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Samuel Johnson, the English author and lexicographer, was one of the leading scholars and critics of his day.

Thomas Alfred Hollick was an important collector of eighteenth century books, and particularly of the works of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). At the sale of his books in May 1980, McMaster University Library acquired seventeen items for its Swift collection.

Richard C. Hilborn was born on 10 May 1918 in Kitchener, Ontario to Percy Richard Hilborn and Gertrude Roos Wells. He was educated at Upper Canada College, in Toronto and the Royal Military College in Kingston. He graduated from the Royal Military College in 1939, immediately joined the Toronto Scottish Regiment and then went overseas to England for the Second World War. Hilborn met John Jacob Astor (later Baron) during the Second World War and a friendship ensued between him and the Astor family. Richard married Laurette Parsons (6 June 1945) after the end of the War. Richard returned to Preston (now Cambridge), Ontario to work in his father's furniture factory, The Preston Furniture Company and Canadian Office and School Furniture Co. Laurette arrived in Canada in January 1946 and they settled in Preston. (Taken from It's Been Fun by Richard C. Hilborn.)

E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster was a British novelist. He was born in London on 1 January 1879 and educated at Tonbridge School and King's College, Cambridge. His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published in 1905; one of his best novels, A Passage to India, which won both the Femina Vie-Heureuse and James Tait Black prizes, was published in 1924. Forster was awarded the Order of Merit on his ninetieth birthday.

William Harvey McNairn graduated from the University of Toronto in 1899 and obtained his M.A. in 1900 and his doctorate in 1916. He was a Professor of Geology at McMaster University from 1909 to 1941 and published many articles in scholarly journals devoted to geology and related subjects.

Major Douglas Urquhart McGregor of Waterdown, Ont. was in the Royal Air Force during World War I. He was awarded the Military Cross. He later became a medical doctor and both of his sons became doctors. He died in 1953.

Pte. Arthur McGinnis was born in 1895 and was recruited at Kingston to fight in the First World War in 1918.

Michio Mamiya was born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, on 29 June 1929. He was taught by both Hiroshi Tamura in piano and Tomojioro Ikenouchi in composition. A particular interest of his has been Japanese folk music. Thoroughly familiar with both European music as well as traditional Japanese music, he has tried to synthesize these forms of music in his compositions. In 1980, Mamiya wrote a letter in response to Anne Brydon, a fourth year undergraduate music student, detailing the personal and intellectual influences of his music.

Tim Buck, machinist, trade unionist, and communist, was born on 6 January 1891 in Beccles, England. He immigrated to Canada in 1910. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Canada in 1921 and became its general secretary in 1929, a position he held for 32 years. He spent two years in jail, 1932-1934, after the party was banned. He reorganized it as the Labor-Progressive Party in 1943. He stood for election in three federal election campaigns. He published many articles, pamphlets and books. See A Select Bibliography of Tim Buck. He died in Cuernavaca, Mexico on 11 March 1973.

Leon Trotsky, Communist theorist and government official, was born in 1879, in Yankova, Ukraine. He served under Lenin as commissar of foreign affairs and of war, 1914-1924. He lost the struggle for power with Stalin after Lenin's death and was exiled. He was assassinated in Mexico on 20 August 1940.

William Douw Lightall, lawyer, historian, novelist, poet, philosopher, anthologist, and editor was born on 27 December 1857 in Hamilton, Ontario. He was educated at McGill University. He practised law in Montreal from 1881-1944, became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1902, Mayor of Westmount, Quebec from 1900 to 1903, and president of the Canadian Authors Association in 1930.

His first novel, The Young Seigneur; or, Nation-making, using the pen name of Wilfrid Châteauclair, was published in 1888. The next year his poetry anthology, Songs of the Great Dominion: Voices from the Forests and Waters, the Settlements and Cities of Canada was published. His Canada: A Modern Nation was published in 1904. In 1933 The Person of Evolution: The Outer Consciousness, The Outer Knowledge, The Directive Power, Studies of Instinct as Contribution to a Philosophy of Evolution was published. Lightall died on 3 August 1954.

Ghizi Kirshen-Baras, an actress, was born in Romania in 1935. She graduated from the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Bucharest. In 1962 she moved to Israel. She married ca. 1965 Joseph Ijaky, a painter and set designer. She was mainly a stage actress using her birth name and then her married name. She appeared in one short film, “Strange Holiday”, produced by the Women’s International Zionist Organization in Israel in 1963, using the name “Gisella Kirschen”. She died on 31 December 1971.

James Williams, the son of Francis (née Porter) and Alexander Raymond Williams, was born on 26 December 1955 in Hamilton, Ontario. He completed a degree (AOCA) in new media art at OCAD in 1989 and BFA and MFA degrees in photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1990 and 1992, respectively. His photographs, which juxtapose workers in factories and other settings, have been exhibited in many galleries and other venues throughout the world. He currently lives in Salford (Great Britain), where he teaches photography at the University of Bolton.

Arthur Stringer was born in Chatham, Ont. He studied at the University of Toronto between 1892 and 1894 and briefly at Oxford University. In 1900 he married Jobyna Howard, an actress. His second marriage occurred in 1914 to his cousin, Margaret Arbuthnot Stringer. They had three sons, Robert, Barney, and John. Stringer began his career as a journalist and freelance writer.

Up to 1922, he lived primarily on a farm on the north shore of Lake Erie. Thereafter, he moved to and lived in the United States, although he frequently returned to Canada. He contributed extensively to magazines, wrote more than fifteen books of poetry and non-fiction and forty novels, and authored scripts for silent film, including "The Perils of Pauline". His popularity as an author was established in a series of adventure and crime novels, beginning with The Wire Tappers (1906). Most of his novels have an American setting, but he completed a trilogy on the early days of the Canadian West: Prairie Wife (1915), Prairie Mother (1920), and Prairie Child (1921). In 1946 the University of Western Ontario awarded him the honorary degree of LL.D. in recognition of his literary contribution to Canadian letters. He died on 14 September 1950 at Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

Pat Strathy was born on 13 February 1918 in Orpington, Kent, England, the third son of Gerard and Theodora Strathy. His father was serving with the Canadian military holding the rank of captain. The family remained in England until the summer of 1919 before leaving for Toronto where Pat’s father joined them in September, resuming his career as a financier.

Pat was educated at Crescent School in Toronto; Trinity College School, Port Hope, Ont; and Charterhouse School in England. He returned to Canada to attend Trinity College at the University of Toronto where he studied mathematics and physics, winning the Putnam Mathematical contest, and graduating with a B.A. (Hon.) in early 1940. He was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve that same year. He left for England in May 1940 where he was attached to the Royal Navy. He joined the H.M.S. Ajax in July 1940 and was killed in action on 12 October 1940 in the Mediterranean Sea. He operated the radiolocator on the ship. He and other brilliant young Canadians had been specially recruited to work on new means of detecting enemy aircraft and submarines.

Leslie Webster Shemilt was born on 25 December 1919 in Souris, Manitoba. Dr. Shemilt received his undergraduate training at the University of Toronto, completed his Masters at the University of Manitoba, and received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Toronto. Dr. Shemilt played an active role in initiating the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of British Columbia before moving on to found the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of New Brunswick in 1960.

In 1969 he joined the Faculty Of Engineering McMaster University as Dean. Serving as Dean from 1969 to 1979, he was also very involved with the Technical Advisory Committee of the AECL Nuclear Fuel Waste Management Program. Dr. Shemilt is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Engineering Institute of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He has participated widely in university affairs, particularly in the area of the role of the physical sciences in the curriculum and its impact on society. He was a member of several non-professional societies, such as the Sherlock Holmes Society and the Bootmakers of Toronto. He was also involved with the United Church in Canada. Dr. Shemilt passed away on 20 December 2011.

Frederick George Scott, clergyman and poet, was born in Montreal on 7 April 1861. He was educated at Bishop's College in Lennoxville, Quebec. He served as rector of St. Matthew's Church in Quebec City from 1889 to 1934. During World War I he served as senior chaplain of the First Canadian Division. He published many poems; his Collected Poems were published in 1934. He also wrote The Great War As I Saw It (1922). He died in Quebec City on 19 January 1944.

Henry Carl Nunn was born in Bolton, Ontario, on the 21st of July, 1883. Son of George Nunn and Emma Jane Cole, he had one sister, Nell. He grew up in Bolton until the family moved to Hamilton in his teens. After a number of early jobs, he started his own business selling mail order hardware and building materials. Quickly, he became a pioneer in North America of pre-fabricated homes. Nunn was the founder and President of the Halliday Homes Company, which was famous for the “Bunkie” style home. The company survived the Depression under Nunn’s ethical and hardworking guidance and then prospered in the years following.

He married Margaret Johnston in 1908, and they went on to have two children, Roger and Phyllis. Outside his work, Nunn was a committed naturalist with a particular interest in ornithology. He was Chairman of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and promoted the appreciation of birds and wildlife throughout his life. He was also active in his church and lived his faith in his daily life. Additional biographical and genealogical details can be found in Box 6, file 19.

Born in Cooksville, Ontario, Emily Murphy (née Ferguson) was educated at Bishop Strahan School in Toronto. A feminist and lawyer, she was appointed to the Women's Court in Edmonton in 1916, the first woman magistrate appointed to such a position in the British Empire. She also wrote several accounts of life and travel in Manitoba, Alberta, and Europe under the pseudonym of "Janey Canuck".

Johannis (Hans) Mol, professor and author, was born in Rozenburg, The Netherlands, on 14 February 1922. He was educated at the United Theological Faculty in Sydney, Australia, the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Columbia University in New New York. He lectured in sociology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand from 1961-1963 and was a fellow in sociology at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Australian National University from 1963 until he arrived at McMaster University in 1970. He is the author of several books on the sociology of religion. After his retirement he was named Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies.