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Rick Neilson was a local historian and collector with interests in maritime history, Black and other ethnic communities, and Kingston businesses. Neilson was born and raised in Kingston, and employed with Alcan. He was a longtime and active member of Kingston's diving, marine, and historical communities, including Preserve Our Wrecks, Save Ontario Shipwrecks, Kingston Historical Society, the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston, and served on the editorial board of FreshWater. In 2008, Neilson and Walter Lewis published "The River Palace," a culmination of decades of work and passion about an important wreck discovered during Neilson's diving explorations. Neilson passed away 19 March 2022.

The Pittsburgh Women's Institute was organized on the 24th of April 1924 . The organizational meeting was held at the home of Mrs. James English of Middle Road and the Departmental organizer was Mrs. Sirrett. Miss Crozier was the first President with Mrs. Colin Rogers serving as Secretary-Treasurer. One early major project was the purchase of a Hall, on Middle Road (formerly a Methodist church) which was sold in 1931. The main tenets of the Institute were to provide community help and leadership through a “non-partisan, non-sectarian and non-racial organization” of regional rural women. The Institute held many events raising funds for various local and international projects.
In the 1940s the Pittsburgh Branch established a relationship with the Oulton Women’s Institute of Norwich, England sending many parcels of food and clothing during, and after, the 2nd World War. It was a relationship that continued into the 1990s.
In addition to sponsoring and giving financial support to a variety of local groups the Institute also fostered many crafting opportunities (such as quilting) for its members. The members of the Pittsburgh branch donated tapestries to both the City of Kingston and the Pittsburgh Township office.
The Pittsburgh Women’s Institute ceased existing as a branch in, or around, 2010.

Lloyd Shales was a hobby shop owner, diver, and filmographer based in Kingston, Ontario. Lloyd was born in Toronto in 1932, the only son of Helen Carson (Shales) and Carl Shales. The family moved to Kingston during the war years where Lloyd became well known as the owner of "the hobby shop", Lloyd Shales Hobby Supplies, for many years located on Division Street at the top of Queen Street. Lloyd was also an avid diver, and registered as the 110th intructor with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI). Part of his hobby shop would be devoted to scuba equipment and tank refills. Lloyd was also a skilled filmographer, and regularly supplied footage to CKWS TV. Lloyd passed away in Kingston in 2022.

Carl Shales was a pilot, military flight trainer, and mechanic in Kingston, Ontario. Born in Perth, Ontario, Carl joined the Royal Air Force in 1917. He would continue his service as a trainer for fighter pilots in London and Regina during the Second World War. He opened a car dealership in Kingston in the 1930s, and later worked at Queen's University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He married Helen Carson in 1920.

Keith Lachance was a Science student at Queen's University.

Asterisk Film & Videotape Productions Ltd. was a film production company based in Toronto. It was succeeded by Asterisk Productions Ltd, based out of Burnaby, BC.

Ramsay Cook (1931-2016) was the general editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and a history professor at York University for 25 years. He published widely on political and constitutional history, English-French relations, intellectual and artistic life and on Europeans' explorations and first contacts with native North Americans. His book, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada, was awarded the Governor General's Award. Cook was both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Gordon Smithson was a researcher and historian based in Kingston, Ontario. Smithson focused his historical interests on the Pittsburgh community, becoming a founding member and first President of the Pittsburgh Historical Society. He was involved in authoring many local histories and cable TV productions, including "The View from Anglin Bay." Smithson passed away on 11 September 2013.

Joan M. Schwartz is a Professor Emerita from Queen's University. A specialist in photography acquisition and research at the National Archives of Canada for more than two decades prior to her faculty appointment, Joan M. Schwartz brought expertise in archives, materiality, memory, and institutional discourse to her teaching and writing. She was cross-appointed to the Department of Geography at Queen’s and was an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, Ottawa. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Society of American Archivists, and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, she has just been made a Fellow of the Association of Canadian Archivists (2022).

Dr. Schwartz has published and lectured widely in the field of archives, historical geography, and the history of photography, and has served on the editorial boards of The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (2004) and the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth‐century Photography (2007). She co‐edited Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination (with James Ryan for I.B.Tauris, 2003) and Archives, Record, and Power, two double issues of Archival Science (with Terry Cook in 2002).

Her research focuses on photography in nineteenth-century visual culture and on the relationship of photography and archives to notions of place, identity, and memory. She has a particular interest in photographically illustrated books and the role of photography in nineteenth-century Canadian nation‐building. With the support of an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, she is engaged in a four-year project entitled, “Picturing ‘Canada’: Photographic Images and Geographical Imaginings in British North America, 1839-1889.”

James Douglas, Queen's third Chancellor (1915-1918), led quite a varied life as a Presbyterian minister, a metallurgist, and industrialist, and a historian. He was born in Quebec City and educated at Queen's (BA 1858) and The University of Edinburgh, where he was ordained as a minister in 1861.

Shortly afterward, he made a surprising career change, becoming a mining chemist in Quebec. In 1875, he entered industrial life in the US. He discovered valuable copper deposits in Arizona, invented new metallurgical processes for the reduction of copper, and reached the presidency of three major mining companies.

Douglas also founded a huge smelting centre in Douglas, Arizona, which was named in his honour. Throughout his career he retained a deep interest in and affection for both Canada and Queen's. He wrote several works of Canadian history and donated close to $1 million to various University causes.

In 1910, Douglas established the Douglas Chair in Canadian and Colonial History. It was the first Chair in Canadian History in Canada, and in an unusual step, he had an actual chair made to accompany his gift. The chair was made out of teak, and was handcarved with Canadian symbols.

Douglas' biggest gift was to provide half of the funds for Douglas Library, which was completed in 1924 and named in his honour. He was elected Chancellor in 1915 after the death of Sir Sandford Fleming and served until his own death in 1918.