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Charles Morse, KC, was born in 1860 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, to Margaret and Charles Morse, Judge of Probate for Queen's County. He was educated at Liverpool Academy, Dalhousie University (LLB, 1885; LLD, 1908), and Trinity College, Toronto (DCL, 1900). He was called to the bar in Nova Scotia in 1885 and made a KC in 1908. Morse became Registrar of the Exchequer Court of Ottawa in 1912, from which he retired in 1932 to enter private practice.

In 1885 Morse married Susan M. Peters, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. He died c. 1945.

Ralph Sedley Morton was born in 1908 in Bedford, Nova Scotia, to Dr. Angus McDonald and Bessie A. Morton. He was educated at Dalhousie University, where he received his BA (1929) and LLB (1931). Morton was a founding member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity chapter and served as class president, business manager of The Gazette and editor of the yearbook. He was also an active writer, actor and debater.

In 1930 Morton received a one-year scholarship to study journalism at the University of London. His subsequent journalism career took him to Boston, New York and Australia. He became a correspondent for both the Canadian Press and the Associated Press, founded and edited New England’s Canadian News, and established the Dartmouth Free Press, which he operated from 1954-1970s. As its associate editor, he played a pivotal role in the success of Kenneth Leslie’s Protestant Digest. He also authored a number of plays, including My Father was a Doctor, Reunion in Jakarta, and Sam Slick Rides Again, in addition to a book on the Nova Scotia Legislature.

Movement for Citizens’ Voice and Action (MOVE) was a coalition of community groups in the Halifax-Dartmouth area established to enable community groups to access resources previously difficult to obtain. The agenda of the MOVE coalition focused primarily on social issues ranging from unemployment, poverty, affordable housing, women’s rights, civil rights, welfare rights, to urban planning and development, transportation, education and environmental issues.

In February 1970 the Nova Scotia Voluntary Economic Planning Board conducted an Urban Encounter week in the Halifax area to allow citizens to express their ideas, observations, frustrations and criticisms. As a result, a group of citizens concerned with the lack of participation in the regional planning process formed the Citizens’ Involvement Committee in order to involve as many voluntary associations as possible in the development of an active group within the Halifax-Dartmouth regional community. At a three-day conference held in Kentville, Nova Scotia, in February 1971, it was agreed to establish a citizens’ group coalition under the name “Citizens Inc.” In June it became “Movement for Citizens Voice and Action” to facilitate incorporation.

MOVE assumed full organizational status with the election of a Board of Directors. By the end of 1971, MOVE received a Local Initiatives Programme grant for $61,000, which enabled the organization to rent central office facilities, hire and organize staff for coalition member groups. MOVE’s objectives were to develop and strengthen the ability of people and groups in the region to identify needs and issues and to organize people to take informed and effective action; to serve as a mechanism within which community groups from different geographical, issue, and need areas could meet and exchange information and possibly form issue-centered coalitions; provide resources that included information made available through their library while also providing staff, printing services, monies, and mediation to municipal, provincial, and federal government departments.

Throughout the 1970s, MOVE obtained and maintained an average of about 35 group members (some groups withdrew while newer groups were added). Some of their most involved groups included the Ecology Action Centre, Dalhousie Legal Aid, Halifax Welfare Rights, and Ward Five Resource Council. MOVE also established representation with groups such as the Municipal Development Planning Committee (MDPC), Metropolitan Area Planning Committee (MAPC), the Halifax Downtown Committee and Neighbourhood Housing Association (NHA).

Some of MOVE’s most notable achievements include: co-ordinating interested groups and individuals in presenting a proposal for a Planning Advisory Committee to be established in Halifax; organizing the Canadian Council of Resources and Environment Ministers Conference in Nova Scotia and participating in the Nova Scotia delegation to the national conference; promoting public hearings on Harbour Drive North; co-ordinating submissions to a regional version of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment; establishing a Dartmouth Cable-TV program on community affairs; and sponsoring a public forum on the Halifax Transit strike. Most importantly, MOVE played an integral role in the dissemination of prominent local issues to the public as the organization received an abundance of media coverage throughout the 1970s and produced many controversial publications.

Towards the end of the 1970s, MOVE started facing financial difficulties. The core of MOVE's funding had been provided by the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, which was cut. As a result, MOVE eventually shut down their facility and sold off their office equipment. The organization's last recorded activity was a final meeting in 1982 after nearly three years of inactivity.

Registered in 1978 as Mulgrave Road Co-operative Theatre, the company's origins date back to 1976, with the creation of "The Mulgrave Road Show," co-written and performed by Robbie O’Neill, Michael Fahey, Gay Hauser and Wendell Smith. The play explored the issues faced by a community in decline. Mulgrave, located on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia across from Cape Breton Island, had experienced a sustained recession after the 1954 construction of the Canso Causeway.

Mulgrave Road Theatre has a mandate to develop, produce and promote a theatrical experience that resonates with Atlantic Canadians. The company has made a significant contribution to the growth of Canadian theatre and the development of Atlantic Canadian artists, having produced dozens of original scripts, many of which have been performed on stages across the country and beyond

MRT also plays a leading role in ground-breaking community development projects; using theatre as a medium to address critical social issues that affect the region. MRT is committed to equity and inclusion throughout its organization and demonstrates this in its programming, outreach, and people.

Mulgrave productions are developed through commissions, playwrights-in-residence, on-site and distance dramaturgy, and work-shopping. In the beginning, scripts were largely collective creations, such as "Business of Living," which was written by 18 Atlantic playwrights. Other notable productions included "I’m Assuming I’m Right" (Frank MacDonald), "From Fogarty’s Cove" (Ric Knowles), "Battle Fatigue" (Jenny Munday), "Marion Bridge" (Daniel MacIvor), and "Caribou" (Michael Melski). Two or three productions are mounted each year. In addition to its touring company, Mulgrave offers a youth program called ROADies.

Mulgrave Road Theatre has a governing board made up of professionals and community members. It is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, the Nova Scotia Theatre Alliance, and Arts Cape Breton.

Janet Stephanie (Jenny) Munday was born in Toronto in 1953 and grew up in New Brunswick and Quebec. She completed a secretarial course at the Capital Business College of Fredericton in 1974 and studied political science at the University of New Brunswick, graduating in 1978. Munday has worked as an actor in theatre companies across Canada, appearing at Theatre New Brunswick, Neptune Theatre, The National Arts Centre, Ship’s Company Theatre, Rising Tide Theatre and the Banff Playwrights Colony. She has also acted in film, television and radio. Munday is also a director and dramaturge and has written several works for the stage, including Relatively Harmless, The Last Tasmanian and Battle Fatigue. Other work includes radio drama, magazine articles and reviews.

Munday was co-founder and co-artistic director of the Comedy Asylum in the early 1980s. From 1989-1992 she was artistic director of the Mulgrave Road Co-op Theatre. From 1993-1995 she served as artistic associate and writer-in-residence at Theatre New Brunswick, and was the first artist-in-residence at Live Bait Theatre. Munday was the fourth Crake Fellow in Drama at Mount Allison University from 2004-2008 and is currently artistic director of Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre (PARC).

Among the many awards and recognitions that Munday has received are a Theatre Nova Scotia Merritt Special Achievement Award; the inaugural Mallory Gilbert Award from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) and Tarragon Theatre; and an honorary membership to the Canadian Association for Theatre Research.

George Munro was born in 1825 in West River, Nova Scotia, to John Munro and Mary Mathieson. After being apprenticed in the printing trade at the age of twelve, he continued his education in New Glasgow and at Pictou Academy. In 1850 Munro was teaching mathematics and natural philosophy at the Free Church Academy in Halifax. Two years later he was appointed rector (principal) of the academy and was preparing himself for the Presbyterian ministry. However, in 1856 he resigned both his position and his ambition to the clergy and moved to New York City, where he eventually made his fortune publishing reprints of modern English works.

Munro's ties to Nova Scotia remained strong and he sent both his sons to be educated at Dalhousie College in the late 1870s and 1880s. It was during this period that he donated over $300,000 to the college, saving Dalhousie from collapse. He is recognized as Dalhousie's first major benefactor and the university's February holiday is named in his honour. George Munro died in 1896.

Don Murchy is a community activist, volunteer, and a prominent member of Nova Scotia’s leather community. Murchy was born in Dartmouth on August 18, 1950. He graduated from Dartmouth High in 1968 and moved to Truro, where he attained his associate’s degree in Education from the Nova Scotia Teachers College. Following this, Murchy moved to Fort Kent, Maine, where he was awarded both a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Education.

Upon moving back to Halifax in 1976, Murchy worked various jobs, including teaching computer classes and working in local health clubs. From 1988 to his retirement in 2015, he worked at Saint Mary’s University in the Registrar’s and Admissions Offices and taught computer classes through their Continuing Education program. Murchy has been a member of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union [NSGEU], holding several positions on the local and regional boards. He met his current partner in 1986.

Murchy’s participation in the LGBT Community began upon his return to Nova Scotia through his attendance at The Turret, an LGBT bar operated by the Gay Alliance for Equality (later the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Nova Scotia) located in the Kyber building. Upon The Turret’s closure in 1982, Murchy attended events at its successor, Rumours. Murchy joined the TightRope Leather Brotherhood at its inception in the early 1990s and would go on to hold every executive position prior to the Brotherhood going defunct in 2007. He was the first winner of the Mr. Atlantic Canada Leather [M.A.C. Leather] contest in 1999. From 1993 until 2006, Murchy ran the Over Thirties Club for gay men, which held potlucks in private homes across the Maritimes, maintaining a mailing list of approximately 150 people. Murchy produced the Fetish Ball from 2004-2014 as a fundraiser for local LGBT causes, and also developed the Fetish Evening, which held events from 2007-2009. He has worked for the Halifax Pride Committee as a Waterfront Supervisor and has previously held Toys for Boys talks at Venus Envy during Pride week. Murchy has also been a member of the Society of Bastet, a BDSM and kink play club in Halifax, and was an associate member of Chicago Hellfire and Delta International men’s BDSM clubs in the United States.

Jane Murphy was a professor and pioneering psychiatric epidemiologist who, from 1975 until her death in 2021, led the Stirling County Study, initiated in 1948 by her late husband Alexander Leighton. She was born on 9 October 1929 in Denver, Colorado, received a BA from Phillips University in 1951 and a PhD from Cornell University in 1960. In 1951 she joined the Stirling County Study as an administrator and researcher, followed by graduate studies in anthropology and sociology at Cornell University. During her PhD research, she lived with indigenous peoples in Alaska to learn about their concept of mental illness, and carried out cross-cultural studies in Nigeria and Vietnam.

In 1966 she married Alexander H. Leighton and together they continued and extended the seminal Stirling County Study in psychiatric epidemiology, the longest running study of its kind to understand the prevalence and types of mental illness across generations in a cross-cultural community. She served as the Senior Social Scientist for the Study and was in charge of its extension during the late 1960s and early 1970s. After Dr. Leighton's retirement from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1975, Jane Murphy became the director and designed the study so that on reaching the 40-year mark, it would be possible to trace historical trends regarding the prevalence of different types of mental illnesses. Murphy served as director of the study from 1975 until her death in 2021. She taught in the psychiatric epidemiology program at the Harvard Chan School from 1996-201; directed the Psychiatric Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital; was a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; and served as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University.

Widely published, Jane Murphy made contributions to the literature on cross-cultural psychiatry, the prevalence of depression in communities, and continuities in community-based psychiatric epidemiology. She served on the Executive Committee of a section of the World Psychiatric Association and on the Council of the Association for Clinical and Psychosocial Research. She was a recipient of a Rema Lapouse Award from the American Public Health Association and the Harvard Award in Psychiatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Jane Murphy and Alexander Leighton enjoyed a long association with Digby County, Nova Scotia, and helped make local history more available to the public through the Wilson Collier Committee, which focuses on identifying, preserving and connecting historical writings and photographs of the Bay of Fundy as well as the stories and lives of the people who live there.