Glen Shortliffe was born in 1913 at Stonewall, Manitoba. He was educated at the University of Alberta where he received a B.A. in 1934 and an M.A. in 1935. During 1935-1936 he attended the Sorbonne and he was awarded a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1939. That same year he came to Queen's University where he was a Professor of French until his death in 1956.
Victor Sifton (1897-1961) was born at Ottawa. His father, Sir Clifford Sifton was a prominent newspaper owner and publisher and served as Minister of the Interior in Sir Wilfred Laurier's cabinets from 1896 to 1905. Victor's Arts course at the University of Toronto was cut short by the outbreak of World War I. He served in the Canadian Army from 1914-1919, attaining the rank of Major and receiving the D.S.O. for acts of outstanding bravery. After World war I he became publisher of two family newspapers, the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. In 1935 he moved to Winnipeg as General Manager of the Winnipeg Free Press, then under the editorship of John W. Dafoe. In 1944 he became its publisher. During World War II he served in Ottawa as Master-General of the Ordnance from April 1941 to July 1942. He was President of the Canadian Press, 1948-1950, President of the Canadian Institute of Public Affairs, 1950-1951, Chancellor of the University of Manitoba, 1954-1959. At the time of his death he was editor, publisher and president of the Winnipeg Free Press and Chairman of the Board of F.P. Publications Ltd. which owned and controlled the Winnipeg Free Press, the Ottawa Journal, Victoria Times, Victoria Dailey Colonist, Calgary Albertan, Lethbridge Herald, and the Free Press Weekly Prairie Farmer.
Dr. Duncan G. Sinclair, born in 1933, was a graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College (DVM) and the University of Toronto (MSA), he obtained his Ph.D. in physiology at Queen's University and joined the faculty in 1966 as a Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine.
He served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science (1974-83), Vice-Principal (Institutional Relations) (1984-86), and Vice-Principal Services (1986-88). In 1983-84, he was seconded to the Medical Research Council (MRC) of Canada as Director General of Program Operations, and, in 1989 he was awarded Honorary Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Sinclair also held positions at Queen's such as Vice-Principal (Health Sciences) and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine before retiring in 1996.
Dr. Sinclair has also contributed widely beyond the confines of academe. He served on the Ontario Ministry of Health's Steering Committee for Review of the Public Hospitals Act and was Chairman of the Task Group on Governance. He was a member of the Premier's Council on Health, Well-Being and Social Justice and acted as Chair of the Council's Research Steering Committee. He was also served on the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation Advisory Board and a member of its Executive Committee. He achieved national recognition as a member of the National Forum on Health and, more recently, as Chair of Ontario's Health Services Restructuring Commission. In 2001, he completed his term as founding Chair of the Board of Canada Info Highway, an organization designed to foster the development of a national capacity for health information management.
Dorothy Browning Murray Sliter (1905-1997) was born and raised in Kingston. She was the youngest child of David Murray and Lottie Maxwell and she claimed descent from the British poet Robert Browning. Part of her childhood was spent in the family home now know as the "Grey House" which is a part of the Queen's Campus. The house was designed by her father who trained as an architect but ended up managing his father's vinegar factory. A great Uncle, John Clark Murray, was the head of Queen's Philosophy Department in the early 1870's. Dorothy, herself, graduated from Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute and attended Queen's for a short time.
When she was thirteen, Dorothy Murray first encountered Ernest Sliter a badly wounded First World War Veteran. They met officially when she was seventeen and married when she was twenty one.
Sliter suffered all his life from his war wounds and consequently was forced to live on a very inadequate pension. Since Dorothy was herself not strong and very nervous and thus unable to take employment they lived in some poverty throughout the rest of their lives. To save money, they moved to the country. For ten years the Sliter's lived at Abbey Dawn as tenants of the poet Wallace Havelock Robb. Later they moved to Verona where they could be nearer to a doctor.
Dorothy had been a writer all of her life. In her youth she wrote some twenty novels which she destroyed before she married as she considered them to be immature. In later years she consorted with poets, especially through Robb and his "Abbey Dawn Poet's Festivals" which attracted the likes of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Wilson MacDonald, Charles Andrew Tupper and Nathaniel Benson. Sliter brought her own poetry to these gatherings but she was far too nervous to read it herself so her husband Ernie did her readings for her.
Over the years Dorothy Sliter published a number of books of poetry including, "Meadow Long Day" (1939); "High Wind" (1944); "Father Lucas and Other Poems" (1971). As well as poetry she published " The Friendly Village" (1967), an anecdotal history of Verona and her "Memoirs" (1980).
Ernie Sliter died in 1976 and Dorothy lived on in Verona, battling failing eyesight and poor health until just before her death in 1997. She is survived by two nieces and three nephews: Murray Dell, Jeffrey Dell and Barbara Dell MacGowan of Niagara Falls area; Dr. John D. Murray of Toronto and Shirley Hodgins Brind of Geneva, New York.
Slade, Admiral Sir Edmond John Warre
Admiral Sir Edmond John Warre Slade (b.20 Mar 1859-d.20 Jan 1928), Commander of the Royal Naval War College (1904-1907), Director of Naval Intelligence (1909) CIC East Indes (1912) and then sent by Churchill to investigate purchasing a stake in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP). He became a Government-appointed director of BP. He retired in Aug 1917 but remained a director of Anglo-Persian until his death. In 1887 he married Florence Madeleine, eldest daughter of Mr James Carr Saunders of Milton Heath, Dorking and had two daughters.
Smails, Reginald George Hampden
Reginald George Hampden Smails was born in England, and studied at Manchester University, University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. He served with the British Army in France and Belgium, and he was awarded the gold medal from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1920. Smails was appointed to the faculty of Queen's University in 1922, and developed the final year of material of the new Chartered Accountants course of instruction with Professor Walker. He also wrote two textbooks which were the principle accounting textbooks in Canada for over 15 years: "Accounting Principles", and "Auditing". Smails was Director of the School of Business at Queen's from 1951-1958, and retired in 1962. Queen's University awarded him an honorary degree LL.D in 1973. R.G.H Smails passed away on March 12 1975.
Mr. John A. Stevenson, noted Canadian journalist, was born in 1883 in Ayrshire, Scotland and was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh and Merton College, Oxford, receiving his B.A. in 1906. He entered jornalism as an editorial contributor to the Winnipeg Free Press. From 1918 he was in Ottawa, as a correspondent of the Toronto Star. From 1926 to 1940 he had the position of Chief Canadian Correspondent of the London Times. He was an editorial writer for the Toronto Globe and Mail from 1940 to 1946, and the Ottawa Editor for Saturday Night as well as the Canadian correspondent of the Manchester Guardian until his retirement in 1958. In his over fifty years in Canada, he gained a reputation as a journalist of skill and integrity. In 1960, he received an Honorary L.L.D. from Queen's University. He died in 1970.