Robert James (Bert) (B.A. '23) was born in Presqu'Isle, Ontario. He attended Queen's University at Kingston, and volunteered for duty overseas with No.5 Stationary Hospital when the unit was raised by the University during World War One.
Alexander Mackenzie was born in Scotland and was a stone mason when he emigrated to Canada in 1842. By 1850 he became an active supporter of George Brown and Secretary of the Lambton Reform Committee. For two years, 1852-1854, he was editor of a Reform newspaper, the Lambton Shield. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1861. He was elected to the House of Commons in the first federal election in 1867 and he remained a Member of the Commons until his death in 1892. He was Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Public Works, 1873-1878. After the defeat of his government he continued to lead the Liberal party until ill health forced him to resign from that post in 1880. Mackenzie was married twice and was survived by one daughter.
Born at Ottawa, Ontario on 21 May 1926, son of Alice and Douglas MacKay, he was raised in Winnipeg and attended St. John’s-Ravenscourt School and the University of Manitoba. He worked as a newspaper reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune, Canadian Press, and the Winnipeg Free Press, later serving as a correspondent for the Free Press in Ottawa and Washington, DC. In 1951 he was the first Canadian awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University. From 1954 to 1959 he was Managing Editor of the Reader’s Digest Canadian Edition, at Montreal, then was Executive Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press from 1959 to 1967. In the latter year he became Vice-President of the International Nickel Company of Canada, at Toronto, retiring in 1982. He died at Winnipeg on 21 December 2001.
J.M. MacKay was a student in the School of Mining at Queen's University.