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Members of Local 8095 are employees of Westank-Willock.

In October 1927, five companies (McClary Manufacturing Company, London, Ontario; Sheet Metal Products Company of Canada Limited, Toronto; Thomas Davidson Manufacturing Company Limited, Montreal; E. T. Wright Limited, Hamilton, Ontario; and A. Aubry et fils Limitée, Montreal) merged to form General Steel Wares (GSW) Limited with John C. Newman becoming the company’s first President. The newly formed company, producing housewares and appliances, became a significant Canadian manufacturer. Expansion soon followed, notably, in 1920 with the acquisition of the Happy Thought Foundry Company of Brantford, Ontario, and in 1958 with the purchase of the Easy Washing Machine Company Limited.

Beatty Brothers Limited, a metal farm implement company established in 1873 at Fergus, Ontario, gained a controlling interest in GSW in 1962 through a reverse takeover, thereby merging these two companies under the GSW name. The company changed significantly at this time under the direction of Ralph M. Barford and Robert A. Stevens. Among other acquisitions by GSW between 1965 and 1975 was the Moffatt Company in Canada, a large appliance manufacturer, in 1971. Negotiations between GSW and Canadian General Electric Company Limited resulted in 1976 in the formation of the joint venture Canadian Appliance Manufacturing Company (CAMCO). More recent acquisitions have included the American Water Heater Company in 2002.

Iris Murdoch, novelist and philosopher, was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 15 July 1919, and educated at Somerville College, Oxford, and Newnham College, Cambridge. She was a fellow and university lecturer in philosophy at St. Anne's College, Oxford, from 1948 to 1963 when she became an honorary fellow. Her novel, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) won the Whitehead Literary Award for fiction in 1974 while The Black Prince won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the same year. In 1978, The Sea won the Booker Prize. She has also published several books of philosophy, beginning with Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (1953). Iris Murdoch died on 8 February 1999 in Oxford.

The Ontario Woodsworth Memorial Foundation, a private educational institute, was founded by Co-operative Commonwealth Federation members and supporters in Toronto, Ontario in 1944. It merged with the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation in 1987.

Richard Slobodin (1915-2005) was an American anthropologist and a founder of the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University. Born and educated in New York City, he worked extensively from the 1930s onwards as an ethnologist. The chief focus of his ethnological studies were the Dené peoples of the Yukon and Alaska, particularly the Gwich'in (Kutchin). His scholarly interests were broad, however, and he published extensively on a variety of subjects. These publications included significant biographical treatments of pioneering anthropologists <a href="http://holdings.mcmaster.ca/index.php/rivers-w-h-r-2">W.H.R. Rivers</a> and Northcote W. Thomas.

After a brief stint in the United States armed forces during and after the Second World War, he returned to academic life only to fall afoul of Sen. Robert McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUUAC) in the early 1950s. This blacklisting saw him disbarred from academic employment for a period of seven years, during which time he worked a variety of jobs to support himself before eventually completing his Ph.D. in 1959. He spent the next four years working various academic appointments in the United States while seeking entry to Canada, which repeatedly denied him a visa owing to his supposed Marxist connections.

He finally was admitted to Canada in 1964, accepting an academic appointment at McMaster University, and he became a Canadian citizen in 1970. During the 1960s and 1970s Slobodin continued extensive fieldwork in the Arctic while also playing an instrumental role in developing the faculty of anthropology at McMaster, of which he was a co-founder. In 1981, he was forced to accept compulsory retirement owing to his age, but remained active in the United Church and the New Democratic Party while maintaining voluminous correspondence with friends and fellow scholars around the world. He died in 2005 at the age of 89.

William Burton Hurd was born in Brockville, Ontario in 1894. He was a Rhodes scholar, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and president of the Canadian Political Economy Association. In 1921 he became Professor of Political Economy at Brandon College and was appointed Dean of Arts in 1928. He came to McMaster University as Professor of Political Economy in 1935, became Associate Dean of Arts in 1939, and chaired the Department of Political Economy from 1947 to 1949. A regular contributor to economic, political, and banking periodicals, he was an expert on population problems and the author of several books, including Origin, Birthplace, Nationality and Language of the Canadian People and Racial Origins and Nativity of the Canadian People.

John Coulter, playwright, was born on 12 February 1888 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was educated at the School of Art in Belfast and at the University of Manchester. He taught English and art from 1913-1919 before moving to London to become a drama critic and playwright for sixteen years. In London, he met his Canadian wife, the poet, Olive Clare Primrose, and moved with her to Canada in 1936. In later years they divided their time between Ireland and Canada. His most famous work is his trilogy of plays about Louis Riel, published 1950-1960. He died on 1 December 1980. There is a much more comprehensive biography available in Library Research News 6, no. 2 (Autumn 1982).

Edward Manning Saunders, clergyman and historian, was born in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia on 20 December 1829. He was educated at the Newton Institute, Mass. He was appointed pastor at the first Baptist church in Halifax in 1867. His published works include Three Premiers of Nova Scotia (1909) and The Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Tupper (1916). He died in Toronto on 15 March in the same year as the Tupper book was published.

Sir Charles Haukes Todd Crosthwaite (1835-1915), a career civil servant, was born at Donnybrook in Ireland on 5 December 1835. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford. He joined the Indian service in 1857. He served as chief commissioner of Burma from March 1887 until 1890. While in Burma, he cleared the province of rebels and set down the roots of British administration. In 1893 he became lieutenant-governor of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh. He wrote several books in retirement, including The Pacification of Burma (1912). He died on 28 May 1915 at Long Acre, Shamley Green, Surrey.

The Iron Molders' Union of North America (prior to 1881 known as the National Union of Iron Molders) established five locals in Canada before 1859: Montreal, local 21; Hamilton, local 26; Toronto, local 28; Brantford, local 29 and London, local 37. By 1870 there were thirteen other locals, stretching from Halifax, Nova Scotia to St. Catharines, Ont. The activities of the Canadian locals in the later part of the nineteenth century are well documented in the Iron Molders Journal.

The Hamilton Chamber Music Society was founded in 1952 under the joint auspices of the Fine Arts Department of McMaster University and the Hamilton Conservatory of Music in Hamilton, Ont. Its first president was Reginald Godden, pianist, composer and teacher, who had been principal of the Hamilton Conservatory since 1948. The Society organizes concerts at which chamber music is performed by musicians of international stature as well as local musicians.

Marjorie Freeman Campbell was a local Hamilton historian. Her books include A Mountain and a City: the Story of Hamilton (1966) and Hamilton General Hospital School of Nursing (1956).

David A. Robinson was a community leader in Hamilton, Ontario. His interests included: the law, the arts, literature, the welfare of his fellow citizens, and the history of the Jewish faith. He served as Chairman of the Board of Management of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Honorary Solicitor of the Big Brothers Association, President of the Canadian Club of Hamilton, Chairman of the Board of Education, and President of the Hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Art and Science.

Angela Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and educated at Brandeis University and in Paris. On her return to the United States, she became active in the civil rights campaign. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, she moved to Los Angeles and completed her Masters degree under Herbert Marcuse. In 1971 she was arrested and charged with kidnapping, murder and conspiracy. She was later acquitted on all charges. She published an autobiography in 1974.

David Freeman was born in Toronto in 1945 with cerebral palsy. Early on, Freeman began writing poetry and novels, aided by a modified IBM typewriter. Initial success came with two published articles, “The World of Can’t” in Maclean’s, and “How I Conquered Canada”, for the Toronto Star Weekly Magazine. He attended McMaster University from 1966-1971, graduating with a degree in Political Science. Freeman moved to Montreal in 1975, where he lived with his partner, Francine Marleau. The two travelled frequently, until her death in 2010. Following her death, Freeman’s health began to suffer from recurring bouts of pneumonia. He passed away in November 2012.;During his time at McMaster, David Freeman began writing plays. His debut, Creeps, was the first production at the new Tarragon Theatre, in 1971. It won the inaugural Chalmer’s Award for Best Canadian Play. Freeman continued to write and a number of his plays have been performed extensively in Canada and regularly in the US and Europe. Notable actors such as John Candy, David Ferry, William H. Macy, and Monique Mercure, have portrayed his characters on stage.

Established in 1967, the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) was founded to facilitate collaboration and co-operation among its member institutions to create services for the direct benefits to students, faculty, and research.

Dora Russell, educator, author and social reformer, was born in 1894 at Thornton Heath to Sir Frederick Black and his wife, Sarah, and educated at Girton College, Cambridge. She married Bertrand Russell on 27 September 1921. The couple had two children. Together they founded and ran Beacon Hill school, where their children began their educations. After her separation in 1932 followed by divorce in 1935, Dora Russell continued to operate the school.

She was active in many causes. In 1924 she founded the Workers' Birth Control Group and ran as the Labour candidate for Chelsea in the general election. She was a founding member of the National Council for Civil Liberties. She was one of organizers of the Women's Caravan of Peace in 1958. Dora Russell was also the author of several books, beginning with The Prospects for Industrial Civilization (1923), written jointly with Bertrand Russell. She published a three volume autobiography, The Tamarisk Tree (1977-1985). She died in Cornwall on 31 May 1986.

James Bannerman is a pseudonym of John Charles Kirkpatrick McNaught, author, critic, and broadcaster. He was born on 23 March 1902 in Toronto, Ontario, and educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto. He also used the following pseudonyms: George Austen, Mark Carter, Peter Davidson, Robert Elliott, Pierre Lousanne, and Lajos Dohanyi Lajos.

Bannerman is probably best known for his introduction to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday radio broadcasts from the 1950s to 1970. He wrote many broadcast scripts and also contributed articles to Canadian Home Journal, Maclean's, Mademoiselle, Mayfair and other magazines.

William Canniff was a physician, medical educator, author, school administrator, and civil servant, born 20 June 1830 in Thurlow townships, Upper Canada.

See Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol 13, pp. 156-9 for a detailed biographical sketch.