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212 recordsStructured records (JSON) ↗
Statue of Dr. Frank W. Schofield at the Toronto Zoo, 2025.
CA-K671History

Dr. Frank Schofield, veterinarian and friend of Korea

Dr. Frank W. Schofield, a veterinarian at the Ontario Veterinary College, was internationally known for discoveries in animal disease; his research on sweet clover poisoning in cattle led to an anticoagulant widely used in human medicine. He also taught and did missionary work in Korea, where he is honoured for his contribution to the country’s democratic development.

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Photo: Silver Dovelet · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
George Robert Parkin, 1910.
CA-K655Institutions

Sir George Parkin, imperial federationist and Rhodes secretary

George Parkin of Salisbury, New Brunswick, a school headmaster, became principal of Upper Canada College in 1895 and was organizing secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust from 1902 to 1920. A powerful advocate of a federal union of the British Empire, he lectured and wrote widely, including Imperial Federation (1892).

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Photo: Unknown photographer; published by the Empire Club of Canada (1910) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. A. D. McCurdy, 1911 (Library of Congress).
CA-K626History

J. A. D. McCurdy, pilot of the Silver Dart

John A. D. McCurdy of Baddeck, an early associate of Alexander Graham Bell, piloted the Silver Dart on 23 February 1909 in Canada’s first successful powered flight. A pioneer of the aircraft industry, he later oversaw aircraft production in the Second World War and served as lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia.

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Photo: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Mercer Dawson, June 1891 (William Notman and Son, McCord Stewart Museum).
CA-K625History

George Mercer Dawson, geologist of the Northwest

George Mercer Dawson of Pictou, Nova Scotia, was geologist for the North American Boundary Commission in 1873 and for the Geological Survey of Canada, becoming its director in 1895. He explored much of the Canadian Northwest, served on the Bering Sea commission in 1892 and was president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1893.

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Photo: William Notman and Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Richard William Scott (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K620Institutions

Sir Richard Scott and the Separate School Act of 1863

Richard William Scott of Prescott, an Ottawa lawyer, sponsored the Separate School Act of 1863 in the legislature of the Province of Canada. Appointed to the Senate in 1874, he was Secretary of State under Mackenzie, responsible for the Canada Temperance Act of 1878, and again under Laurier, and led the Liberals in the Senate.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Alice Ravenhill in 1917.
CA-K610Institutions

Alice Ravenhill, educator and reformer

Alice Ravenhill, an educator and social reformer prominent in public health and home economics in Britain, came to Canada in 1910 and worked with the University of British Columbia, Victoria College, the Women’s Institutes and the province on educational reform. Later she wrote a pioneering school text on Indigenous societies and founded a society to promote British Columbia Indigenous arts and crafts.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Gustave Francq, portrait published in 1924.
CA-K601Economy & trade

Gustave Francq, labour leader

Gustave Francq, a typographer and journalist, was a key figure of international unionism in Quebec and Canada, campaigning for a minimum wage for women, better workers’ compensation and free compulsory education. In 1916 he founded Le Monde ouvrier/The Labor World, which became the official newspaper of the Quebec Federation of Labour.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. E. H. MacDonald (Archives of Ontario).
CA-K579Culture & sport

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter of the Group of Seven

J. E. H. MacDonald, painter, designer and poet, was a founding member of the Group of Seven and a key figure in creating a national style of landscape painting. A talented graphic designer of Canadian motifs, he painted southern Ontario farmland, Algoma’s autumn colours, Nova Scotia shores and the Rockies, and inspired students at the Ontario College of Art.

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Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles William Jefferys, 1930 (M. O. Hammond, Archives of Ontario).
CA-K578Culture & sport

C. W. Jefferys, illustrator of Canadian history

Charles William Jefferys, who came to Canada from England in 1879, was a writer, artist and illustrator of historical novels and textbooks and taught drawing and painting at the University of Toronto from 1912 to 1939. He is best known for his carefully researched historical drawings, such as those in his three-volume Picture Gallery of Canadian History.

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Photo: Melvin Ormond Hammond · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
David Mills, January 1899 (Topley Studio).
CA-K577Institutions

David Mills, minister and constitutional scholar

David Mills of Oxford, Upper Canada, was a school superintendent before representing Bothwell in the House of Commons from 1867 to 1896. He was Minister of the Interior in 1876–1878 and Minister of Justice in 1897–1902, taught constitutional law at the University of Toronto, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1902.

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Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Dr. Oscar D. Skelton (Lafayette, Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K558Institutions

O. D. Skelton and the Department of External Affairs

Oscar Douglas Skelton, a Queen’s University professor of history and economics, left in 1924 to join the young Department of External Affairs and organized it on an enduring basis. He advised prime ministers Meighen, King and Bennett on foreign policy, advocating an independent Canadian position distinct from Britain’s.

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Photo: Lafayette / Library and Archives Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Norman Bethune’s graduation photo, around 1922 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K550History

Dr. Norman Bethune, surgeon and activist

Norman Bethune made significant contributions to thoracic surgery in Canada and was an early advocate of socialized medicine. Embracing communism, he led a Canadian team that pioneered front-line blood transfusions in the Spanish Civil War, then served as a battlefield surgeon with Mao Zedong’s Eighth Route Army; after his death in 1939 he became a national hero in China.

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Photo: Credit: Library and Archives Canada/PA-160708Copyright: Expired · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. B. Tyrrell (Canadian Press Syndicate).
CA-K545History

J. B. Tyrrell, geologist and explorer

Joseph Burr Tyrrell of the Geological Survey of Canada (1882–1899) surveyed much of Western Canada and conducted scientific fieldwork in the Hudson Bay region and the northern tundra. Later a mining consultant in the Klondike and Northern Ontario, he is recognized for his work on glacial geology and for recovering and publishing David Thompson’s journal.

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Photo: Canadian Press Syndicate · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Simon Newcomb, between 1905 and 1909 (Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress).
CA-K530History

Simon Newcomb, astronomer from Nova Scotia

Simon Newcomb, born at Wallace Bridge, Nova Scotia, moved to the United States in 1853 and became a leading authority on mathematical astronomy at the U.S. Naval Observatory. As director of the Nautical Almanac from 1877 to 1897, his revision of lunar and planetary tables simplified nautical almanacs worldwide.

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Photo: Harris & Ewing · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Strachan, 1855.
CA-K525Institutions

Bishop John Strachan, King’s College and Trinity College

John Strachan, born in Scotland, came to Kingston in 1799, taught at Cornwall and became rector of York in 1812 and first Anglican Bishop of Toronto in 1839. A central figure of the Family Compact, he promoted public schooling and in 1827 secured a charter for King’s College; when it became the secular University of Toronto in 1849, he founded the Anglican Trinity College in 1851.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Georgina Pope, head nurse of the first Canadian contingent, around 1898.
CA-K520History

Georgina Fane Pope and Canadian military nursing

Georgina Fane Pope of Charlottetown was chosen in 1899 to lead Canada’s military nurses in the South African War and became the first Canadian to receive the Royal Red Cross. Appointed to the permanent Army Medical Corps in 1906, she became Canada’s first military nursing matron in 1908, in charge of all Canadian military nurses.

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Photo: A.G. Pittaway · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir John William Dawson in 1885 (William Notman and Son, McCord Stewart Museum).
CA-K508Institutions

Sir William Dawson, principal of McGill

Sir John William Dawson of Pictou, Nova Scotia, studied in Edinburgh, worked with the geologist Lyell and became Nova Scotia’s first superintendent of education. As principal and professor of natural history at McGill University from 1855 to 1893 he profoundly influenced Canadian education and science, and he was first president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1882.

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Photo: William Notman and Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
E. J. Pratt in Toronto, 1944 (Gordon W. Powley).
CA-K506Culture & sport

E. J. Pratt, poet from Newfoundland

E. J. Pratt, born at Western Bay, Newfoundland, taught and briefly served as a Methodist minister before spending his career at Victoria College in Toronto. By the 1930s he was a prominent Canadian poet, writing on grand themes such as evolution and human struggle against nature, with images of sea and rock that echo his Newfoundland roots.

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Photo: Gordon W. Powley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Casey Baldwin at Ridley College, St. Catharines, 1900.
CA-K504History

Casey Baldwin, aviation and hydrofoil pioneer

Frederick Walker “Casey” Baldwin, a lifelong associate of Alexander Graham Bell, became in 1908 the first Canadian to fly a plane and designed the first aeroplane in North America to use ailerons. With Bell he built the hydrofoil HD-4, which set a world speed record on Bras d’Or Lake in 1919.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Robert Falconer, portrait published by the Empire Club of Canada.
CA-K503Institutions

Sir Robert Falconer, president of the University of Toronto

Sir Robert Falconer, born in Charlottetown, was an educator, writer and lecturer. After serving as principal of Pine Hill College in Halifax, he was president of the University of Toronto from 1907 to 1932 and wrote many books and articles on education and public questions.

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Photo: Empire Club of Canada · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The commemorative plaque to Louis-Guillaume Verrier in Québec City, 2021.
CA-K501Institutions

Louis-Guillaume Verrier and the first law courses in Canada

Louis-Guillaume Verrier, born in France, was attorney general of New France and a member of the Council of Quebec for 30 years from 1728. He founded the first school of law in Canada, and from 1735 many future lawyers took his courses; he also assembled a library of some 4,000 volumes.

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Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Marshall McLuhan in 1945 (Library and Archives Canada).
CA-K491Culture & sport

Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message”

Marshall McLuhan, a University of Toronto professor and pioneer of media studies, became famous in the 1960s for his theories about how print and electronic media shape human perception and behaviour. His ideas of the “global village” and “the medium is the message” made him one of the most celebrated scholars in the Western world.

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Photo: Josephine Smith · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George MacKinnon Wrong, around 1920.
CA-K477Institutions

George Wrong, first professor of modern history in Toronto

George MacKinnon Wrong became the University of Toronto’s first Professor of Modern History in 1895. He saw Canadian history through its British and French origins and the American presence, and as a teacher, writer and early leader of the Canadian Historical Association he helped give an intellectual base to a developing Canadian identity.

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Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Sir William Edmond Logan in Montréal, 1865 (William Notman).
CA-K470History

Sir William Logan, first director of the Geological Survey

Sir William Edmond Logan of Montréal, a mapmaker and geologist in the mining districts of Wales, became the first director of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842. He led much of the early scientific mapping of the province, built the mineral collection that became the basis of the National Museum, and earned international recognition for his geological work.

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Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context