, he wrote the first book of the Hardy Boys series, again for the Syndicate, under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. McFarlane wrote over twenty books for the series during the next twenty years. He also wrote the first three books of the Dana Girls series for the Syndicate, written under the name Carolyn Keene, in 1933. While writing these juvenile books, he wrote two novels and scores of short stories and novelettes for pulp and other magazines, including Maclean's, for whom McFarlane became an editor in the 1930s. He then wrote plays for CBC Radio's Canadian Theatre of the Air between 1938 and 1943.
In 1943, he joined the National Film Board of Canada as a documentary film writer and director. He also wrote speeches for the Minister of Munitions and Supply during the Second World War. In the 1950s, he wrote television plays for the CBC, becoming head of the television drama script department in 1958. He later returned to writing children's books, including the successful McGonigle Scores!, in 1966. His autobiography, Ghost of the Hardy Boys, was published in 1976. McFarlane and his first wife Amy Arnold had three children: Patricia, Brian, and Norah. Amy died in 1955, and he later married Bea Kenney. Leslie McFarlane died on 6 September 1977 in Whitby, Ontario.
Norman Frederick Simpson, playwright, was born in London on 29 January 1919. He was educated at the University of London and for many years made his living as a teacher. He established his reputation as a playwright in the Ionesco line with two productions in the late 1950s: A Resounding Tinkle, produced in 1957 and published in 1958 and One Way Pendulum, produced in 1959 and published in 1960. These plays present the absurd in a deadpan manner. Simpson has also written for radio and television and published one novel Harry Bleachbaker (1976). From 1976 to 1978 he was literary manager of the Royal Court Theatre. He died on August 27, 2011.
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, composer, scholar and teacher, was born at Bournemouth on 27 February 1848. He was educated at Eton College and Exeter College, Oxford. He composed piano music and songs throughout his career while writing much less chamber and orchestral music as he grew older. He joined the staff of the Royal College of Music when it opened in 1883 and remained on staff until his death. For a brief period, 1900-1908, he also taught music at Oxford. He was knighted in 1898. He died in Rustington, Sussex, on 7 October 1918.
Guy Philip Debenham (MD and FRCS), surgeon and engraver, was born in Scarborough, England on 27 January 1923, the son of Leonard Debenham and Anna (née Archer-Shee). He was educated at Stonyhurst College, and at the age of 21 he graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Edinburgh. Between 1945 and 1948 he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Middle East and was awarded the Palestine Medal for his service. After emigrating to Canada in 1958, he practiced medicine at several locations (Bassano, Alberta, and in Parry Sound and Hagersville, Ont.). In 1965 he and his family moved to St. Catharines where he worked as a surgeon at the Hotel Dieu Hospital and St. Catharines General Hospital. In the early 1970s he moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake. In 1990 he was the recipient of the Glen Sawyer Award from the Ontario Medical Association. He retired from the medical profession in 1991. Married twice, first to Marjorie (died in the early 1980s) and then to Diane Wheatley, he died on 1 December 2002.
Debenham was also a dedicated wood engraver. He took up engraving in the 1950s. Many of his works were exhibited at the annual Wayzgoose in Grimsby, Ont. and elsewhere in Canada, the UK, and Japan. He printed all his work on his 1862 Albion press which was donated posthumously to the MacKenzie Heritage Printery in Queenston, Ont. Debenham’s imprint was the Larchwood Press, which issued booklets, cards, and calendars. Gillian Debenham’s Piccolo’s Progress (1970), a children’s story written by Guy Debenham’s sister, is the first imprint of this fine press, published in an edition of 100 numbered copies.
Eric Harry Hutcheson and Robert Bazett Hutcheson, two brothers who served in the armed forces in World War II, were the sons of Harry McCamus (a lumberman) and Laura Phyllis Hutcheson (née Bazett, daughter of a pioneer surveyor) of Huntsville, Ont. Trained at No.2 Air Navigation School, Pennfield Ridge, New Brunswick, Eric Harry Hutcheson was a Flying Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He died on 11 February 1944 at the age of 23.
Born on 7 July 1918, Robert Bazett Hutcheson graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from Trinity College, University of Toronto. From 1940 to 1945, he was an officer (achieving the rank of Lieutenant Commander) with the Royal Canadian Navy on the HMCS Sherbrooke, HMCS Annapolis, HMCS Roxborourgh, and HMCS Kincardine. After the war, he returned to Huntsville and joined the family business, Muskoka Wood Products Ltd. He was the director of four different boards of the forest industry and served on other boards of a philanthropic and sport-related nature in the Huntsville community. He and his wife, Lecily, had three children. He died on 8 April 2004.
John Shelley, manager, administrator and director of Kings Norton Ammunition Works, Woolwich Arsenal, Abbey Wood during the Great War, was also associated with the British government. Although the fonds contains some pre-World War I material, the majority of the documents consist of photographs and correspondence relating to Shelley's munitions factories and reflect his activities in the war effort. Of particular interest are the many poignant letters written with considerable effort by female employees to Shelley. Several of the photographs show the Ladies' Fire Brigade at practice.
Norman Allatt was born on 7 December 1894 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England. He was the third child of Fred and Anne (née Hirst) Allatt. In 1906, the family immigrated to Toronto. In the 1911 census, Norman Allatt is listed as a shoe (machine) operator in a factory.
In January 1915 Allatt voluntarily joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was posted to the Canadian Exhibition grounds in Toronto to begin his training. His diary of 1915 documents his sailing overseas in August 1915, aboard the R.M.S. Hesperian en route to Plymouth from Montreal. In October 1915, Allatt departed for France and was assigned to the 14th battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment. During the war he was a sniper. When the war ended, the Royal Military Regiment was stationed in north-west France in the vicinity of Valenciennes, near the Belgian border. The regiment sailed from Liverpool in April 1919 for Halifax.
Allatt returned home to live with his parents and took up his pre-war job as a shoe machine operator. He married Gertrude Benford in 1920. In 1922 he was employed by the Robert Simpson Company in Toronto. In 1923 the family moved to Detroit where Allatt worked at several jobs, until the Second World War, when he sold his retail business and became a stock keeper of an insurance company. He died in 1976.
For further biographical history see the document prepared by his nephews, Doug, Bob and David Allatt, Sepember 2009 and copy of Allatt’s attestation papers.
James Edward Anderson was born in Perth, Ontario 23 February 1926. In 1953, he received his MD from the University of Toronto and was appointed a lecturer in Anatomy there in 1956. Anderson’s interest in archaeology and participation on dig sites lead to his involvement with the Department of Anthropology, where he became a full professor in 1961. He trained human osteologists and physical anthropologists at the University of Toronto and the State University of New York (SUNY) between 1963-66. In 1967, he became Chair and professor of the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University in the new School of Medicine, the Department would later become part of the Faculty of Social Sciences. As a result of health complications, he took early retirement in 1985, and passed away February 4th, 1995.
Anderson is known for his portable anatomy handbook for archaeologists, The Human Skeleton. As well as helping to illustrate the wealth of information available to archaeologists from careful examination of skeletal remains.
