Pte Ronald Broadbent served with the British 21st Army Group at the Number 8 General Hospital in Germany. He was certified as an Army Orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps on 24 November 1938. He married Bessie Denham in 1944.
Lynn R. Williams was hired as an organizer for the drive to unionize Eaton's Department Store in Toronto, Ont. He had studied at McMaster University and been active in union activities in Hamilton, Ont. After the Eaton's campaign, he worked to organize Smith's Department Store in Windsor, Ont. In 1956 he joined the staff of the United Steel Workers of America and eventually rose to be its president
Denis ApIvor, an English composer and musicologist, gathered together a variety of materials relating to Van Dieren and Darton.
Dianne Woodman began her work in the publishing industry in 1964 when she was hired as the Edmonton representative for McClelland & Stewart. From 1972-1974 she worked as their publicity director in Toronto, before becoming the Western rep for Stanton, MacDougall and Hunt. In 1976 she opened Village Bookshop and Volume Two in Edmonton.
Beginning in 1984, she began to record interviews with authors and others in the industry in an effort to preserve their memories and experiences.
William Rogers was a yeoman living in or near Albion, York township, Upper Canada. On 13 December 1837 he was arrested and charged with treason. In all 422 people were arrested in the Home District. He was tried in the Court of Oyer and Terminer on 18 April 1838 and acquitted (“Return of the Names and Quality of Station of the several person, arrested and placed in confinement in the Prisons of Toronto, etc.; printed by the House of Commons, 25 Feb. 1839).
Katina Paxinou was born on 17 December 1900 in Piraeus, Greece. At thirteen, Paxinou studied for three years at the Conservatory of Geneva, Switzerland, a period of study that inevitably launched her career as a film and theatre actress, song writer, and opera singer. In 1930, after a six month tour of the United States, Paxinou was married to Greece’s foremost actor, Alexis Minotis. Together, the husband and wife team founded the Royal Theatre of Athens. Paxinou is well known for her role as Electra, and in North America as the 1943 Academy Award winning best actress in a supporting role for her portrayal of Pilar in the film For Whom the Bell Tolls. Paxinou died on 22 February 1973 in Athens.
Fred R. Miller was born in 1878. He married Edna A. Noxon in Toronto in June 1903. The couple had one daughter, Helen, born in 1914. He joined the family business, Roger Miller & Sons, an engineering company. The company was involved in many projects in Toronto including the Eastern Gap.
James Joyce, novelist and short story writer, was born in Dublin on 2 February 1882 and educated at University College, Dublin. His collection of short stories, Dubliners, was published in 1912. He wrote two famous novels, Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939). He died in Zurich on 13 January 1941.
F/L Douglas Cameron was a game keeper in Perthshire, Scotland prior to 1939. After training for the Royal Air Force, he served as a gunner with No. 58 Squadron based at York and flew two tours in Whitley bombers. While with this squadron he was shot down by an FW190 fighter. Following this, he served with Coastal Command, until moving to No. 149 Squadron based at Lakenheath where he joined the crew of F/Sgt. R.H. Middleton of the Royal Australian Air Force. On the night of 27/28 November 1942 they flew to Turin, Italy to attack the Fiat Works. Their Stirling aircraft was hit by flak and severely damaged while returning from the target. Middleton, missing one eye, managed to fly the aircraft back to the English coast where four of the crew, including Cameron, baled out before the aircraft crashed into the sea killing Middleton and two other crewmembers. Middleton was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his efforts and Douglas Cameron the DFM.
Removed from flying operations Cameron served with No. 20 O.T.U. at Lossiemouth as Gunnery Leader. In May 1944 he went back to ops with S/L Ian Bazalgette as part of the Pathfinder Force and began operating with No. 635 Squadron. On 4 August 1944 their Lancaster was struck by flak. Cameron and the able crew were ordered to bale out over France while Bazalgette attempted to land the plane on a single engine to save the lives of two injured crewmembers who were unable to jump. Bazalgette was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his action. Cameron was able to evade Nazi soldiers and tracking dogs in the forest. He joined up with the French Resistance and became a saboteur until the area was liberated.
Following the war Cameron returned to Scotland to continue his career as a gamekeeper. He named his only daughter Margaret Middleton Bazalgette Cameron as his lasting tribute to the pilots he had flown with on Victoria Cross flights.
J. L. (James Louis) Garvin was born at Birkenhead on 12 April 1868. After a rudimentary education, he began work as a clerk in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1891 he became a proof reader on the Newcastle Chronicle with the option of contributing to the newspaper for free. His reporting on Charles Stewart Parnell's (1846-1891) funeral launched Garvin's career. In 1899 he joined the Daily Telegraph as a leader and special writer. In 1908 he became editor and manager of the Observer a post he held until February 1942 when he had a falling out with the owner, Waldorf Astor. Garvin finished his career at the Daily Telegraph after an interim stint at the Sunday Express. Garvin was the editor of the 13th and 14th editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and well as a three-volume Life of Joseph Chamberlain (1932-1934). He died on 23 January 1947 at his home, Gregories, Beaconsfield.
The son of a prominent Irish contractor, Joseph M. Pigott was born in Hamilton on 23 February 1885 and educated in Hamilton Separate Schools and Collegiate Institute. In 1903 he began working for his father's expanding construction company, one he would guide to unknown wealth and size. After having gained a thorough grounding in the construction industry Pigott travelled to Saskatchewan in 1909 with his younger brother Roy where they secured a large contract to build St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon. While in the West, Pigott met and married Yvonne Prince, daughter of Hon. B. Prince of Battlefield, Saskatchewan, and returned to Hamilton before living briefly in Detroit.
When Roy Pigott returned from the First World War, the two brothers began to direct Pigott Construction to fortune and fame. The first $1,000,000 year came in 1926, and in 1930, Hamilton's earliest skyscraper, the 16-storey Pigott Building, was completed. While Joseph and Roy led the company through the years of the depression, Pigott also dedicated himself to his growing family of 6 boys, 4 of whom were later associated with their father in his business.
After the Second World War Pigott Construction was Canada's largest privately-owned construction company amassing more than $113,000,000 in business in a single year. As head of his own company, Pigott erected some of Canada's largest industrial plants and finest buildings, including the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Crown Life Insurance Company head office, Toronto; Bank of Canada, Ottawa; a $45,000,000 plant for General Motors, Oshawa, and buildings totalling $50,000,000 for A. V. Roe Company in Malton. In Hamilton, buildings erected by the Pigott firm include the Canadian Westinghouse offices, Banks of Nova Scotia, Royal and Montreal, McMaster University, the County Court House, Westdale Secondary School, St. Joseph's Hospital, the Pigott Building, the new City Hall and the Cathedral of Christ the King. Upon completion of the Cathedral, Pope Pius XI, in recognition of his accomplishment on this and other buildings, created him a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great and later "Con Placa".
In 1946 in acknowledgment of his services to the Government of Canada during the war Pigott was created Commander of the British Empire. His service to Canada as president of the Wartime Housing Ltd. provided solutions to some most serious problems at that critical time. In consideration of his contributions to social welfare and to the political and intellectual life of Christian society, he was invested as a knight of magistral grace of the Sovereign and Military order of Malta in 1953, and in 1962, he was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D by McMaster University. He was a former president of the Canadian Construction Association, Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, a former vice-president and director of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, president of Pigott Realty Ltd., vice-president and director of North American Life Assurance Company, director of Canada Permanent Trust Company, Atlas Steels Ltd., and United Fuel Investments Ltd. Pigott was also a former president of the board of governors of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a director of the Ontario Heart Foundation, chairman of the advisory committee of St. Joseph's Hospital, a member of the Hamilton Club, the Hamilton Golf and Country Club and the National Club of Toronto. Pigott played an enormous role in the development of Hamilton. He died in Hamilton on 20 April 1969.
Brendan Kennelly, English professor and poet, was born in Ballylongford, county Kerry, Ireland on 17 April 1936. He was educated at Trinty College, Dublin and the University of Leeds.
Frank O'Connor is the pseudonoym of Michael O'Donovan, born in county Cork, Ireland in 1903, and primarily known as a short story writer. He died in Dublin on 10 March 1966.
W. B. Yeats, poet and playwright, was born in Dublin on 13 June 1865. His most popular play is the patriotic Cathleen ni Houlihan first performed in 1902. His poetry includes The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair (1929). Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He died in Roquebrune, France on 28 January 1939.
Robert Percy Wright was born in Montreal on 5 October 1882. He was educated at McGill University where he excelled in athletics, graduating in medicine in 1908. He interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal from 1908-10 followed by a placement at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital in New York, 1910-1912. After a lengthy tour through Europe, Wright was appointed as a specialist in his two fields of expertise, Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology, in October 1911 at Jeffery Hale Hospital, Quebec City. He became a Vice-President of the Medical Officers Association of Quebec in 1913.
In 1904 he had joined the Canadian militia as a private and received regular promotions through the ranks. When he left for France in 1915 he was a Major with the 1st Canadian Field Ambulance, Canadian Expeditionary Force. In France he rose to the rank of Colonel, and was appointed Assistant Director Medical Services (A.D.M.S.), Canadian Army Medical Corps (C.A.M.C.), 1st Canadian Division in July 1917. Upon his return to Canada he received an appointment at the Montreal General Hospital. From 1923 to 1929 he practised at the Methodist General Hospital, Terreon, Mexico before returning to Montreal. In 1925 he married Hectorine Lafleur. He published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. His date of death is not known.
Daniel Wilcox and his descendents resided in Hagersville and Caistorville, Ontario, and other nearby towns and villages, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.
Gordon White was a nature photographer. He was both a fellow of the Photographic Society of America and an associate of the Royal Photographic Society. This is designated by the abbreviations F.P.S.A. and A.R.P.S. which appear on his photographs. He lived in Port Colborne, Ontario. His photographs of birds and plants were exhibited in both the United States and Canada in various venues, including at the American Ornithologists’ Union.
J.N. Weekes served aboard H.M.S. Sapphire. H.M.S. Sapphire was a light cruiser of 3,000 tons built in 1905. At the outbreak of the war the ship formed part of the 7th Battle Squadron and was on escort duty in the English Channel as the British Expeditionary Force crossed to France. Later on the ship took part in operations at Gallipoli and eventually was stationed at various Italian Naval Bases.
