G.R. Parkin (1896-1977)

Abstract

... Raleigh Parkin was born in Toronto, the fifth child and only son of George and Annie Parkin who were from New Brunswick. His father was headmaster of Upper Canada College and well known in Canada and Britain as a progressive educationist. The son received most of his education in England where the family settled when George Parkin became the first administrator of the Rhodes Scholarships Trust. ... in August 1914, he joined the British army as one of "The First Hundred Thousand" and took part in the landing at Gallipoli. ... On returning to Canada to join Sun Life Assurance Company, he specialized in foreign investments, particularly in the Commonwealth and the United States. From the early nineteen-thirties he was for forty years a governor of the Institute of Current World Affairs (Crane Foundation) of New York, for most of this time being the only Canadian so honoured. He played an influential role in the Foundation's awarding of overseas fellowships to young men. The establishment of the Arctic Institute of North America at Montreal in 1944 was to a considerable degree due to his initiative, and to his skill as a catalyst in bringing together scientists, academics and businessmen from the United States, Newfoundland, Canada, and Denmark. His name is one of the four appearing in the Act of Parliament that incorporated the Institute in 1945 and in the corresponding Act of the New York State Legislature. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute and later served it for several years as a senior consultant. It was on his initiative that a collection of documents recording the activities of the Institute from its formative years until the present was deposited in the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa. ...