Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Judith Robinson fonds
General material designation
- Textual record
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
RC0918
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
-
1913-1961, predominantly 1928-1961 (Creation)
- Creator
- Robinson, Judith
Physical description area
Physical description
4.63 m of textual records
53 photographs (b&w : 25.5 x 32 cm and smaller)
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Judith Robinson was born in Toronto, Ont. on Victoria Street on April 6, 1899. She was the daughter of Jessie and John Robinson Robinson (nicknamed “Black Jack Robinson”), who was the editor of the Toronto Telegram until his death in 1929. She attended Toronto Model School until age 12, when she contracted a childhood illness which stopped her schooling. Self-taught in journalism and literature, she also developed an interest in architecture.
Known as ‘Brad’ to her friends, Robinson became a reporter at the Toronto Globe in 1929. Under Globe President George McCullagh, she wrote a Page One feature column daily beginning in 1936. She resigned in 1940 over a political disagreement with the Globe’s coverage of World War II. With her brother John and Oakley Dalgleish, she clandestinely printed advertisements under the name “Canada Calling,” criticizing Mackenzie King government’s slow response to the war effort. In May 1941, she and Dalgleish founded NEWS, a national weekly newspaper whose editorial office was her home at 63 Wellesley St. NEWS closed in 1946. During the war she was also was active in the Women’s Emergency Committee which petitioned the Canadian government to close the Christie Street Veteran’s Hospital in Toronto. Those efforts helped result in the opening of Sunnybrook Military Hospital in 1946. Beginning in 1953, she wrote a daily column for the Toronto Telegram until her death on December 17, 1961.
Robinson authored three non-fiction books: Tom Cullen of Baltimore (1949), As We Came By (1951), and This Is On the House (1957). She edited John Farthing’s political treatise, Freedom Wears a Crown, and helped publish the medical memoir Days of Living: The Journal of Martin Roher, for which she wrote the introduction.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Fonds consists of Judith Robinson’s correspondence; clippings of her newspaper writings; drafts, notes, and research files; working records of NEWS; personal material; petitions and other material related to the Christie Street Hospital campaign; manuscripts and writing related to her books, published and unpublished; and manuscripts and writing by her friends sent to her for editing.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
The material has been in the custody of the creator’s niece, Gillian (Robinson) Watt, since 1974. She donated the material to McMaster University in 2017.
Arrangement
Material is arranged within the following series:
- Correspondence. Boxes 1-9
- Articles, clippings. Boxes 10-15.
- Articles, research. Boxes 16-18
- “Calling Canada” / NEWS. Boxes 19-25.
- Invoices and personal material. Box 26.
- Christie St. Hospital. Box 27.
- Manuscripts and writing. Boxes 28-33.
- Work by other authors. Boxes 34-38.
Oversized material. Boxes 39-40.
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
No restrictions on access.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Associated materials
Accruals
No further accruals are expected.
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number area
Standard number
Access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Control area
Description record identifier
RC0918
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
C. Long, 2020.