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Donald S. Angus lived in Senneville, Québec. He operated the boat “Alert” in the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers from 1912 to 1975.

Chester Ernest Beachell was born in Winnipeg on September 20, 1915, and grew up in Rosser, Manitoba. He attended Dominion Business College in Winnipeg in 1933 before transferring to the University of Manitoba in 1934 to study engineering. He did not graduate with a degree but began working instead in 1937, maintaining projectors for Western & Associates Theatres in Winnipeg. In 1939 he was hired as a Studio Engineer by CJGX Yorkton to design and build consoles for their Winnipeg station, before moving to Yorkton, Saskatchewan, to design and build the station console there. In 1944, Beachell and his family moved to Ottawa to assume the role of Recording Studio Engineer at the Radio Bureau, Ottawa, where he recorded sessions with Members of Parliament for the program “Report from Parliament Hill.” In 1947, he accepted the job of Chief Engineer and Studio Designer for the new FM station CFRA in Ottawa, which may have been the first private FM station in Canada. He joined the National Film Board (NFB) in 1949 working first as a Sound Equipment Maintenance officer. A year later, in 1950, he was promoted to Chief of Technical Research and Development, and was appointed Senior Research Officer, Technical Research Division, in 1951. While in this role Beachell developed or modified technologies to support the work of colleagues at the Board. He earned 60 patents, including a patent in 1957 for the Sprocketape system, a lighter-weight sound recording technology to be used with portable cameras that enabled the NFB’s emerging cinema vérité style of shooting of documentaries on location. Beachell wrote about many of his innovations in the Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. For his Sprocketape system innovation, Beachell was given a Civil service award for contribution to technical progress. In 1958, he was asked to provide technical assistance to the Sound Division of the Jamaican Film Unit. In 1961, he was elected a member of the National Research Council’s honorific group ‘The Inventors’ of Canadian Patents and Developments. Beachell and his colleagues built an automated, multi-projector system for the NFB’s contribution for Expo 67. He took up scuba diving as a personal interest, receiving his certification in 1969. This led to his development of the hydrophone and his involvement with many missions to capture sound for NFB and other projects, including: November 1970, Joe MacInnis’s underwater research station Sublimnos in Tobermory, Ontario; February 1971, MacInnis Arctic II expedition to Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories for the NFB project ‘The Sea;’ 1971, recorded dolphins at the Montreal Aquarium for further sound for ‘The Sea;’ March 1972, Spanish Honduras recordings from the Aquarius II vessel; camera and sound for the NFB production “We call them killers” on orcas at Sealand of the Pacific, Oak Bay, Vancouver Island; November 1972, MacInnis Arctic III expedition at Resolute Bay, sound at the Sub-Igloo research station; 1973 sound for Bill Mason’s film “In Search of the Bowhead Whale” that documented Scott McVay’s expedition off the coast of Alaska; 1974 for MacInnis Arctic IV expedition that was the subject of an NFB film and a television project called “Inukshuk”; 1975, Atiba I underwater habitat in Noyan, Quebec; 1976 underwater recording and photography for the film “Under-water Man” about the Canadian Forces submarine ‘Ojibwa’; 1977, underwater recording and photography of SDL (Submersible Diver Lockout) I certification, Canadian Forces Atlantic and US Navy Ocean Simulation Systems; and, sound recording and photography of archeological dive site of British Gun Ship Sapphire which sank in 1696 off Bays Bull, Newfoundland. In addition to or in response to these projects, Beachell designed: a monochrome underwater television system; a stereo sound recording system that could be carried by one diver; with his colleague Stan Cole, a water-proof housing so the CBC could use its Plumbicon Colour Television camera underwater; an audio cassette lip sync recording and playback system; with Stan Cole and Bert van Barneveld, a separate strip sub-titling system for home, television and theatrical use; and, a system to automatically control still photography of rail right-of-way to produce a set number of frames per mile. At the time of his retirement in 1980, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers awarded Beachell the John Grierson International Gold Medal and made him a Life Fellow. The Audio Engineering Society also made him Life Member. The National Film Board named its foley studio the Chester Beachell Foley Studio in his honour. Beachell died December 21, 2002, in Edmonton, Alberta.

Jacques C. Beauchamp was born in Ottawa on 8 June 1928. He received a bilingual education in Ottawa schools and then went to McGill University in Montreal. He graduated with a bachelors in civil engineering in 1952. He started with the Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources on the restoration of historical sites and bridge designs for the National Parks Branch. Beauchamp moved to the federal Department of Public Works (later Public Works Canada) in 1955 where he worked on the design of structures for the Trans-Canada Highway through the Rockies and bridges in the north.

Beauchamp was a District Engineer in Quebec 1960-1967, where he was responsible for the Trans-Canada Highway in Quebec, Roads to Resources, and other civil engineering work. In 1970 Beauchamp became the Director of Bridge Engineering for Public Works Canada (PWC) in Ottawa and the Director General of Structures in 1987. He oversaw the design, assessment and repair of interprovincial bridges. He had oversight of the skating oval, ski jump and bob sled/luge tracks for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary. Beauchamp’s most important project was the preliminary work on the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick across the Northumberland Strait. He was one of the key people in overseeing the preparation of engineering feasibility studies and the first round of tender proposals for the construction of the Confederation Bridge. Beauchamp retired from PWC in 1990. He died in Ottawa on 3 September 2019.

Miriam Burland was born in Saint-Lambert, Quebec in 1902. She attended Longueuil High School and studied math and physics at McGill University. Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1926, she became interested in astrophysics through Vibert Douglas, a prominent Canadian astronomer. Burland joined the Astrophysics Division of the Dominion Observatory in 1927, where her main responsibility was photoelectric photometry of Cepheid variables using the 38cm refractor. She began to take part in meteor work alongside Malcolm Thomson in 1934, and maintained an interest in the area for over 20 years. Encouraged by Peter Millman, another astronomer who later worked at the Observatory, she organized other observers and reduced the data from their observations. She was transferred to the Seismology Division for the duration of the Second World War. Over her career at the Observatory, she was a member of three Canadian expeditions observing major solar eclipses in 1932, 1954 and 1962. From the mid-1950s until her retirement, she served as the Observatory’s public relations education officer, which involved compiling reports, giving public tours, and answering inquiries. During this time, she also coordinated a meteor observation program in Canada for the International Geophysical Year (1957-58) with Peter Millman, and was in charge of the visual program responsible for observing meteors under the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys and the National Research Council. In 1960, she was among the Observatory’s representatives at the opening of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia. Throughout the 1960s, she served on the National Committee for Canada in the International Astronomical Union. Burland retired from the Observatory on September 22, 1967. In 1974, the National Museum of Science and Technology acquired the 15-inch equatorial telescope that Burland had previously worked with, and Museum staff continued to consult with her on astronomical matters.

She served as the Secretary for the Ottawa Centre section of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) from 1930-1933, and from 1935-1941 served as the Vice-President, President and Honourary President. RASC awarded her with the Service Award in 1963. She was a regular contributor to the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and wrote for the “About our Authors” section until 1977. Burland was also a member of the American Astronomical Society and la Société Astronomique de France.

She was also involved in the Zonta Club in Ottawa. She was in charge of the housing committee, and served as president in 1941. She died in Ottawa on April 1, 1996.

For further information on the company Camions à incendie Pierreville Limitée, please see the authority record for the company Camions Pierre Thibault Inc.

The origin of the Pierre Thibault company can be traced back to 1908 when Charles Thibault worked as a coachbuilder and blacksmith in Sorel, Quebec. Pierre Thibault, son of Charles, pursued his father’s business in St-Robert, Quebec, for several years before moving to Pierreville in 1938. The company signed a considerable number of contracts during the Second World War and grew in size. It incorporated in 1957, becoming Pierre Thibault Canada Limitée. During the 1960s, it grew to become the biggest manufacturer of fire engines in Canada. Its vehicles were purchased throughout Canada, and even in the United States of America, South America, and Jamaica. In 1968, a family dispute following the death of the patriarch, Pierre Thibault, led to a rift between Pierre’s nine sons and a breakup of the family company. The five elder brothers opened a new company, Camions à incendie Pierreville Limitée, in St-François du Lac. This began a period of intense competition between the two companies. The original company, Pierre Thibault Canada Limitée, later suffered bankruptcies and was sold several times before being bought in 1979 by René Thibault, one of the elder brothers and founders of the rival company. With the purchase, Camions à incendie Pierreville Limitée was renamed Camions Pierre Thibault Incorporated. Camion Pierre Thibault Inc. went on to purchase Camions à incendie Pierreville Limitée in 1985 when it entered bankruptcy, bringing the two family businesses together again. Most operations were moved to the factory at St-François. However, also during this time, three of the Thibault brothers had started their own businesses: Guy created Tibotrac in Terrebonne in 1979; Yvon created Phoenix in Drummondville in 1985; and, Charles-Étienne created C.E. Thibault, also in 1985. In 1990, Camions Pierre Thibault Inc. experienced financial difficulties and was bought by three businessmen in association with the Fonds de Solidarité de la Fédération des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ). The company was renamed NovaQUINTech. The company Phoenix entered bankruptcy and was purchased by NovaQUINTECH in 1992. Two years later NovaQUINTech grew again when it purchased MCI, a manufacturer of buses and renamed that company Nova Bus. In 1995, NovaQUINTech was reorganized as a division of Nova Bus. This company was sold in 1997 to the American company Pierce, putting an end to 90 years of work by a major Canadian company. Today only work to satisfy warranties is undertaken in the factory at Pierreville, carried out by the company Quebec Inc. (9053 2698), the donor of the archives. The older factory at Pierreville was bought in 2000 by one of the grandchildren of Pierre Thibault, Carl, the son of René, who runs with his wife Marie, the fire engine company Camions Carl Thibault Inc.

The Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC) was Canada's oldest, second largest, and second longest lasting locomotive-building company. It was originally known as the Ontario Foundry, established by John Counter and John Honeyman in Kingston, Ontario, circa 1848, and taken over by James Morton in 1854. The company was often referred to as the Kingston Locomotive Works. The company built its first five locomotives for the Grand Trunk Railway over the period 1854-1856. Morton died in 1864 and the company was sold to a group of prominent Montreal investors, who renamed it the Canadian Engine and Machinery Company in 1865. Following a reorganization in 1878, the name was changed to the Canadian Locomotive & Engine Company and the head office was moved to Montreal. However, in 1881 control of the Company was assumed by an influential group of Kingston politicians and businessmen, including William Harty, and it was once again reorganized and the head office returned to Kingston. A new two-story erecting shop was started and heavy machinery was updated. The success of the Company during this period attracted the famous Scottish firm of Dübs & Company, who purchased a controlling interest in 1887. Bankrupt in 1900, the Canadian Locomotive & Engine Company was purchased by former owner William Harty and a different group of partners in 1901, who then renamed it the Canadian Locomotive Company.

For a short period from 1900 to 1904, aside from the railway companies themselves, CLC was the biggest builder of locomotives in Canada. This was the case despite the fact that the International Association of Machinists staged a strike in 1902 that was not effectively settled at CLC until 1906. Montreal Locomotive Works began to outproduce both CLC and the railway companies in 1905. CLC was sold to group of Canadian and British bankers headed by the Aemelius Jarvis in 1911, who started expanding and modernizing the Kingston plant in 1912 and re-named it the Canadian Locomotive Company, Limited. It continued under this name until 1965. The Company carried on with a surge of orders and produced munitions during the First World War. The Federation of Metal Workers went on strike in May 1919, but signed a new contract and were back at work in October of that year. Railway strikes in the United States during the early 1920s slowed production at CLC because they resulted in delays in receipt of raw material, but the Company returned to economic health after 1923. During this decade the company built the first mainline diesel electric locomotive in North America, the CNR 9000. CLC built 1386 steam locomotives for Canadian railways between 1900 and 1929, but with the onset of the Depression in the 1930s, production mostly shut down in Kingston. The Second World War created a surge in locomotive orders again and the Company produced munitions among other war efforts, such as, for example, the training of 100 Royal Canadian Navy boiler makers in CLC’s boiler shop. CLC averaged a production of 84 locomotives a year between 1943 and 1945. The Company was in a good position in the immediate Post-War period, having had sufficient locomotive orders during the war that its plant did not need large scale reconversion. A substantial interest in CLC was purchased by the Baldwin Locomotive Company in 1947. Outright control was purchased in 1950 by Fairbanks-Morse Canada, a subsidiary of the Fairbanks-Morse Company of the United States. While the North American market continued to transition to diesel locomotives, CLC’s participation in Canada’s part of the Colombo Plan for Co-operative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia saw it build 120 WP 4-6-2 Pacific-type steam locomotives to the Indian Government between 1955 and 1956. Over the course of its existence, CLC built approximately 2709 steam locomotives, as well as a large number of diesel-electric and industrial locomotives, for both domestic and foreign markets.

In 1955, CLC purchased the design assets of industrial locomotive maker Davenport-Bessler Company, which included design assets of the H.K. Porter Company. The company had built 328 diesel locomotives between 1929 and 1955, when diesel orders began to dry up. The company ultimately failed to make a successful transition from steam to diesel locomotive production. Its Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston designs proved no match in the market place for locomotives built by the Montreal Locomotive Works (a division of the American Locomotive Company) and especially the General Motors Diesel Division located in London, Ontario. The name of the company was officially changed to Fairbanks Morse (Canada) Ltd. in 1965. Attempts were made to build a variety of other equipment, but a strike led to the closure of the plant in 1969. It was demolished in 1971.

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was a private venture incorporated in 1881 for the purpose of constructing and operating a transcontinental railway within Canada. With considerable government assistance, the first transcontinental line was completed on November 7, 1885. Over the following decades the enterprise was very successful developing substantial interests in a wide range of fields including: transportation, immigration, settlement/colonization, exploitation of natural resources, maritime services, and tourism. By the early 20th century the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was the wealthiest and most influential corporate body in Canada.

Like many 19th century railways, Canadian Pacific was a vertically integrated organization that allowed management a high degree of control over all aspects of the company’s supply chain and business affairs. This was particularly important in the development and maintenance of steam locomotive and rolling stock fleets. Steam locomotives were designed to meet the diverse operating requirements of the company which by 1937 was operating close to 38,000 kilometres of track in most regions of Canada. At the same time, railway mechanical departments were under constant pressure to improve the efficiency of the locomotive fleet with respect to fuel consumption and maintenance. This demand for improved operation and efficiency was a constant in steam locomotive design throughout the period.

Under the supervision of the Chief of Motive Power, at headquarters in Montreal, the railway’s Mechanical Department provided engineering and technical expertise for locomotives, heavy equipment, and engineering issues related to other rolling stock. Typically, this involved the design of new locomotives for and technical improvements to the existing fleet. Canadian Pacific’s steam locomotive roster by the mid-1930s listed more than 3000 locomotives. The process of designing a locomotive started with the Chief Mechanical Engineer, who could also be known as the Locomotive Superintendent. In a lot of cases, these men originated from England where they had previous worked in the field. CPR had the following Chief Mechanical Engineers over the era of steam: Kennet W. Blackwell, 1881-1883; Francis Robert Fontaine Brown, 1883-1890; David Preston, 1890-1893; Roger Atkinson, 1893-1901; Edward Averett Williams, 1901-1903; Henry Hague Vaughn, 1904-1915, (A.W. Horsey, Chief Draughtsman); William E. Woodhouse,1915-1918; William Henry Winterrowd, 1918-1921; Charles Henry Temple, 1921-1928; and Henry Blaine Bowen, 1928-1949.

The Chief Mechanical Engineer would work in the drawing room with their assistants, draughtmen and tracers. Engineers and draughtsmen in 1937 numbered around 118, indicating the vast amount of staff within the department.

The Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR) was incorporated in 1881. It was originally founded to construct the transcontinental railway in Canada, but diversified its holdings over time to include hotels, shipping lines, airlines, mining and telecommunications. The CPR created its marine transport arm, the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamships Services (CPSS), and purchased three ships that were launched in 1883 for use on the Great Lakes in support of the construction of the railway.

CPSS expanded next into the Pacific by chartering sailing vessels to bring tea and other commodities from China and Japan, the first of which arrived at Port Moody only three weeks after the first regulary scheduled train had crossed the continent. The aim was to avoid sending empty freight cars east after trains delivered their western shipments. The company decided to establish a regular Pacific steamship service after securing the contract from the British Government for mail service between Hong Kong and the U.K. Mail contracts helped subsidize passenger transport, though the CPR’s future business would come to be dependent on the flow of emigrants to Canada. Freight transport was a secondary focus at this time, with passenger ships transporting low volume, high value freight.

In 1889, CPSS placed an order for three 6,000-ton vessels with Naval Construction & Armaments Company of Barrow, UK, for the Pacific route. The ships were the Empress of India, the Empress of Japan and the Empress of China. Canadian Pacific historian George Musk notes “the traffic brought to the railroad by the Pacific Empresses undoubtedly helped to save the Canadian Pacific from the disaster which overtook so many American railroads during the depression years 1893-1895.” (Musk, 1956, pp.3-4).

CPSS built business on new routes by first chartering ships or signing agreements with established steamship lines, and then purchasing or commissioning the construction of its own ships. At first CPSS depended on other companies for North Atlantic crossings, however Canadian Pacific wanted to control the last link in the route from Asia to the UK, and there was political pressure on the company to introduce faster steamships to compete with steamship lines serving ports in the United States. In 1903, CPSS acquired eight passenger and seven cargo liners from the ‘Beaver Line’ of the Elder Dempster Company to begin its Atlantic passenger and freight services. The Allan Line, which at the time held the British mail contract, introduced the first large turbine-driven vessels in North Atlantic service, in 1905. To be competitive, CPSS ordered the passenger liners Empress of Britain and Empress of Ireland and negotiated a half share in the mail contract, in 1906. Gradually the two companies began to cooperate. The CPR bought the Allan Line in 1909 but continued to run it as a separate line until 1915. During this time CPSS attended its first Atlantic Conference. These passenger conferences held between rival companies led to agreements on minimum prices. The outbreak of the First World War put the Conference in abeyance. In 1921, the Transatlantic Passenger Conference continued its work.

Fifty-two ships of the CPSS fleet were made available to the British Admiralty during the First World War. They were used as armed merchant cruisers, transports or cargo carriers. Fourteen ships were lost to enemy action or marine accident during the War and others were sold to the Admiralty. Post-war shortages slowed orders for new liners, but the company bought four German ships that had been seized as reparations.

In 1915 the CPR changed CPSS to a separate operating company within its overall corporate structure called Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Limited (CPOS) with its own Board of Directors. The operating company’s head office was in London, England. The name Canadian Pacific Ocean Services Limited was changed to Canadian Pacific Steamships Limited (CPS) in 1921. The name better reflected all of its marine transport services, including those on the Great Lakes and the lakes and rivers in British Columbia. The company entered into the cruise business the following year when the Frank C. Clark Travel Agency of New York chartered the Empress of Scotland for a cruise to the Mediterranean. CPS launched nineteen ships over this period of expansion in the 1920s despite strong ongoing competition from other companies.

During the Second World War, twenty-two CPS ships were made available to the British Admiralty. They served as troopships, armed merchant cruisers, prisoner of war carriers and passenger liners. Only five of these vessels returned to service. Two of the ships were sold to the British Admiralty, the others were damaged or sunk. CPS staff, including Canadian Pacific Chairman and President Sir Edward Beatty, were loaned to various government departments. Seventy-one of these employees were decorated for their service and 236 died in the war.

In June 1948 CPS headquarters moved from London to Liverpool. CPS did not replace its full fleet of passenger liners after the War and began to implement cost-reducing measures. The growth of air travel made CPS passenger service uneconomical and both ocean passenger and cruise services ended in 1971. The remaining passenger liners were, for the most part, sold to cruise companies.

The focus of the company’s marine transport business shifted entirely to freight. In the early 1960s, the revolution in container shipping had transformed freight handling. CPS chartered its first container vessels in 1963. Whereas the marine shipping service had been seen as a feeder to railway service in the past, in 1968 the company decided to begin operating it as an independent profit centre. The name of the company changed to CP Ships in 1969, while remaining a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific limited, and its headquarters moved from Liverpool back to London. The company ordered and chartered new ships. From the mid-1980s through the 1990s, CP Ships expanded through the acquisition of a number of lines.

With the break up of parent company, Canadian Pacific Limited, CP Ships became a separately traded public company at the end of September 2001. CP Ships was then purchased by TUI AG in 2005 and the name was not used after 2006 when the services were incorporated into TUI AG’s Hapag-Lloyd division. The trademark name, Canadian Pacific Steamships, and the right to use its checkered house flag was acquired by Eyecon Enterprises Inc in 2012, and Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd. as an apparel company was incorporated in 2013 (Wikipedia).

David Murray Carlisle was born in 1936 in Grand Prairie, Alberta. He studied electrical engineering at the University of Alberta. One summer during his studies, Carlisle worked at Canadian Protective Coating to measure and plot the flow of electricity in oil and gas pipelines. After graduation, he worked another summer for Canadian Protective Coating before leaving to undertake a 3-year scholarship to work at Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company and to pursue post-graduate work at the University of Manchester, UK. At Metrovicks, Carlisle rotated positions, spending time in the Computer Lab where the company had not long previously introduced the first commercial computer with all-transistor circuitry. He worked on the large scale AEI 1010 system. Carlisle also had a rotation in the Metrovicks’ sales office. At University of Manchester, he learned to program the school’s Ferranti Mercury computer.

Returning to Canada in May 1961, Carlisle began his career at IBM as a systems engineering trainee just as the company began to sell 1401 computers (first computer where customers could write their own programs in a practical way). After several months of training, Carlisle started work as an engineer at IBM’s Edmonton branch installing 1401 computers. He would learn to install and program all six of IBM’s Electronic Data Processing (EDP) computer lines. Carlisle switched to sales in 1963. He moved to the Toronto headquarters of IBM Canada in 1964, becoming Manager of Commercial Analysis. At this time IBM was retiring its EDP computer lines, replacing them with System/360 computers that were software interchangeable (all could run the same programs and read the same data). In 1966, Carlisle received an IBM Outstanding Achievement Award, was promoted to Marketing Manager, and moved to the IBM Ottawa branch office. In Ottawa, he was involved with large procurement projects meant to improve computation at Government ministries such as Revenue Canada, as well as at companies like Bell-Northern Research.

Carlisle left IBM Canada to pursue a focus on online computer services, joining AGT Data Services in Montreal in 1970 and then at Datacrown in 1971. Both companies were service bureau, providing data processing to companies that could then forego a medium-size computer for their work. Carlisle was Vice-President of Marketing at Datacrown until he left the company at the end of 1978 after its merger with SDL. Infomart, a joint venture between two newspaper companies (Torstar and Southam) hired Carlisle as President and Chief Executive Officer in 1979. Infomart was started to find a solution for electronic publishing and text-search software. However, in 1979 it also entered into an agreement to begin to commercialize the Telidon videotex systems developed by the Federal Department of Communications in response to French and British systems being introduced. In the early 1980s, Infomart described itself as a videotex system operator, a Telidon systems turnkey supplier, and a database search service provider. Carlisle was a principal actor in the dissemination of Telidon and videotex technology in Canada and throughout the world in his role at Infomart. However, Torstar and Southam ultimately refused a deal that would have made Infomart the chosen instrument to commercialize Telidon technology, by, among other means, selling Telidon crown assets to the company. Torstar began cutting costs in 1983 and although Infomart continued to operate at a loss, it was kept afloat while it gradually decreased its videotex operations. David Carlisle was fired on August 3, 1983. Southam bought out Torstar’s share in Infomart and it eventually evolved into a media monitoring business, which was sold to Meltwater in 2017.

After leaving Infomart, Carlisle formed a corporation (Network Videotex Systems Ltd, later renamed Acuna International Inc) that consulted on videotex to many companies in North America, developed and sold a new videotex server software system based on IBM PCs, and participated in the development of 9 separate videotex system operations projects. In 1997, Carlisle joined Price Waterhouse Coopers and ran their service for the Year 2,000 date change problem. After this project ended, Carlisle retired. He described his experiences in the world of early commercial computing in Canada in a memoir called Videotex America.

William Cober was born May 16, 1869. His family was Mennonite and his father ran the sawmill in Moorefield. William worked as a farm labourer in 1896, threshing in the Southern Ontario region. He moved to Stratford and began to work for the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR). He was a fireman who appears to have passed examinations necessary to become a locomotive engineer. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. On March 1, 1905, he married Mary Forrest and the couple had a daughter, Hazel, born June 25, 1907. They lived in Stratford before moving back to Moorefield, possibly circa 1910. William Cober died November 28, 1951.

The W.W. Whitehead Company was founded in 1901 in Davenport, Iowa, and specialized at first in stationary engines and boilers. They soon began to concentrate on light duty steam locomotives used as switchers. In 1904, the company was renamed the Davenport Locomotive Works. It enjoyed considerable success in manufacturing small steam locomotives for industrial use. The company was reorganized and renamed the Davenport-Besler Corporation in 1933 and its products at the time, apart from railway switchers, included road snow plows, grey iron castings, drop forging, steel hammer forging, as well as steel tank and structural steel work. The company began manufacturing its first gasoline locomotives in 1924 and its first diesel locomotives in 1927. Davenport-Besler contributed to the US Second World War effort by manufacturing locomotives. Their contributions were recognized in 1943 with the Army-Navy black "E" Production Award for Excellence in War Production. After the Second World War, the company began focusing almost exclusively on diesel locomotives. Davenport-Besler acquired the locomotive business from the H.K. Porter Company in 1950. Davenport-Besler was to service all Porter Locomotives in use and build duplicate Porter locomotives. However, Canadian Locomotive Works purchased the locomotive division of Davenport-Besler in 1955, including locomotive designs and parts, inventory, patterns, jigs, tools, and fixtures as well as trade names of both Davenport and Porter locomotives. Davenport-Besler closed its plant in Davenport in 1956.

Frank Thomas Davies was born on 12 August 1904 in Methyr Tydfil, Wales, the son of school headmaster Richard Davies and school teacher Jessie Starr Davis. He attended local schools and went to the University College of Wales, Aberystwth, to study physics. Graduating with a BSc in 1925, he went to Saskatchewan where he held various jobs before becoming a demonstrator in physics in the University of Saskatchewan. This influenced Davies to go to McGill University where he received a Masters of Science in 1928.

In 1928 he was chosen by Admiral Richard E. Byrd to go on the first Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928-1930 as a physicist to gather terrestrial and atmospheric data. This expedition included elements of traditional Antarctic expeditions such as grueling physical effort and dog teams as well as newer elements of radio and aircraft. Like all members of the expedition he received the (US) Congressional Gold Medal in 1930. This gave him the experience to lead the Canadian Second Polar Expedition to Chesterfield Inlet, Northwest Territories (now Igluligaarjuk, Nunavut) on Hudson Bay in 1932-1933. The scientific data it gathered was published in two volumes as the Canadian Polar Year Expeditions, 1932-33.

Davies, who had previously worked for the Carnegie Institute of Washington on terrestrial magnetism, became the Director of the Carnegie Geophysical Observatory in Huancayo Peru. He lived with his wife and two children at the observatory in Peru from 1936 to 1939.

Davies returned to Canada at the beginning of the Second World War and joined the National Research Council. He was seconded to do research for both the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Navy on the application of ionospheric data to high frequency radio detection and direction finding. Davies was a member of the Canadian Radio Wave Propagation Committee 1944-1946. It became the nucleus of Radio Physics Laboratory (RPL) of the newly-formed Defence Research Board (DRB) in 1948. Davies was superintendent of the Radio Physics Laboratory, then Director of Physical Research and later Assistant Chief Scientist of DRB.

From 1951 to his retirement in 1969, Davies was Director General of the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE) of DRB. Its priorities included Arctic communications, high altitude research using Black Brant rockets and the design and construction of the Canadian satellites Alouette I launched by NASA in 1962 and Alouette II (1965) as well as later research and communications satellites. Davies was involved in each of these projects.

After his retirement, Davies reconnected with the resurgence of American research in Antarctica. He received honorary doctorates from McGill and York University in 1977 as well as medals from the Canadian government. He was a life member of Canadian Association of Physicists and a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America. Frank T. Davies died on 23 September 1981 at the age of 77.

Edouard Gaston Deville, Surveyor-General, recommended the establishment of a permanent observatory in Ottawa in 1887 (Hodgson, 8). One of the purposes for such an observatory was to have a central location to “store and maintain in proper working order 'a number of fine and expensive astronomical instruments” (Hodgson, 8). In 1890, a first observatory was erected on Cliff Street in Ottawa. It held transit instruments and a 6-inch equatorial telescope, used to determine time and longitude. The situation of this observatory was considered poor and Astronomy Branch staff of the Department of the Interior lobbied for the construction of a National Observatory (Hodgson, 9-10).

Chief Dominion Architect David Ewart designed the Dominion Observatory building in Ottawa, situated on the Agriculture Department's Central Experimental Farm. The building was completed in 1905. At opening, the Observatory had a staff of 31 (Hodgson, 25). The main instrument, a 15-inch refracting telescope, was the largest installed in Canada at that time. William Frederick King, Chief Astronomer for the Department of the Interior, was the Observatory’s first Director.

In 1918, the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Saanich, British Columbia, was opened with a 72-inch telescope to pursue observations beyond the capabilities of the Dominion Observatory in Ottawa.

The Dominion Observatory continued to be responsible for scientific research in astrophysical and allied sciences. The discovery of “Planet X” in 1928 was one of its most significant achievements. The Observatory also addressed problems of everyday application, such as time-keeping. A 28 August 1941 Order-in-Council designated the time established at the Dominion Observatory as official time for Dominion official purposes.

During its existence, the Observatory would report to ever-changing government departments and agencies. In 1936, the Department of the Interior was dissolved and a new Department of Mines and Resources was created. The Observatory reported to its Surveys and Engineering Branch. The change in structure allowed work in seismology and terrestrial magnetism to be consolidated. In 1947, the Dominion Observatories were grouped into one of eight bureaus of the Mines, Forests, and Scientific Services Branch. The Ottawa Observatory consisted of five divisions: Positional Astronomy, Stellar Physics, Terrestrial Magnetism, Seismology and Gravity. In January 1950, after another restructuring, the Observatory began reporting to the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys.

In 1966, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) was created and the Dominion Observatory became part of the Mines and Geosciences Group. The 1966-67 Annual Report for EMR describes the Observatories Branch as concerned with two major disciplines - astronomy and geophysics. A new division Astronomy, Ottawa - was created, which comprised the former divisions of positional astronomy and stellar physics. There were also three divisions concerned with geophysics.

The National Research Council (NRC) gained responsibility for the time and solar observation functions of the Observatory in 1970. The site and its equipment were thereafter used primarily for public demonstration. In 1974 the telescope was transferred to the Canada Science and Technology Museum and Mary Grey, one of the last Observatory staff working on the site, joined the Museum staff as head of its Astronomy Division.