Joan White, wife of William (Bill) G. White an instructor in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in the Second World War. She moved with him to Moncton, NB, and then to St. Thomas, ON (No. 4 Bombing and Gunnery School, RCAF Station Fingal).
John Lavery Tibbs graduated from the RCAF in 1927. During the Second World War he served with the No. 5 Mobile Field Photographic Section (MFPS) as the RCAF’s official photographer.
Boris Brott, conductor, violinist, and producer, was born in Montreal on 14 Mar 1944, the son of renowned conductor and composer Alexander Brott and cellist Lotte (Goetzel) Brott. He studied violin with his father and performed at the age of five with the orchestra of the Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra). He studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal and the McGill Conservatory. In 1959 he founded the Philharmonic Youth Orchestra of Montreal and led it in his conducting debut in that city. His first international success came in June 1962, when he won third prize at the Liverpool Competition.
Brott has held the following positions:
1963-1965 Assistant conductor to Walter Susskind with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra
1964-1968 First conductor of the Northern Sinfonia at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
1964-1967 Principal conductor for the touring company of the Royal Ballet Covent Garden.
1968-1969 Assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
1967-1972 Directed >Lakehead Symphony Orchestra
1971-1973 Directed Regina Symphony Orchestra
1969-1990 Artistic director and conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra; under his leadership the orchestra grew from an amateur ensemble to a professional one with a 42-week season and 16,000 subscribers.
1972 Appointed conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra
1975 Assumed directorship of the CBC Winnipeg Orchestra
1982 to 1985 Artistic director and conductor of Symphony Nova Scotia
1983-1991 Led the Ontario Place Pops Orchestra
1987-1989 National president of the Youth and Music Canada (Jeunesses musicales du Canada)
1988 Founded (with his wife, author and attorney Ardyth Webster Brott) the Boris Brott Summer Music Festival in Hamilton
1989 Appointed associate director of Alexander Brott’s McGill Chamber Orchestra
1989 Founded the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, a mentor-apprentice program.
1995 Appointed music director of the New West Symphony, California
2002 Assumed leadership of McGill Chamber Orchestra
2004 Appointed principal conductor of youth and education concerts for the National Arts Centre
In addition, Brott has been guest conductor of symphonies and opera companies throughout Canada, Europe, the U.S., Israel, central and South America, Japan and Korea. Brott has produced, conducted, or hosted a large number of television and radio programs for the CBC, and the BBC and ITV in the UK, and recorded with various orchestras for CBC, Mercury, Pro-Arte and Sony Classical. In 1986 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, and received an American Music Award. In 1988 he received an honorary doctorate from McMaster University. He was named Knight of Malta (1990), International Man of the Year (Cambridge, England, 1992), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain (1996). In 2000, he conducted the Vatican premiere of Leonard Bernstein's controversial Mass before Pope John Paul II.
William George Meredith, author, was the son of the architect George Meredith (1762-1831) and nephew of W.G. Meredith (1756/7-1831). He earned a bachelor's degree from Oxford in 1824 and his master's in 1829. Meredith was in Cairo, possibly preparing for his next book, when he died on 19 July 1831.
Meredith wrote Memorials of Charles John, King of Sweden and Norway (1829) and may also have been the author of A tour to the Rhine: With antiquarian and other notices (1825). He was intending to write The History of International intercourse. From the Earliest Accredited Periods to the Congress of Vienna before he died.
Anglican Church of Canada, Diocese of Niagara
The Diocese of Niagara was founded in 1875. The diocese covers approximately 3,320 square miles in the province of Ontario. The most northern towns are Harriston and Mount Forest, to the west, Nanticoke, to the south, Fort Erie, and to the west Oakville. The diocese presently consists of the following archdeaconries: Wellington, Trafalgar, Wentworth-Haldimand, Hamilton, Lincoln, and Brock. These archdeaconries are further subdivided into deaneries: Wellington, Wentworth, Halton West, Trafalgar, Haldimand, Barton, Hamilton Central, Lincoln East, Lincoln West, Welland, and Niagara Falls.
There have been three histories written. Firstly, A. H. Young, "The Diocese of Niagara Before 1875," Canadian Journal of Religious Thought (Jan.-Feb. 1926) which covers the period before the Diocese of Niagara was created from the existing Diocese of Toronto in 1875. Secondly, History of the Diocese of Niagara to 1950 published by the Diocese in 1950 to mark its 75th Anniversary. There is a copy in Mills Library, general stacks, BX5612.N5A5, and a photocopy at the reference desk in Research Collections Reading Room. Thirdly, there is Some Men and Some Controversies, (1974) edited by Richard Ruggle, which contains a collection of essays, some dealing with the early history of the Niagara Diocese. It has not been catalogued; available in Research Collections Reading Room. Finally Parish Register A contains a history of the diocese up to 1925 in two volumes.
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.
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.
Andreas Roessner, burgess and basketmaker lived in Kelheim, Bavaria, with Maria his wife.
Lavradio, Louis de Almeida Soares Portugal Alarcao Eco e Melo, marques de,
Luís de Almeida Portugal Soares de Alarcão d'Eça e Melo Silva Mascarenhas, 2nd Marquess of Lavradio was the 11th Viceroy of the Portuguese colony of Brazil, the second one that ruled the colony after the seat of government moved to Rio de Janeiro. He was the son of a Marquis of the same title, D. António de Almeida Soares e Portugal and his wife, D. Francisca das Chagas Mascarenhas. During the 1762 Spanish invasion of Portugal, he commanded the 1st Cascais Infantry Regiment.
David Macbeth Moir, physician and author, was born in Musselburgh, Scotland, on 5 January 1798. He also used the pen name of the delta symbol . He was educated in Edinburgh and became a frequent contributor of Constable's Edinburgh Magazine and Blackwood's Magazine. He married Catherine E. Bell on 8 June 1828. He published one novel, The Autobiography of Mansie Wauch (1828). He died in Dumfries on 6 July 1851.
The Robert Fuge, a brig, travelled from Liverpool to Quebec City in the summer of 1819. The master of the ship was A.G. Blewett. On board were J. Fenton and 32 other settlers. The ship arrived in Quebec on 26 August, after a voyage of 60 days.
Dorset, Thomas Sackville, Earl of
Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, barrister, member of parliament, and poet. Sackville was born in 1536 at Buckhurst, Surrey and perhaps educated at Hart Hall, Oxford and St. John's College, Cambridge. He became a barrister in the Inner Temple and a member of parliament, 1558-1563. In 1567 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Buckhurst, and in 1608 was created Earl of Dorset. He served as an ambassador and then lord treasurer from 1599 until his death at his desk in Whitehall, London, 19 April 1608. Sackville was also an accomplished poet.
John Wilkes, politician, man of fashion, and dilettante, was born in Clerkenwell on 17 October 1727 and educated by a Presbyterian minister, Leeson, at Alylesbury, Buckinghamshire before going on to the University of Leyden. Through marriage he gained an estate at Aylesbury and was before long separated from his wife. As a supporter of Pitt, he was returned in the general election of 1761, and together with Pitt's brother-in-law, he organized the Bucks. militia of which he was appointed colonel in June 1762. Foiled in his plan to either become an ambassador or the governor of Quebec, he began to write pamphlets, published anonymously, against the government. He was answered by Smollet in The Briton and helped to found The North Briton in order to have a vehicle for response. Its first issue was published on 5 June 1762. Wilkes had a very chequered career with repeated arrests, a conviction for libel, and a successful return to the House of Commons. The manuscript of 22 October 1764 was written in response to his conviction. He spent several years in exile in France. He died in London on 26 December 1796.
Church of Christ (Toronto, Ont.)
The Churches of Christ are autonomous Christian congregations associated with one another through common beliefs and practices. They have roots in the American Restoration Movement. According to the manuscript this congregation started in October 1889 at Broadway Hall, moved to Brunswick Avenue, October 1897, and then to Bathurst Street in November 1902. The Elders of the church in 1904 were William Forrester, Duncan Stirling, James Stewart, and John Smart.
Francesco Gnecco, composer, was born in Genoa, ca. 1769. He was primarily a composer of operas but also wrote chamber and sacred music. The most famous of his twenty-five operas is La prova d'un opera sera. It was originally in one act with a libretto by Artusi and titled La prima prova dell'opera gli orazi e curiazi (Venice, 1803). It was changed to a two act work with Gnecco's own libretto (Milan, 1805) and performed throughout Europe until 1860. Gnecco died in Milan in 1810 or 1811.
E. Pauline Johnson, poet and platform entertainer, was born on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Canada West (Ontario). Her poems first appeared in the New York magazine, Gems of Poetry, and thereafter in numerous British and North American journals. Her books include The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), Flint and Feather (1912), Legends of Vancouver (1911), The Shagganappi (1912), and The Moccasin Maker (1913). She died at Vancouver on 7 March 1913.
Mary Jane Palliser, was the youngest daughter of Sir Hugh Palliser, 2nd Baronet, and Mary, was born sometime after 1796. Her first marriage was in 1822 to William Lockhart of Gormiston. Her second marriage was to John Manly Arbuthnot, Lord Keane on 11 May 1848. She died in October of 1881.
