Showing 187 results

There is no biographical information available on John L. Jackson.

Not much biographical information can be found on Fritz Johansen. He was a zoologist and a naturalist on the Danish Expedition to Greenland from 1906-1908 under L. Mylius. He was then employed by the Department of Naval Services as an oceanologist on the Canadian Artic Expedition of 1913. He served with the southern party of scientists on the Expedition from 1913 to 1916. In the 1920's, he was employed by the Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries to undertake marine surveys off Labrador and Hudson Bay. He published a Description of the Country and Vegetation at Port Churchill, Manitoba in 1933. He would later move back to Denmark, where he died in 1957.

The Joint Daycare Feasibility Study Committee (JDFSC) began to meet in April 1986 and the Committee was finally put into place with a letter of understanding between the ROM and the Ontario Public Service Employee’s Union (OPSEU), Local 543 on 14th July 1986. The Mandate of the Committee as set out in the letter was ‘to study and make recommendations on the feasibility of setting up and running a work-place daycare centre.

within the Museum for the use of all museum employees.’ The Committee was made up of seven members from OPSEU, SEIU, Management and ROMCA. As part of the feasibility study a staff member survey questionnaire was designed and distributed in October 1986 and with a 40% return rate showing considerable support for daycare facilities.

In March 1987, Part I of the Committee’s work was presented to the Museum Administration with a list of the committee members, an executive summary and fact sheet, a report on the daycare needs in the City of Toronto, daycare standards for the province of Ontario, a survey of daycare programs, sources of support and a summary and recommendations, with accompanying appendixes. In June 1987, the director authorized the study to continue in accord with the 1987-1989 OPSEU Collective Agreement. Another report, Part II, Daycare Space Interim Report was released in January 1988 and took a look at possible off-site locations, including the University of Toronto and commercial and private property options, along with sample operating budgets, three program models and seven options for on-site locations including floor-plans.

These options were reviewed by the director in February 1988, and encouraged the Committee to continue to look for options. Contact was made with the University of Toronto to investigate further daycare options in the area. In April 1988, the Daycare Committee met with the Assistant Director for finance to discuss the feasibility of construction of an on- site centre at the north-west corner of the Royal Ontario Museum. Back in January 1988 the Committee was also in close contact with the Ministry of Community and Social Services and the Ministry was invited to meet with the Committee in August 1988 to discuss various options. The Ministry of Community and Social Services recommended institutions to contact in downtown Toronto who were exploring child care options, and the Committee contacted Creed’s and the Centre for Christian Studies in the Charles St. and Bay St. area. In January 1989, the Committee proposed a consortium arrangement with the Jewish Community Centre (JCC – Bloor & Spadina) day care project to explore this option. The committee continued to look for support to develop a day care facility in to the early 1990s but the initiative was disbanded because of lack of senior management response to the reports produced by the Joint Daycare Feasibility Study Committee.

Frederick William Kerr was appointed Fisheries Overseer in Upper Canada in around 1888 following the death of his father John William Kerr. He died in 1902.

John William Kerr (1812-1888) was appointed Fisheries Overseer in Upper Canada in 1864. He kept a handwritten diary of his activities and observations concerning the fish and game population of the region of southern Ontario around Lake Ontario from the Niagara River to Belleville.
He was born on June 24, 1812m and lived in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. He served in the Irish Constabulary for several years before emigrating to Canada with his wife Mary Elizabeth Winslow (1826-1907), who was also from County Fermanagh.
John and Mary crossed the Atlantic as passengers in a sailing vessel and landed in New York. From there they proceeded by the Erie Canal to Buffalo and Lake Erie. They entered Canada at Port Stanley on the north shore of Lake Erie on August 14, 1944. They spent the next five years with John’s uncle, also John William Kerr, near St. Thomas, Ontario. During the winter of 1844-1845, John taught school.
For the next five years, John worked in the Post Office in London, Ontario. He and his wife then moved to Hamilton, Ontario, where he was employed by the Great Western Railway as Chief Clerk in the Engineers’ Office. He retired from the Railway in 1854. Following his retirement from the railway, he obtained a Crown Grant of 100 acres of land on the brow of Hamilton Mountain in Barton Township, about two miles east of the ‘Jolly Cut’ and situated east of Gage Avenue at the point where Ottawa Street reached the ‘Mountain Top Road’. The point of the escarpment there was called Kerr’s point. On this tract of land he built a large house which still stands on part of the property. John and Mary raised a family of five daughters and four sons on this homestead.
In addition to establishing the farm, John Kerr was appointed first Fisheries Overseer in Upper Canada in 1864. He also undertook supervision of the control of hunting of game in this area. He continued in this appointment until near his death on May 8, 1888.
He was succeeded by his oldest living son, Frederick, who died in 1902. Following Frederick, the next oldest son, Charles John Kerr, became Fisheries Overseer and Game Warden for the County of Wentworth. Charles retired from this position several years before his death in 1942.
[written by Dr. Robert B. Kerr in 1981]

John Christian Krug was born in Toronto in 1938. He obtained his Ph. D. from the University of Toronto in 1970. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut fur Spezielle Botanik in Zurich, Switzerland. He returned to Canada in 1973 as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo. In 1974 he was appointed to the Department of Biology at the University of Toronto and in 1982 was named Curator of the Herbarium. He was also a Research Fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum from 1978 to 1996, and a Research Associate from 1996 to 2005. He oversaw the transfer of the Herbarium from the University to the Museum in 2000. His field of interest was the study of Pyrenomycetes and was world renowned for his expertise on coprophilous fungi. He collected fungi throughout North and Central America, the Caribbean, and Western Europe. He was one of the first mycologists to conduct expeditions in East Asia and Africa. He died in Toronto in 2005.

R. R. H. (Roy Richard Henry) Lemon was born on July 13, 1927 in England. He served in the Royal Air Force at the end of World War n, working in air photo interpretation. Following his service, he pursued a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Wales, which he completed in 1951. Thereafter, he moved to Canada, where he completed both a Master of Arts degree (1953) and a Doctorate degree (1956) at the University of Toronto. He also became a Canadian citizen. Upon receiving his doctorate, Dr. Lemon served as a geologist for the British Colonial Geological Survey in Ghana from 1956 to 1957. He was also employed by Texaco, during which time he worked out of Trinidad, covering Central and South America. From 1958 to 1959 Dr. Lemon taught, as an assistant professor, at Queen's University in Kingston. In the spring of 1959 he married his wife, Mary Lemon, whom he had met overseas (she was teaching English). Together, they adopted Christopher, their only child. Following his employment at Queen's, Dr. Lemon worked as a curator with the Royal Ontario Museum, which he joined in September 1957. He began his work as an assistant curator and was later promoted to associate curator of the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology. While performing his duties as a curator, Dr. Lemon also taught courses at the University of Toronto as a special lecturer. In 1969, Dr. Lemon and his family moved to Florida where he joined the Geography Department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Dr. Lemon founded the University’s Geology Program and was chair of the Program (which later became a Department) [rom 1973-1992. He retired in 1998.

Dr. Lemon was a member of the Museums Association, the Geological Society of America, the Canadian Paleontological Association, the International Paleontological Union, and a fellow of the Geological Society of London. In the course of his career he published numerous articles in academic journals and authored several monographs. After his retirement, Dr. Lemon moved to the Gainesville area of Florida. He passed away on February 22, 2001 from complications following surgery.

Hoyes Lloyd was born on November 30, 1888 in Hamilton, Ontario to Henry Hoyes Lloyd and Lizzie Moore. His family moved to Toronto the next year, where Lloyd grew up. He received his university education at the University of Toronto where he specialized in chemistry. In 1910 he was appointed Assistant to the Head of the Chemistry Department. Two years later he became a chemist for the City of Toronto's Health Laboratories, having been the University of Toronto's official candidate. His task was to improve Ontario's milk supply by trying to eliminate tubercular cattle.

Throughout his life, Lloyd was an avid bird watcher and collector. On 11 December 1918 he became Canada's first Dominion Ornithologist. He was appointed game officer by the Justice Department and was given the powers of a Justice of the Peace throughout the Dominion. He was responsible for the enforcement of the Migratory Bird Regulations under the Convention Act. His responsibilities gradually expanded to include responsibility for all of the wild life in Dominion parks and for administering the Northwest Game Act. One year after joining the Parks Branch of the Department of Interior, his title was changed to Supervisor of Wildlife Protection in Canada.

In 1943 Lloyd retired from this position to pursue his ornithological interests around the world. Lloyd was a member and one time president of the American Ornithologist' Union. In 1923 he became President of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club. Throughout his career he wrote articles, pamphlets, gave public lectures and radio interviews to publicize the importance of bird conservation. Lloyd died in 1978.

Christine Lockett earned her Honours BA in Art History from the University of Leicester, England in 1974, and her Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto in 1988. She began working at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1978 as an assistant editor in the Publications department. Over the next several years she worked in Interpretive Planning and Exhibit Design Services. In 1991 she left the ROM for the Legislative Assembly. In 1993 she returned to the ROM to take up the position of Manager of the Exhibitions Department. Over the subsequent years she led Exhibit Planning, first as Director, then Senior Director and finally as Assistant Vice President of Exhibit Planning and Community Programs. Christine Lockett left the ROM as of April 1, 2010.

E.B.S. Logier was a herpetologist, artist and natural historian. He worked in the Department of Ichythyology and Herpetology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and was the author of The Reptiles of Ontario (1939) and The Frogs, Toads and Salamanders of Eastern Ontario (1952.)

Eugene Bernard Shelley Logier was born on February 27, 1893 in Dublin, Ireland to Eugene Adolphe Logier and Emily Shelley Seale, who worked as Civil Engineers. Logier was the second born of four children (Ruth, Emily and Alexander or Theo.) He spent his early childhood living in Clontarf East, Dublin. In July 1906, his father immigrated to Canada, with Logier and his siblings following with their mother in October of the same year.

Logier became associated with the Royal Ontario Museum in 1915 at the age of 22, and by September 1916 he was appointed part-time as an artist. He worked 10 month contracts between 1917-1921, before he began working full-time in 1921. Logier became an Assistant Curator in 1947, Associate Curator in 1950 and Curator in 1959 all for the Department of Ichthyology and Herpetology. He retired from the ROM on June 30, 1961.

He married Beryl Bruce in 1933. They had one daughter, Sybil Shelley Logier.

Logier died in Toronto on March 16, 1979.

(Sarah) Margaret MacLean was born in 1871 in Cornwall, Ontario. She was the daughter of Alexander MacLean (1834-1908) and Sarah Smith (1838-1897). She grew up in Ontario, Canada but moved to Japan in 1904 at the age of 33 to accompany her father who had been appointed Canada’s commercial agent to Japan. She spent time travelling in China which became the inspiration for her publication “Chinese Ladies at Home”. She remained in Japan with her father until he was posted to China in 1908. Margaret returned to Ottawa Canada in 1909 following her father’s death in Shanghai.

Margaret MacLean became a fixture at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1915 visiting the museum often. She proposed the creation of an employed position for an official Museum Guide but was told that no such position existed. Margaret MacLean continued to visit the museum and engaged in a course of personal study. In 1918 she was authorized to give private tours and lectures of the Museum. In 1919 the position of Official Guide was created and Margaret MacLean began working for the Royal Ontario Museum as a paid employee. Her lectures and school tours were enormously popular and her workload increased.

Margaret MacLean resigned from the Royal Ontario Museum as of February 15, 1924 citing ill health. She continued to travel after her resignation from the Museum. Margaret MacLean died on May 30, 1931 having laid the foundation for the development of the Education Department and programs such as the Saturday Morning Club.

Charles Macnamara (1870 – December 23, 1944) was an amateur photographer, entomologist, historian, and field naturalist born in 1870 in Quebec City, Quebec. He had a twin brother named Richard (Dickie), who died at the age of 10 due to typhoid fever. In 1880, his family moved to Arnprior, Ontario. When Macnamara left high school at the age of 14 in 1885, he joined his father in working for the McLachlin Brothers lumbering firm until 1936 where he worked six days a week as a bookkeeper. Despite his busy work schedule, he managed to maintain meticulously detailed documents on nature; including beavers, orchids, and soil insects.

Around late 1909 and early 1910, Macnamara built a log cabin to function as a stopping-off place he could use to study nature and the woods near Arnprior. Over the fireplace, he painted the Ojibway motto No-piming en-dad jawen-imid – "The dweller in the woods is always happy." This phrase later inspired the name of the Nopiming Game Reserve which was set up by Macnamara in 1920 near Arnprior so that the local and migratory wildlife would have a safe habitat. In August of that same year, he discovered and described a new species of Pseudachorutes (Collembola). He also spent 14 years observing and documenting a beaver colony near Marshall's Bay. The Macnamara Field Naturalist's Club, which was founded in 1984, was named after him.

He learned French and German, exchanged letters with European booksellers and scientists and took correspondence courses with Cornell University where he completed a science degree. While he participated in more social activities in his youth, most of his intellectual life took place over long distance and he became a recluse in his later years. This was made evident by the fact that he declined to meet a German scientist he had corresponded with when the scientist visited Montreal. Macnamara wrote many articles for the Ottawa Field Naturalist's Club and contributed to other publications such as the Canadian Field-Naturalist, the Journal of the American Museum of Natural History, and the British Journal of Photography.

The Communications Department was established during the 1954/55 fiscal year as Publications and Information Services, with the purpose of creating an impression in the public mind of change, growth and vitality of the museum through news releases and information related to the press.

During the 1958/59 fiscal year, the Publications and Information Services program became the Office of Information Services. News releases and press information were handled by the Information Services Department from ca.1965 – 1977. The Information Services Department became the Programmes and Public Relations Department from 1977 – 1990.

During the 1989/90 fiscal year, the Programmes and Public Relations Department changed its name to the Public Relations Department. The department further reorganized and became Marketing & Public Relations in the 1991/92 fiscal year and remained this name until the 1993/94 fiscal year when it changed to Marketing Communications.

In 2019 the ROM Social Media team (and possibly web team) was a part of the Marketing division. It is not clear when they were added to the Marketing function.

Ella Nancy Martin (August 28, 1902-May 16, 1982) was a senior lecturer in the education department at the Royal Ontario Museum from 1938 until her retirement in 1971. Miss Martin studied at Oxford University and the University of Toronto and worked as teacher in Italy, British Columbia and Ontario. She joined the ROM’s Division of Public Instruction in 1938 as one of the museum’s first professional and experienced teachers. Ella Martin devoted her career to improving museum education through object-based learning. She helped develop many educational programs for both children and adults including the museum’s film programs in 1950, a variety of lecture series, travelling kits for schools and the Saturday Morning Club. For over twenty-five years, Ella Martin also organized a number of extension courses on an assortment of topics, often in collaboration with the University of Toronto. Additionally, Ella Martin was a long-time member of the Canadian Museums Association and participated in a number of international museum conferences including the UNESCO Seminar on “The Museum as a Cultural Centre in the Development of the Community” in Tokyo in 1960 and the ICOM meeting in the Netherlands in 1962. Miss Martin also received a number of fellowships to travel and study abroad including the Adult Education Fellowship (1958) and the Canada Council Fellowship (1961-1962). When she retired from the ROM in 1971, she continued to act as a part-time museology consultant for the museum. Ella Martin was appointed to the ROM Board of Trustees from 1974-1977 and afterwards served as an Honorary Trustee.

Chris McGowan (1942-) is a Curator Emeritus of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum. Born in England, McGowan received his PhD at the University of London. After receiving his doctorate, he became a Curator in Vertebrate Palaeontology with the ROM, later cross appointed as a Professor of Zoology at the University of Toronto. McGowan retired in 2002.

Thomas McIlwraith (1824-1903) was a business man and ornithologist; one of the founders of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and author of ‘Birds of Ontario’.

McIlwraith was born in Newton-on-Ayr, Scotland, on December 25, 1824 as one of ten children of Thomas McIlwraith, and Jean Adair Forsyth. In 1853, he married Mary Park, and they had four daughters and four sons.

McIlwraith moved to Upper Canada in late 1853 to become the Superintendent of the gas works in Hamilton, Ontario. He began publishing bird observations in the Canadian Journal as early as 1860, and the first edition of his ‘Birds of Ontario’ was published in 1886, with the second edition coming out in 1894.

Thomas Forsyth McIlwraith was born April 9, 1899 in Hamilton, Ontario to Thomas Forsyth McIlwraith and Mary Stevens. On June 20th, 1917 McIlwraith enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force.

McIlwraith graduated from McGill and Cambridge and, as field assistant at the National Museum of Canada, conducted research on the Northwest Coast, 1922-24. In 1925 he joined the University of Toronto and was a professor and head of the department of anthropology from 1936 to 1952. Thomas F. McIlwraith married Beulah Knox on June 17, 1925.
At the University of Toronto, McIlwraith built a department in which archaeological, linguistic, physical and ethnological anthropology all found a place. His own research interests lay in ethnology and, later, in the effects of change on Indigenous people. In 1939, he edited along with C.T. Loram, The North American Indian Today and in 1948 published the Bella Coola Indians.

McIlwraith served as Chairman of the Social Science Research Council, President of the Royal Canadian Institute and the Royal Society of Canada, fellow of the Royal Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, he remained a research associate of the National Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum.
McIlwraith died in Toronto on March 29, 1964.