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The Reverend D.B. Blair was born in Strachur on Loch Fyne, Argyleshire, Scotland, to John Blair and Catherine MacGregor. His father was employed as manager of a large sheep farm. Blair received his education at Edinburgh University and was licensed to preach in 1844. Two years later he left Scotland for Barney's River, Pictou County, where he was ordained on 29 October 1846. From 1850-1890 he preached at the Free Church congregation established in Barney's River, which derived from the Garden of Eden, Blue Mountain and Barney's River, and was named "Blair Presbyterian Church" in his honour.

In 1851 he married Mary Sibella of Brolas, Mull, Argyleshire. She died in 1882. They had six children: Anna Margaret, Thomas Chalmers, Laughlan MacLean, John Knox, Ewan Alexander and David Welsh. Blair was considered, in his day, to be the best Gaelic scholar in North America. He died in 1893 and is buried at Laggan, Pictou County.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese was born in Munich in 1918 to Katia Pringsheim and Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann. The fifth of six children, Elisabeth was raised in an intellectual family whose views supported the post-war movement for World Federalism. In exile from Nazi Germany, Elisabeth earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics and a diploma from the Conservatory of Music in Zurich before her family immigrated to the United States in 1938. The following year, Elisabeth married Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, an Italian-born writer and professor at Princeton University, with whom she had two children, Domenica and Angelica.

Working as a research associate with Giuseppe Borgese and other international scholars at the University of Chicago, Elisabeth helped to form "The Committee to Frame a World Constitution" and edited their monthly journal, Common Cause. Her publishing and translation work expanded to include editorial positions in Italy with the Ford Foundation's Intercultural Publications, Perspectives USA, and Diogenes, a UNESCO quarterly. She also served as Executive Secretary with the Board of Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Widowed in 1952, Elisabeth continued to pursue the ideas articulated by the committee, writing a critical introduction to the Constitution of the World, which was reissued in 1966 by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California. It was through the Center, where she was Senior Fellow from 1964 to 1978, that Elisabeth first focused her attentions on the law of the sea as an area of critical international concern. She began to publish ocean-related research, including The Ocean Regime, a blueprint for a "constitution for the world's oceans," in an effort to urge world leaders to re-examine ocean governance. In the late 1960s, she organized the first Pacem in Maribus conference as a forum for discussing the law of the sea, bringing it to the attention of international governmental and non-governmental organizations.

The first Pacem in Maribus conference was held in Malta in 1970. The annual event has since been hosted by countries including Algeria, Cameroon, Canada, China, India, Japan, and Sri Lanka. Over time, the dialogue of diplomats, civil servants, industrialists, fisheries experts, oceanographers, biologists, economists, and legal experts regarding the factors affecting "the common heritage of mankind" laid the foundation for the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. A founding member of groups such as the Club of Rome, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the Group of '78, Elisabeth invested great effort in working with organizations to influence international policy. In 1972, she established the International Ocean Institute (IOI) at the Royal University of Malta with the cooperation of the United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Malta. As Chairman of the Planning Council, she worked with the IOI to sponsor Pacem in Maribus, to conduct training programmes, and to facilitate and publish research with the goal of promoting peace and a deeper understanding of oceans and their resources in world policy and sustainable economic development.

In 1978, Elisabeth relocated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, taking up Canadian citizenship. As a Killam Fellow at Dalhousie University, she taught courses in political science and continued to pursue projects relating to disarmament, international development, integration of marine resources, and marine management. Serving as a member of the Austrian Delegation to the Third United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, the Preparatory Commission for the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, Elisabeth was instrumental in the 1982 adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and its entry into force in 1994.

Elisabeth's career was prolific and diverse. Attracted by Ghandi and his policy of sovereignty through peace, fascinated by the lives of animals and their methods of communication, a curious and creative writer of poetry, plays and fiction, Elisabeth expressed her interests and dedication to the environment through the written word and countless addresses. She published fifteen books, including The New International Economic Order and the Law of the Sea, The Drama of the Oceans, and The Ascent of Woman, as well as essays and short stories in publications such as New Directions, Nation and Atlantic Monthly. Embracing challenge and diversity, Elisabeth acted as a consultant to the World Bank, UNIDO and UNESCO, lectured internationally, and was awarded with three honorary doctorates. She received prizes and honours from the governments of Austria, Canada, China, Colombia, Germany and the UK, as well as awards from the Francis of Assisi Environmental Committee, the United Nations and the World Conservation Union. In 2001Germany bestowed its most prestigious award on her, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit. She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A true citizen of the world, Elisabeth Mann Borgese — the "Ambassador of the Seas" — died at the age of 83 in St. Moritz after a morning on the slopes.

In 2018 Elisabeth Mann Borgese was named one of 52 Dalhousie Originals, a list of individuals identified as having made a significant impact on the university and the broader community since Dalhousie's inception in 1818. https://www.dal.ca/about-dal/dalhousie-originals/elisabeth-mann-borgese.html

Norman Barrie Coward was a pediatrician and long-serving member of Dalhousie's Faculty of Medicine. Born on 14 August 1905 in St. Thomas, the US Virgin Islands, he was educated privately and at Colchester County Academy in Truro, Nova Scotia, before graduating from Dalhousie medical school in 1928. He completed a two-year internship at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, and was a resident at Toronto's Riverdale Infectious Diseases Hospital and Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He then spent twelve months at children’s hospitals in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In 1933 Coward joined Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine as a lecturer and clinical instructor in pediatrics. He was appointed professor and department head in 1958, also serving as Physician-in-Chief at Grace Maternity Hospital, the Halifax Infirmary and the Children’s Hospital. He retired from pediatrics in 1971, but continue in his role as Medical Director of Halifax’s Hearing and Speech Clinic, which he had helped found, until 1995. Dr. Coward died on 16 October 1997.

Annie MacKay (1876-1944) married Thomas Wilson Creelman (1879-1933) in 1915. Annie was the eldest daughter of Roderick MacKay (1849-1936) and Margaret (Maggie) Gray Murray (1852-1942) of Pictou County. The MacKays settled in Pictou County and called their homestead "Dunrobin." They had nine children: Annie (Feb. 20, 1876- September 24, 1944), Alexander (Nov. 24, 1877 – 1899), Murdoch Arthur (June 1881-Dec. 1971), Isabella Bertha (Nov. 25, 1883-Dec17, 1963), Katherine Mary (June 22, 1891-January 1963), Ina Ethel (February 3, 1894-June 4, 1986), Allister Murray (August 1900-February 12, 1922), Murdoch David (1880), Angus Herdman (1888). Alexander MacKay drowned while attending Dalhousie. Allister died of tuburculosis. Murdoch David and Angus died in infancy.

Annie MacKay and Thomas Creelman met in Halifax, where Thomas worked for The Imperial Oil Company, as an accountant and Annie worked as a part-time teacher. They married in 1915 and moved to Ontario where Thomas was transferred. He was employed with The Imperial Oil Company until he passed away in 1933. While he was employed with the oil company he was transferred to various places. He was in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Sarnia, Ontario, Winnipeg, Manitoba and he spent 5 years in South America. Annie and Thomas had one son, William MacKay Creelman.

William MacKay (Mack) Creelman, (1918-1985) was born in Sarnia, Ontario. After his Father died in 1933 he moved with his mother to Halifax. He completed his high school at the Halifax Academy in 1936 and came to Dalhousie to study math and physics. He received his BSc and 1940 and his MSc in 1942. We was a member of the Engineering Institute of Canada. After graduating from Dalhousie University in 1942 with a M.Sc. in Physics, Mack Creelman joined the Halifax Naval Group of the National Research Council which became the Naval Research Establishment (NRE) in the spring of 1943. He also joined the Navy. He continued with NRE until 1945 when he was appointed to the staff of the Commodore Superintendent HMC Dockyard as Supervising Inspector, Electrical Anti-Mining (Maritimes) responsible for all electrical mine countermeasures in the Atlantic Command. He retired from the Navy as a Lieutenant (L) RCN (R) in the fall of 1946 and joined the staff of the Manager, Electrical Engineering HMC Dockyard with the same duties as a naval officer.

Through his work at the Naval Research Establishment in Halifax, Mack met his wife H.G. (Nancy) Littlejohns (1923-1963). They married in June 1954, they had three children, June, David and William. Nancy passed away with cancer in July 1963.

In 1955, Creelman transferred to Naval Headquarters to head the degaussing section of the Electrical Engineer-in-Chief in Ottawa. Four years later, he was named head of the Passive Protection Section, Director Maritime Facilities and Resources at NDHQ. He retired in 1983 after 40 years’ service.

Please see also “Memoirs of WMC” MS-2-775, Box 8, Folder 13.

Melville Cumming was the first principal of Nova Scotia College of Agriculture and the namesake of Cumming Hall, the administration building at the heart of Dalhousie University's Agricultural Campus. He was born in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, on 5 January 1876, to Thomas and Matilda (McNair) Cumming. After graduating from Colchester County Academy as a Gold Medalist, he earned his BA from Dalhousie University in 1897. In 1899 he received a BSc in Agriculture from Iowa State College, USA, and in 1900 he was granted another BSc Agr from the University of Toronto, which was affiliated with the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, where he held his first professorial appointment from 1900-1905. He also received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie in 1918.

In February 1905, Cumming was appointed principal of the newly formed Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, Nova Scotia, where he also taught animal husbandry, agronomy, bacteriology and public speaking. He took on a concurrent appointment in 1907 with the newly formed Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, which he held until 1925. On leaving NSAC in 1927, he moved to Halifax as the director of marketing for Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, where in 1933 he became the head of provincial agricultural statistics. He retired in 1947.

Cumming was active in the wider community, serving as an elder in Halifax's Fort Masse United Church, president of the Men’s Club and superintendent of the Sunday School. He was president of the Truro Canadian Club, vice-president of the Nova Scotia Association, chairman for Colchester County of the Canadian Patriotic Club, president of the Truro Golf Club and of the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children. He was a chairman of the Farm and Finance Committees at the Maritime Home for Girls and honorary vice-president of the Nova Scotia Tuberculosis Association, of which he was a charter member. He was also a charter member of the Canadian Society of Technical Agriculturalists (now the Agricultural Institute of Canada) and a member of the Nova Scotia Institute of Agrologists. In 1905 and again in 1907, he travelled to Scotland to purchase Clydesdale, Hackney and Thoroughbred horses. The administration building (Cumming Hall) at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College was named in his honour.

Melville Cumming was married to Mary Alice Archibald in 1905, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. He died on 16 April 1969.

The Board of Governors is responsible for the overall conduct, management, administration and control of the property, revenue and business of Dalhousie University.

On 11 December 1817 Lord Dalhousie made a submission to his Council proposing the establishment of a college in Halifax, naming an interim Board of Trustees made up of the lieutenant governor (himself); the chief justice, the Anglican bishop; the provincial treasurer; and the Speaker of the Assembly (later adding the minister of St Matthews Church).

Two years later, in the face of mounting building debt, it was expedient to incorporate the governors of the college, which comprised Lord Dalhousie (now the Governor General of North America); Sir James Kempt (the current Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia); the Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia; the chief justice; the treasurer of the province; the Speaker of the Assembly; and the president of the college (who was yet to be named). The 1821 Act was passed, incorporating the governors of Dalhousie College and beginning Dalhousie’s legal existence.

By August 1838, due to deaths, resignations and absences, the board was reduced to three: the lieutenant-governor, the treasurer of the province and the Speaker of the House. Despite disagreement and opposition, the board appointed three professors for the college’s first term, including Thomas McCulloch as president. In 1840 the Dalhousie Act reconfigured the board established by the Act of 1821. The Governor General of North America, the chief justice and all other ex-officio members were dropped, with the exception of the lieutenant governor and the president of Dalhousie College. Twelve new members were named and it was decided that future vacancies would be selected by the Legislative Council, with two members chosen by the Assembly and one by the Council. If cumbersome, the new 17-member board was more representative across political and religious spheres than earlier renditions. In 1842 the board drew up rules of governance, including age of admission and requirements for the Bachelor of Arts, and laid down principles of liberality with regard to religious affiliation. They reduced professorial salaries and tried to clarify their rights to the Grand Parade. Despite their renewed efforts, Dalhousie closed its doors in 1844 following the death of Thomas McCulloch.

The 1848 Dalhousie Act reduced the Board of Governors to between five and seven members to be appointed by the governor-in-council, and William Young, Joseph Howe, Hugh Bell, James Avery, William Grigor, Andrew MacKinlay and John Naylor were named to the board. Their efforts to make Dalhousie useful and solvent included opening it first as a collegiate school, then as a high school, and finally as a small university in union with Gorham College in Liverpool, England. None of these was successful and by 1862 the Board was down to four members and had not met in two years.

Three new appointments were made to the board along with amendments granting it greater authority, and in 1863 a new Dalhousie College Act was passed that gave the board power to appoint all college officers, including the president and professors, and, while internal governance was the responsibility of an academic senate, their rules were subject to board approval. The college was reconstituted as a university, conferring bachelors, master and doctoral degrees. In November 1863 Dalhousie College opened under the new board.

Dalhousie Medical School is an internationally-recognized faculty in undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education. The only medical school in the Maritime provinces, it is closely affiliated with the provincial healthcare systems in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and is affiliated with over one hundred teaching sites, including nine teaching hospitals.

The Dalhousie College Act, ratified in 1863, stipulated the establishment of a medical faculty; with the support of the premier and the provincially-funded Halifax Hospital, the Faculty of Medicine opened in 1868, half a century after the university's founding, and the fifth medical school in Canada, preceded by McGill (1842), Queens (1854), Laval (1823) and Toronto (1843).

The initial class of 14 students was taught by a volunteer faculty of Halifax physicians under the leadership of Dr. Alexander P. Reid. Primary subjects only were offered, and students transferred to McGill, Harvard or New York to complete their training; by 1870 a full program was available and in 1872 the first class graduated from Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine. In 1873 financial difficulties forced the school’s closure and two years later the independent Halifax Medical College was formed, with Dr. Reid as president. After an ambiguous affiliation with the college, in 1889 Dalhousie’s Faculty of Medicine was re-established, with the Halifax Medical College remaining as the teaching body while the Faculty of Medicine took over the role of examining body.

With the support of the Carnegie Foundation, the medical school was reorganized; in 1911 the Halifax Medical School was fully reintegrated into the university, with a full-time pre-clinical teaching staff and strict entrance requirements. In the early 1920s further grants from the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations enabled the construction of the Dalhousie Public Health Clinic and the Medical Sciences Building, as well as the expansion of the Pathology Institute. In 1925 the school obtained an A1 accreditation from the American Medical Association.

Financial challenges throughout the 1930s and 1940s were alleviated by contributions from the provincial governments of Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and during this period the faculty established the first continuing medical education program in Canada. In 1967 the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building was completed, housing the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library, several medical science faculties, and facilities for teaching and research.

Natural philosophy (physics) was on the curriculum of the "first" Dalhousie College in 1838, and when the college reopened in 1863 as a university, Thomas McCulloch, Jr. was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy. After his premature death in 1865, it was a decade before another such appointment was made. In 1876 J. Gordon MacGregor was appointed Lecturer in Natural Philosophy and taught classes in experimental physics and mathematical physics, while Charles MacDonald taught hydrostatics, optics and astronomy. In 1879 MacGregor became the first George Munro Chair of Physics. One of the first female faculty members hired at Dalhousie was Merle Colpitt, who started as a physics demonstrator during World War One, was promoted to an instructor in 1918, and retired in 1926, a year after she married H.L. Bronson, who had been appointed first head of the newly named Physics Department in 1922.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the department offered a general BSc, a BSc with Honours in Physics, and a BSc in Engineering Physics. In the 1980s, Engineering Physics moved from Dalhousie and a Diploma in Meteorology (DMet) was added. In the 1990s, the Honours Co-op program was instituted. The design, organization, and instruction of undergraduate teaching laboratories, as well as a Physics Resource Centre for first-year students, was enhanced by the work of senior instructors, including Mr. F.M. Fyfe (1974-2001) and Mr. W. P. Zukauskas (1982-2008).

J.H.L. Johnstone was the department's first graduate student, earning an MSc in Physics in 1914, joining the department as a faculty member in 1920, and appointed Head and Munro Professor in 1945. The first woman to receive a MSc was Elizabeth Torrey in 1930. The PhD program in Physics was initiated in 1961 and the first recipient of a PhD in Physics was Dr. Peter Gacii in 1966. The first woman to receive a PhD in Physics was Dr. Nahomi Fujiki of Japan, whose degree was awarded in 1989.

The Dalhousie University Meteorology program was established ins 1984. Administered by the Physics Department, it offers a Diploma in Meteorology (DMet) in conjunction with a BSc in Physics. In 1989, the Atmospheric Sciences program was established in conjunction with AES and NSERC and run jointly between Dalhousie's Departments of Physics and Oceanography. In 2001 the program was absorbed into the physics department, whose name changed to the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science.

Frieze and Roy were shipping merchants from Maitland, Nova Scotia. David Frieze started the company in 1839, when he ran a general store as well as owning and operating sailing vessels. Adam Roy joined Frieze in business in the 1860s and they became Frieze and Roy in 1868. In addition to running his business, Adam Roy served as a justice of the peace and was associated with the Maitland School. Frieze and Roy both had connections to the Maitland Presbyterian Church and the Sons of Temperance chapter. Alexander Roy, Adam Roy's brother, built many of their ships, while Adam Roy's brother Thomas Roy, along with members of the MacDougall and Douglas families, served as captains. Their vessels included the well-known Barque Snow Queen (1876-88), the Esther Roy, the Linwood and the Brig Trust. With the decline in the shipping industry during the 1880s, they switched their focus to their general store, which sold a wide range of goods such as hardware, lumber, candy, groceries, kitchenware, fabric, shoes and toys. David Frieze's son George was also involved with the business.

Roy's son, Adam Frederic (Fred) Roy, took over the business when he was 19, and his daughter, Margaret Sanford, in turn inherited it. The 1970s saw a decline in business due to the building of a bridge that linked Maitland closer to Truro. In 2004 Glenn Martin purchased the store from the Sanfords to preserve it, with the agreement that he would maintain store's long history. The Frieze and Roy General Store still operates in Maitland, primarily selling giftware and souvenirs. It remains one of the oldest businesses in Nova Scotia.

John Finlayson Graham was born in Calgary, Alberta on May 31, 1924 to parents William and Hazel Marie (Lund). He went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia in 1947, a Master in 1948, and a Doctorate in 1959 from Columbia University. Graham joined the Department of Economics at Dalhousie University in 1949 as an assistant professor and became a professor in 1960. He was the head of the department from 1960 to 1969 and was primarily interested in public finance, specifically intergovernmental fiscal relations.

Graham was active in multiple university and professional associations and organizations. He was the president of the Faculty Association at Dalhousie, vice-president of the Canadian University Teacher’s Association, president of the Canadian Economics Association (1970-1971), chairman of the Nova Scotia Royal Commission on Education, Public Services and Provincial-Municipal Relations (1971-1974), a consultant on the Royal Commission on Finance and Municipal Taxation in New Brunswick (1962-1964), a consultant on educational finance for the Newfoundland Royal Commission on Education and Youth (1966-1967), and held numerous other positions during his career. He was the author of many journal articles, reviews, Fiscal Adjustment and Economic Development: A Case Study of Nova Scotia (1963). In 1979-1980, Graham was chairman of the Dalhousie Senate ad hoc committee on the university constitution, which recommended the current structure of the Senate.

John Graham died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism on November 14, 1990. He was married to Hermioni (Nita) Graham and had four children: Andrew Thomas, James Theodore, Johanna Hermioni, and Nicholas Lund. The John F. Graham memorial lecture in the Department of Economics at Dalhousie University was established in memory of Dr. Graham in 1992.

James Gray was a scholar and professor of English literature and language at Dalhousie University. Born in Montrose, Scotland, he studied literature at the University of Aberdeen before serving in the Second World War from 1941-1946. After the war, he received a BA (1948) and MA (1951) in literature from Oxford University, where he studied at Balliol College. He moved to Quebec in 1951 to take up a teaching appointment at Bishop’s University, becoming head of their English department in 1958 and Chair of Humanities in 1971. During this period he also taught part time in the Canadian National Railways staff training course. He received his PhD in literature from the University of Montreal in 1970.

In 1975 Gray came to Dalhousie University as Dean of Faculty of Arts and Science. He wrote and lectured extensively about eighteenth-century studies, particularly on theatre and religious works. He was active in various literary and teaching associations, journals and publication initiatives, including the editorial committee of the Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson for over a decade. He was also a keen philatelist.

He was married to Pamela Gray, with whom he had one daughter. In 1980 James Gray retired to Kentville, Nova Scotia, as Thomas McCulloch Professor Emeritus. He died in 2012.

George Montagu-Dunk was the 2nd Earl of Halifax, succeeding his father in 1739. Born in 1716, he was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was married in 1741 to Anne Richards (d. 1753), who had inherited a great fortune from Sir Thomas Dunk, whose name George Montagu took.

From 1749 to 1761 he served as president of the Board of Trade. It was during his tenure in this position that he helped to found Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, which was named after him. He entered the Cabinet in 1757, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1761, and also served as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Montagu-Dunk left office in July 1765, returning to the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal under his nephew, Lord North, in January 1770. He passed away in 1771, having recently been restored to his former position of Secretary of State.

Charles William Jefferys was born in Rochester, England in 1869. In 1877, he emigrated with his family to Philadephia, eventually moving to Toronto in 1881. With little formal schooling, he was apprenticed from 1885 to 1890 at the Toronto Lithography Company. He joined the Toronto Art Students' League in 1888 and studied watercolour painting under Charles MacDonald Manly. Jefferys worked as a news illustrator for The Toronto Globe from 1889 to 1892 before moving to New York, where he worked at The New York Herald.

Jefferys returned to Toronto in 1901, where he had a long career as a newspaper, magazine, and book illustrator, creating the illustrations for titles including The Chronicles of America, Episodes in Canada's Story, Canada's Past in Pictures, and the three-volume Picture Gallery of Canadian History. He also taught painting and drawing in the Department of Architecture at the University of Toronto from 1912 to 1929. Later work included guiding the reconstruction of the Habitation at Port-Royal, Nova Scotia in 1938 and painting the murals at the Royal Ontario Museum. Jefferys was a founder of the Canadian Authors' Association, a councillor of the Royal Academy of Arts, and served as president for the Ontario Society of Artists and the Canadian Society of Graphic Arts.

In 1915, Jefferys drew over one hundred sketches to illustrate a projected series on the works of Thomas Chandler Halliburton. The project never came to fruition and the illustrations were published posthumously in the 1956 volume Sam Slick in Pictures.

Jefferys passed away in 1951.

Thomas Donal Linehan was born in Singapore on December 28, 1924 to Dr. William and May Linehan. Thomas was raised in Ireland but resided in Canada for 45 years before dying at the age of 78 on January 7, 2003. Thomas is survived by his wife Therese and his 7 children, Mary, Jennifer, Noreen, Una, Patrick, John, and Michael.

During his life Thomas was an English teacher; however, he is primarily known for his poetry. Although he was never able to make a financial secure career in poetry, he nevertheless remained an active author. He is known for works such as “Birds of Fire”, published by Owl’s Head Press, and “Mystery of Things” published by Pottersfield Press, and had his work published in several literary magazines. Linehan was also a human rights activist and was an active member of Amnesty International, where he challenged political figures including former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, to deal with human right violations occurring around the world.

Norman MacKenzie, better known as Larry, was born in 1894 in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. He was educated at Pictou Academy before moving to Saskatchewan at the age of fifteen to farm with his brothers. In 1913 he entered Dalhousie, where he studied for one year before enlisting in the army. From 1914-1918 he served overseas, returning to Dalhousie to graduate with his BA in 1921 and his LLB in 1923. He received his LLM from Harvard University, where he also won a Carnegie fellowship to study international law at Cambridge.

Following two years as legal advisor to the International Labour Office in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1927 MacKenzie took up a professorial appointment at University of Toronto, where he taught for thirteen years. In 1940 he became president of the University of New Brunswick, and from 1944-1960 he served as president of the University of British Columbia. He was appointed to the Senate from 1966-1969. MacKenzie and his wife, Margaret Thomas (1903–1987), had three children: Bridget, Susan, and Patrick Thomas. He died in 1986.

Donna Morrissey was born in 1956 and grew up in the small outport community of The Beaches on Newfoundland’s west coast. She was the first of six children born to logger and fisherman Enerchius Osmond and his wife Claudine. After dropping out of high school and working in the local fish plant, she left Newfoundland at age sixteen to travel across Canada. She moved throughout the country, spending time in Toronto and Alberta employed as a cook and bartender, among other things. At age nineteen, she married a fellow Newfoundlander. They were together for fifteen years and had two children. After ten years away, Morrissey returned to Newfoundland in her mid twenties. At age thirty-two, she was admitted to Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) as a mature student where she earned a Bachelor of Social Work degree. After working as a social worker for a year and a half, she returned to school and obtained a Diploma in Adult Education. Donna Morrissey has lived and worked in Halifax since 1993.

Morrissey is a well-known, colourful author of short stories, screen plays, and novels whose works draw heavily on her childhood experiences and Newfoundland background. She began writing in her late thirties and published her first novel, Kit’s Law, in 1999. Morrissey has published two Canadian bestsellers, Kit’s Law, translated into three languages, and Downhill Chance. Her literary accomplishments include winning the Libris First Time Author of the Year Award, the international Winifred Holtby Award for regional fiction, the Alex Award, and the Thomas Raddall Award. Two of her short stories have also been adapted as scripts, each winning the Atlantic Script Writing Competition. Her screenplay The Clothesline Patch aired on CBC and won a Gemini Award for Best Production.

Thomas John (Jock) Murray is an accomplished physician, educator, researcher and internationally renowned Multiple Sclerosis expert. Born in Halifax in 1938, he received his early education at Pictou Academy (1953-1958), before completing pre-med studies at St. Francis Xavier University and graduating from Dalhousie Medical School in 1963. Following two years of general practice, he pursued post-graduate studies at Victoria General Hospital (VGH) in Halifax, the National Hospital at the University of London, and Toronto General and St. Michael's.

In 1969 Dr. Murray joined the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University and became a Neurology Fellow at Victoria General Hospital. In 1972 he was promoted to Consultant of Neurology at VGH, Camp Hill Hospital, Grace Maternity Hospital and the Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre. Following academic promotions, Dr. Murray served as Head of the Department of Neurology for six years before being appointed Dean of Medicine in 1985. He was the first director of Dalhousie's Multiple Sclerosis Unit as well as the founder of both the Medical Humanities Program and Dalhousie Society for the History of Medicine.

Among his professional activities, Dr. Murray served as the first Canadian Chair of the American College of Physicians (ACP) Board of Regents. In 1995 he was honoured with the John B. Neilson Award for outstanding contributions to the history of medicine. He has received honorary degrees from St. Francis Xavier and Acadia and is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, and an inductee into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

In 2018 Jock Murray was named one of 52 Dalhousie Originals, a list of individuals identified as having made a significant impact on the university and the broader community since Dalhousie's inception in 1818. See https://www.dal.ca/about-dal/dalhousie-originals/thomas-jock-murray.html

The O’Brien family were Nova Scotia mariners, beginning with Captain John O’Brien (b. 1789) and Mary Margaret Thomas (b. 1791), who had four children: Joseph (1813-1882); William Harrison (b. 1822); John Russell; and Hannah (d. 184-).

William and John sailed with their father before establishing families of their own. William settled in England, marrying a widow with one daughter; they had another daughter together. Poor health forced him to leave the sea and become a shoemaker. John Russell settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he married Mary Caroline and had five children, two of whom died in infancy.

Joseph O’Brien became a master mariner and married Janet Russell, who was born in 1816 in Wallace, Nova Scotia. Joseph became captain of the Janet, which was lost on Rio de la Plata, Argentina, in January 1868. The insurance payout allowed Joseph to buy 32 shares of a new barque, the Eliza Oulton, built by John Oulton in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Joseph and Janet had three sons and two daughters: John Russell (b. 1841); Thomas (b. 1845); Alexander (b. 1852); Margaret (b. 1844); and Primrose (b. 1854). All three sons became master mariners before their father Joseph O’Brien died in 1882.

John O’Brien was married in 1868 to Susan Elizabeth Morris, the great-granddaughter of the Honourable Charles Morris of Halifax, first Surveyor General of Nova Scotia. Together they had one child, Elizabeth Olga, who born in 1869 on the Eliza Oulton while in the Russian harbour of Poti on the Black Sea. John O’Brien died of yellow fever six months later on the Island of St. Thomas in the West Indies, and Susan returned home to Wallace, Nova Scotia, to raise Elizabeth with the help of her parents.

Following John’s death, Thomas O’Brien became master of the Eliza Oulton, and the youngest brother, Alexander, sailed as a mate. Thomas married Maggie, with whom he had three children, and lived in Pictou, Nova Scotia, while continuing to sail for a living. Alexander married and eventually settled with his family in California.

Margaret O’Brien accompanied her brother, John, and her Uncle William on a two-year voyage, after which she worked as a milliner, married David MacLean and moved to Stellarton, Nova Scotia, where husband established a medical practice. Margaret was widowed shortly after the birth of their only child in 1876.

The youngest O'Brien child, Primrose ("Sis”), married Nathaniel Purdy and moved to Waltham, Massachusetts.