Search for ""

Displaying 1-20 of 31 results
Article

Frank Forward

Frank Arthur Forward, engineer, educator, inventor (b at Ottawa 9 Mar 1902; d at Vancouver 6 Aug 1972). Known internationally for his metallurgical-process discoveries, Forward was also a prominent educator and science administrator.

Article

Abraham Gesner

 Abraham Gesner, geologist, author, chemist, inventor (b near Cornwallis, NS 2 May 1797; d at Halifax, NS 29 Apr 1864). Gesner invented kerosene oil and, because of his patents for distilling bituminous material, was a founder of the modern Petroleum Industry.

Article

Hugh Le Caine

Hugh Le Caine, physicist, designer of electronic-music instruments, composer (b at Port Arthur [Thunder Bay], Ont 27 May 1914; d at Ottawa 3 July 1977). He was trained as a physicist at Queen's and later at Birmingham University (Eng).

Article

William Peyton Hubbard

William Peyton Hubbard, politician, inventor, baker, coachman (born 27 January 1842 in Toronto, ON; died 30 April 1935 in Toronto). Hubbard was Toronto’s first Black elected official, serving as alderman (1894–1903, 1913) and controller (1898–1908), and as acting mayor periodically. A democratic reformer, he campaigned to make the city’s powerful Board of Control an elected body. Hubbard was also a leading figure in the push for public ownership of hydroelectric power, contributing to the establishment of the Toronto Hydro-Electric System.

Article

Morse Robb

Frank Morse Robb, inventor, designer, business executive (born 28 January 1902 in Belleville, ON; died 5 August 1992 in Belleville). Frank Morse Robb was one of the first inventors in the world to succeed in developing an electronic organ, the Robb Wave Organ, in 1927.

Article

Frederick Walker Baldwin

Frederick Walker Baldwin, "Casey," aviator, inventor (b at Toronto 2 Jan 1882; d at Beinn Bhreagh, NS 7 Aug 1948). He completed engineering studies at University of Toronto in 1906. In 1907 he became a founding member

Article

August Liessens

August(e) Liessens. Organist, composer, bandmaster, choir conductor, teacher, inventor, b Ninove, near Brussels, 17 Aug 1894, naturalized Canadian 1953, d Sorel, Que, 8 Jul 1954. Liessens was blind from infancy. In 1901 he entered the Institut royal pour les aveugles at Woluwe-St-Lambert, Belgium.

Article

Francis Arthur Sutton

Francis Arthur Sutton, "One-Arm," engineer, inventor, adventurer (b at Hylands, Eng 14 Feb 1884; d at Hong Kong 22 Oct 1944). As a young engineer Sutton built railways in Argentina and in Mexico prior to WWI.

Article

Donald Frank Stedman

Donald Frank Stedman, scientist (b at Tunbridge Wells, Eng 4 Apr 1900; d at Ottawa 2 May 1967). Primarily a chemist, he was one of the earliest staffers of the NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (1930).

Article

Donna Strickland

Donna Theo Strickland, CC, physicist (born 27 May 1959 in Guelph, ON). Donna Strickland is a pioneering physicist, known for her work on ultrafast lasers. She is currently a professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. She has authored more than 90 publications and has made seminal contributions to the field of laser technology. In 2018, Strickland was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on the development of laser technology.

Article

Charles Fenerty

Charles Fenerty, inventor (b at Upper Sackville, NS Jan 1821; d at Lower Sackville 10 June 1892). Concerned about the difficulty a local paper mill was having in obtaining an adequate supply of rags to make quality paper, Fenerty

Article

Hugh Le Caine

Le Caine, Hugh. Physicist, composer, b Port Arthur (Thunder Bay), Ont, 27 May 1914, d Ottawa 3 Jul 1977; M SC (Queen's) 1939, PH D (Birmingham) 1952, honorary D MUS (McGill) 1971, honorary LLD (Toronto) 1973, honorary D MUS (Queen's) 1974.

Article

Roland Galarneau

Roland Galarneau, CM, machinist and inventor (born 16 February 1922 in HullQuebec; died 22 May 2011 in Hull). In the late 1960s, Galarneau invented the Converto-Braille, a computerized printer capable of transcribing text into Braille at 100 words per minute. This was a landmark innovation for people with visual impairments, as it increased their access to textbooks and other written information. Galarneau developed faster versions of the Converto-Braille in the 1970s. The company he founded eventually adapted the machine into software for IBM computers in the 1980s. This software was a precursor of the Braille software used today.

Article

Olivia Poole

Susan Olivia Davis Poole, inventor (born 18 April 1889 in Devils Lake, North Dakota; died 10 October 1975 in Ganges, BC). Olivia Poole was raised on the Ojibwe White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. There, she was inspired by the traditional practice of using a bouncing cradleboard to soothe babies. In 1957, she patented her invention of the baby jumper, under the name Jolly Jumper, making her one of the first Indigenous women in Canada to patent and profit from an invention.

Article

George Klein

George Johnn Klein, design engineer (b at Hamilton, Ont 15 Aug 1904; d at Ottawa 4 Nov 1992). Possibly the most productive inventor in Canada in the 20th century, he spanned in his career the "stick and string" era of aviation to the Space Shuttle. Klein worked 1929-69 at the National Research Council and as a consultant after retirement. He designed the NRC's first wind tunnels and undertook research on fitting skis to aircraft, which led in turn to designing the Weasel army snowmobile (mass-produced in the US as the M-29) and ultimately to studying the mechanics of snow, on which he became an authority. Gearing systems were a lifelong specialty.