Information AboutStephen Leacock |
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EARLY LIFE He was born December 30, 1869 in Swanmore, Hampshire , England but at age 6 he and his family moved to Canada , settling on a farm in Egypt, Ontario , near the shores of Lake Simcoe . While the family had been comfortable in England, the farm in Georgina Township in York County was not a success and Leacock's family was quite poor. His father Peter suffered from Alcoholism , becoming violent and morose. Leacock, always of obvious intelligence, was sent to the elite Private School of Upper Canada College in Toronto , where he was top of the class and so popular he was chosen as head boy. His father left the house in 1887 and never returned. The same year, seventeen year old Leacock started at University College at the University Of Toronto , where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, but found he could not resume the following year due to financial difficulties. He left university to earn money as a schoolteacher -- a job he disliked immensely -- at Strathroy , Uxbridge and finally in Toronto. As a teacher at Upper Canada College, his alma mater, he was able to simultaneously attend classes at the University of Toronto and earn his degree part-time in 1891. At this early point, Leacock caught the writing bug at ''The Varsity '', a campus Newspaper . ACADEMIC AND POLITICAL LIFE Disillusioned with teaching, in 1899 he began graduate studies at the University Of Chicago where he received a doctorate in Political Science and Political Economy . He moved from Chicago to Montreal where he became a lecturer and long-time acting head of the political economy department at McGill University . He was closely associated with Sir Arthur Currie , former commander of the Canadian Corps in the Great War and principal of McGill from 1919 until his death in 1933. In fact, Currie had been a student observing Leacock's practice teaching in Strathroy in 1888. In 1936, Leacock was forcibly retired by the McGill Board of Governors -- an unlikely prospect had Currie lived. Leacock was both a social Conservative and a partisan Conservative . He opposed women's rights and disliked non-Anglo-Saxon immigration. He was, however, a supporter of social welfare legislation. He was a champion of the British Empire , and went on lecture tours to further the cause. Although considered a federal candidate for his party, it declined to invite the author, lecturer and maverick to stand for election. Nevertheless, he would stump for local candidates at his summer home. LITERARY LIFE Although he did write learned articles and books related to his field of study, his political theory is now all but forgotten. Nevertheless, Leacock was awarded the Royal Society Of Canada 's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1937 , nominally for his academic work. He soon turned to fiction, humour and short reports to supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United States and later in novel form became extremely popular around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. During the summer months, he lived at Old Brewery Bay in , and he also let a small farm. The gossip provided by the local barber provided Leacock with the material which would become '' Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town '' which he set in the thinly-disguised Mariposa . DEATH AND TRIBUTES Leacock was predeceased by his wife and survived by his son Stephen Jr. In accordance with his wishes, after his death due to Throat Cancer , he was cremated and buried at Sibbald Point in Georgina Township near his boyhood home and across Lake Simcoe from his adult summer home. Shorty after his death, Barbara Nimmo, his niece, in 1958 and ever since has operated as a museum called the Stephen Leacock Memorial Home. In 1947 , the Stephen Leacock Award was created to recognize the best in Canadian literary humour. In the 1960s, McGill University named an arts building and a library room after its well-known professor. In 1969, the centennial of his birth, Canada Post issued a six cent stamp with his image on it. The following year, the Stephen Leacock Centennial Committee had a plaque erected at his English birthplace and a mountain in The Yukon was named after him. There is also a Public Highschool located in the Greater Toronto Area (Scarborough: 2450 Birchmount Road) named after him -- Stephen Leacock Collegiate, which is also joined to John Buchan elementary school. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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