Showing 186 results

People and organizations
Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch
Corporate body · 1990-

The Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch was organized in March of 1990 to: Promote the enjoyment of hawkwatching; Educate people about hawks and hawk migration; Conduct systematic counts of hawks migrating over the Niagara Peninsula; Work for the preservation of raptors in Ontario.

Starting on March 1, and continuing every day until the middle of May, the Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch has people stationed at Beamer Memorial Conservation Area from 8AM to 4PM Standard Time (9AM-5PM Daylight Savings Time) to identify and record every bird of prey that passes overhead. Information is freely available, there is no admission charge, and the best hours are between 10:00am and 2:00pm Standard Time (11AM-3PM Daylight Savings Time).

Yearly summaries from 2009 to the present day are available on the Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch website. https://nphawkwatch.ca/

Person · 1861-1943

William Edwin Saunders (1861-1943) was field naturalist and a pharmacist in London, Ontario and held the position of Professor of Practical Chemistry in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.

Saunders was born in London, Ontario June 28, 1861, to William Saunders, a prominent pharmacist, and Sarah Agnes Robinson, daughter of a Methodist minister. The elder Mr. Saunders was a founder of both the Ontario College of Pharmacy and the Entomological Society of Ontario, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and first director and driving force behind the Federal Experimental Farm in Ottawa, the first of its kind in North America.

He was very interested in nature and wrote many scientific articles on plants, birds, mammals, and other animals, mostly from Southern Ontario. He was one of the founding members of the Ornithological Section of the Entomological Society of Ontario (now the McIlwraith Field Naturalists) and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. He was respectively the first Chairman and President of those organizations. He was also the first Canadian President of the Wilson Ornithological Club (now Society), and one of seven Canadians who were elected to ‘active’ membership in the American Ornithologist’s Union.

Saunders was considered a very important field naturalist of the London area. He has been named the “dean of Ontario field naturalists” and “dean of Ontario Ornithologists” for his influence over the careers of many who became naturalists.

He died June 28, 1943 in London, Ontario.

Campbell, Craig
Person · 1939-2018

Craig Campbell, a resident of Waterloo, was active in the Ontario field naturalist community, and made significant contributions to conservation efforts in Canada through his field research and collaborative work with scientists, academics and conservation agencies. Campbell studied Ontario’s natural heritage (mammals, herpetofauna, plants and butterflies) for more than 50 years, and is responsible for documenting the occurrence of many of Ontario’s threatened and endangered species. He was a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Field Naturalists (Waterloo Region Nature as of 2014), and served as Chairman of their Conservation Committee from 1964-1971. He also served as Vice President of the Canadian Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Society (CARCS). Campbell received the W.W. H. Gunn Conservation Award in 2014 and the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Trust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Martin, Ella N.
Person · 1902-1982

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.

Thompson, Stuart Logan
Person · 1885-1961

Stuart Logan Thompson was born 10 August 1885 in Toronto, Ontario. Like his uncle Ernest Thompson Seton, he was a naturalist who amassed an extensive of natural history specimens. He served overseas during the First World War having enlisted in Februrary of 1916 and was discharged by demobilization in June of 1919. His service file is available digitally from the Library and Archives Canada Database. He married Elizabeth Eleanor Miller on August 19, 1924. She is often referenced in his diaries as Eleanor.

Thompson served as president of the Toronto Field Naturalists Club. He published widely in the popular press and authored three books. He died 23 June 1961 in Toronto. The ROM holds 493 bird specimens collected by Thompson, the majority in Ontario, with some from Manitoba, New Mexico, Quebec, and British Columbia.

Campbell, Iva
Person · 19-

Iva Campbell was a Canadian fashion illustrator. In the 1940s, Campbell worked with Madame Martha, Canadian fashion designer and creator of the Fashion Creators of Canada.

Richardson, George Hubert
Person · 1912-1998

George Hubert Richardson was born in 1912 to physician Thomas Bedford Richardson and Anna (Butland) Richardson. He lived in Toronto with his parents, his brother and five sisters. Richardson attended Bloor Collegiate Instiute in Toronto.

Richardson was a founding member of the Toronto Ornithological Club in 1934. He was an artist and wrote a column published in newspapers "Nature Notes."

Richardson died in 1998.

Ontario Nest Records Scheme
Corporate body · 1956-

The Ontario Nest Records Scheme (ONRS) is a joint project of the Royal Ontario Museum, Bird Studies Canada, and the Canadian Wildlife Service, established in 1956 to track the health of Ontario’s bird populations, by collecting information on nesting success and distribution.

Information on birds’ nests is collected by volunteers and professional researchers, using cards distributed by the ONRS. The information is then entered into a database and used to monitor clutch size, hatching and fledging success, predation rates, and other factors, to determine whether sufficient young are being produced to maintain healthy populations.

The information is also used to provide information on egg laying dates to help identify safe periods for management activities such as harvesting hay or timber, document the effects of climate change on breeding birds, evaluate the impact of predators on nesting success of songbirds, document basic breeding biology such as nesting habitat, nest site selection, incubation period, renesting, additional broods, etc., and to document the breeding distribution of each bird species in Ontario.

Ussher, Richard Davy
Person · 1904-1989

Richard Davy (Dick) Ussher (1904-1989) was a professional naturalist in the Ontario Parks service, and a long time member of the Wilson Ornithological Club.

Peake, Cyril B.
Person · 1891-1966

Cyril B. Peake (1891-1966) was an oologist based in Toronto.

Peake obtained his egg-collecting permit on the recommendation of James L. Baillie of the ROM, with the condition that his collection would be left to the Museum. He collected most of his specimens in Ontario, and continued his activities after his move to Churchill, Manitoba, in 1964.

Cyril Peake died in Churchill on June 27, 1966.

Hawley Stone, Louise
Person · 1903-1997

Louise Hawley Stone (1903-1997) was a devoted friend of the ROM. The Museum’s first volunteer, she was also a donor, fundraiser, Board member and committee chair.
In 1940, Louise Hawley Stone came to a lecture by the ROM’s new Keeper of the Chinese Collections, Bishop William White. Hooked, she studied under him to obtain her Master’s degree, and became a loyal supporter of the Museum.

Her involvement with the ROM spanned over 50 years. As the ROM’s first volunteer, she organized the study room for the Far Eastern Department in 1948. She served as a Board member (1958-1972), and was a frequent donor to the collections. Her donations to just one collection, costume and textiles, made during her lifetime number approximately 1,000 and include Japanese country textiles, English embroidery, and Chinese imperial court costume.

In memory of Bishop White, she helped establish the Bishop White Committee in 1960 to raise funds for the Far Eastern Department and to raise public awareness of Asian studies and the collections. Stone believed that every department should have a support group like the Bishop White Committee. She was instrumental in establishing the Textile Endowment Fund Committee in 1974, with a gift of a $1,000 Aluminum of Canada Bond. In 1994, she also financed the first fully endowed curatorial position at the ROM—the Louise Hawley Stone Chair of Far Eastern Art.

Louise Hawley Stone died in 1997 and left her greatest gift for last. The terms of her will established a charitable trust of $45 million for the Museum, the largest cash bequest ever received by the ROM. The Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust provides a steady income for the Museum to purchase objects for the collections, and fund related research and publications.

Devitt, O. E.
Person · 1904-1992

Otto Edmund Devitt (1904-1992), best known as “Ott” grew up in the Stayner/Wasaga sector of Simcoe County. He married Mary MacKay (d. 1991) and were residents of Richmond Hill.

A Pharmacist by profession, Devitt worked for many years at the T. Eaton Co., Ltd. Store in downtown Toronto as a dispensing chemist. In the early 1950s, Devitt changed careers and worked at the then Ministry of Natural Resources putting him in charge of the Fish and Wildlife library at the Ministry’s District office in Maple, Ontario; a job he held until his retirement in 1970s.

Devitt’s interests and activities were widespread. They included those of diarist, collector, photographer, speaker, ornithologist, and botanist. He produced more than 70 articles embracing a wide range of topics. One of these was The Birds of Simcoe County, originally published in 1943, with a revised edition sponsored by the Brereton Field Naturalists in 1967. He had a special interest in Michigan's Kirtland's Warbler, and presented a paper on this species to the Toronto Ornithological- Club. He was the first local naturalist to find and photograph the nest of the Yellow Rail. He had found the nest himself in the Holland Marsh, just east of Bradford. He photographed almost every species of fern and orchid in Ontario.

Devitt was a founding member of the Toronto Ornithological Club; other memberships he held were of the Toronto Field Naturalists, the Brodie Club and the Richmond Hill Naturalists. Additional interests of his were in Biology, Archaeology and as a local historian.

Berlin, Eugenia
Person · 1905-2003

Eugenia Berlin (1905–2003) was a Russian Empire-born Canadian sculptor, painter, designer and director. Born in Kharkov, Russian Empire, Berlin immigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1925. She studied sculpture, drawing, and design at the L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Geneva, Switzerland under James Vibert and Valentine Métein-Gilliard and privately under William Métein. She attended Central Technical School in Toronto, studying under Elizabeth Wyn Wood and Bobs Coghill Haworth. At the Chouinard School of Art, Berlin studied under Alexander Archipenko and attended the Alexander Archipenko School in New York City. Berlin's primary discipline was sculpture but she also worked in mixed media, pottery, watercolour, and painting.

She practised, and was friends, with some of the pre-eminent artists in Canadian history: Emanuel Hahn, Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Jacobine Jones, Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, as well as artists that included Albert Jacques Franck, EB Cox, AJ Casson, Paraskeva Clark, Harold Town, AY Jackson, JWG Macdonald and Doris McCarthy.

Berlin exhibited at the National Art Gallery of Canada, Royal Canadian Academy, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, London Regional Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Toronto, Hart House at the University of Toronto, UNESCO Exhibition of Canadian Art in Paris 1946, Toronto Winter Fair, King City Public Library (solo exhibition); Eaton's Art Gallery, Roberts Gallery (1959), J.M. Dent and Sons, and the Canadian Portrait Academy. During Berlin's forty year plus career she was appointed Director of the Saturday Morning Club at the Royal Ontario Museum, a position she held until her retirement.

Beny, Roloff
Person · 1924-1988

Roloff Beny (1924–1984) was a Canadian photographer who spent the better part of his life in Rome and on his photographic travels throughout the world. Born Wilfred Roy Beny in Medicine Hat, Alberta, he later took as his first name Roloff, his mother's maiden name.

Atkinson, George E.
Person · [ca.1868-1870]-1913

George E. Atkinson (1869 or 1870-1913) was a taxidermist specializing in birds.

Atkinson was born and raised in Toronto, ON, where he began collecting birds, insects, and reptiles around 1884. When the University of Toronto’s natural history museum was gutted by fire in February 1890, Atkinson offered his assistance to Prof. Ramsay Wright, professor of Biology, in rebuilding the collections. Prof. Wright soon employed him to collect and prepare specimens, and assist in his research of the development of feathers. These specimens were a part of the collection that was used to form the Royal Ontario Museum.
In 1895, Atkinson moved to Manitoba, settling in Winnipeg, where he was appointed official Naturalist for the government of Manitoba. He later settled in Portage la Prairie, where he opened a taxidermy shop.

Atkinson managed a number of natural history exhibits at various exhibitions, including the World’s Fair in Paris, in 1900, where his mounted specimens were awarded the gold medal. He also managed an exhibit of live and mounted specimens for the Pan-American Exposition on Buffalo, NY, in 1901.

He was the first to publish observations from Simcoe County, Ontario, and among the earliest to publish observations from Hamilton, Thunder Bay, and Toronto, Ontario. He went on produce a number of publications on the birds of Manitoba.

Atkinson served as the Recording Secretary of the Ornithological Subsection of the Biological Section of the Canadian Institute, and was actively involved in the Biological Society of Ontario.

Atkinson drowned near Glenboro, Manitoba, in June 1913, while conducting a sailing outing for the Society of Elks junior members.

Vaughan, Nora
Person · 1900-1993

Nora Vaughan (née Gray) (Mrs. O.D. Vaughn) was born in Coldwater, Ontario in 1900. She was the wife of Orval Douglas (O.D.) Vaughan, senior vice-president with Eaton's. She was one of the first women graduates in commerce and finance at the University of Toronto, and the first woman to earn a Master's degree in Chinese archaeology. She was a patron of the arts and an active fundraiser for arts-related projects. Her large collection of rare Chinese art books was donated to the Royal Ontario Museum, as was her collection of Jensen silver. She was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the ROM in 1951 and served until 1968 when she was made an Honourary Member. Nora Vaughan endowed the Vaughan lecture which began in 1978 (possibly 1988).

Vaughan died in Toronto December 12, 1993.

Hecken, Dorothea
Person

Dorothea Hecken was the Registrar of the ROM.

Dickson, H. Lovat
Person · 1902-1987

Lovat Dickson, born Horatio Henry Lovat Dickson was born June 30, 1902 in Victoria, Australia. His father was a mining engineer. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and at eleven he was sent to school in England. At age fifteen, he moved to Canada, where he worked in a mining camp near Jasper, Alberta. He began studies at the University of Alberta in 1923, graduating in 1927 with first class honours in English and earning the Lieutenant Governor’s Gold Medal and a Royal Society of Canada Fellowship in English literature. He earned a Master of Arts degree from the U of A in 1929, but by this time he had already returned to England, where he embarked on a successful career as an editor and publisher, the first Canadian to have a major publishing role in Britain.

Dickson is best known today for his biographies of Grey Owl, Richard Hillary, Radclyffe Hall and H. G. Wells. He also wrote a history of the Royal Ontario Museum in 1986.

He was married to Marguerite Brodie of Montreal. Dickson died in Toronto on January 2, 1987 at the age of 84.

Garnier, John Hutchinson
Person · 1823-1898

Dr. John Hutchinson Garnier (1823-1898) was a physician who lived for many years at Lucknow, Ontario. He was born in Scotland, but of Irish descent, and was educated in Dublin. After graduation, Dr. Garnier spent several years in travel, including some time in India and Cape Colony, and in the early fifties came to Canada. He practised for a few years at Hagersville, Ontario, but about the year 1860 removed to Lucknow, in Bruce County, where the rest of his life was spent. Dr. Garnier spent much time in those early days hunting through this area. Until the later years of his life, he spent some time almost every year, spring and fall, at the St. Clair Flats, where he had a house-boat anchored at the mouth of the Snye Cartier, the easternmost channel of the St. Clair River. Dr. Garnier's collection was gathered from all parts of the world. It was especially rich in reptiles, as he was evidently more interested in this group than in any other. Dr. Garnier contributed a number of articles on herpetology to scientific periodicals. The Garnier collection consisted of approximately 2,500 specimens; 473 of these including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes were presented by Dr. Garnier to the Biological Museum at the University of Toronto in 1891, and over 2,000 were purchased from Dr. Garnier the same year. The collections of the former Biological Museum are held by the Royal Ontario Museum.