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Ir ATA, eT Bl A eae St Se a , Wnt A REP PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, November 9, 1999 - 17 NE OF THE many pleasures resulting from writing is the contacts made by readers. These articles and my book, The Merchants of Old Port Perry have found their way into many homes. I recently received a telephone call from Maxwell Bruce. He is the only child of Dr. Herbert A. Bruce, one of Scugog's most accomplished sons. Dr. Bruce was born in Cartwright, graduat- ed from Port Perry High School and went on to become a noted physician and surgeon. He founded Wellesley hospital in Toronto and was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Ontario in 1932. Maxwell telephoned me to express his pleasure in reading the profile of his father in my book : and was anxious to see {ian ga what information I had on his grand- father, Stewart Bruce. 1 As a result of §& our conversation, I spent a pleasant # afternoon with Maxwell and his wife Nina at their farm IN paasseat Leaskdale. && Maxwell $F Bruce was born and raised in Toronto and no longer has strong < ties with #¢ Scugog. He 3. has carved #* out a notable and enviable career in law. Heis a consultant on international law and as such is a regular visitor to the United Nations in New York and to the Hague in the Netherlands. In those capacities, during the past few weeks, he has been consulting and giving lectures in such diverse locations as Fiji, Australia, Los Angeles, New York, Bahrain and London. To accommodate his schedule, he has homes in Canada, England and Malta. His schedule would be a formidable challenge to men half his age. He is 80 years old! But then his father lived to be 94. During our conversations Maxwell reminded me that his father had built . close boyhood friendships with many people who went on to particularly notable careers. Many of these friend- ships started here in Scugog. One of these, Dr. Lewellys F. Barker, was not actually a son of Scugog but, through Herbert Bruce, he developed ties with the community. Barker was born in 1867, in Brooklin, the son of a Baptist minister. The Reverend Barker visited Port Perry many times as a minister, preaching at the Baptist Church located at the north east corner of Rosa and Queen Streets. This building was originally the Mechanics Institute and was acquired Herbert A. Bruce graduated from P by the Baptists in 1866. When preaching in Port Perry, Rev. Barker usually brought his son with him. It was on these occasions that Barker and Bruce, similar in age and interests, became close friends. Herbert A. Bruce graduated from Port Perry High School in 1884 at the age of 15. He was too young to enroll at university so he worked for two years at Allison's drug , store on Queen Street in Port Perry. This training helped him immensely in his later medical education in Toronto. Allison's was one of the first businesses in town to make use of a new invention: BL Alexander Graham Bell's A 4 5 51 0% FEE PY BE AE ort Perry High School when he was 15. h:3 telephone. Bell applied for patents for his machine in 1876 and the first tele- phone exchange in Canada was in Hamilton in 1878. The fact that Allison had a telephone installed in his store in 1882 places him in the early days of the telephone's history. In his memoirs, Dr. Bruce makes the valid claim that he was one of the early telephone operators. Upon early graduation from Pickering College High School, Lewellys Barker went to work at Gibbard's drug store in Whitby where there was also a tele- phone. The two young men spent many pleasant moments talking to each other on Bell's new invention. Bruce went to Toronto to work in another drug store for two years before venturing into Medical school whereas Barker went directly to Medical school after his two years at Gibbard's. Bruce and Barker continued their friendship in Toronto. Upon graduation, Barker worked at the Toronto General Hospital and then moved to Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland in 1891. Under the direction of Sir William Osler, another Canadian, Barker became resident pathologist at Johns Hopkins in 1894. In 1900 he accepted an appointment as professor of Anatomy at the University of Chicago. Sir Edmund Osler, William's brother, later helped finance Bruce's Wellesley hospital in Toronto. When Osler was appointed to Oxford University in 1919, Barker was recalled to Baltimore to be his successor as Professor of Medicine and Physician-in- Chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. While at Johns Hopkins, Barker made significant contributions to the medical profession. His books on anato- my and internal medicine remained standard reference works for many years. Another childhood friend of H. A. Bruce was Hamar Greenwood. As a young man, H. A. Bruce took organ lessons at the Ontario Ladies College in Whitby and came in contact with Thomas Hubbard Greenwood. He was the son of a prominent Whitby lawyer and mayor, John Hamer Greenwood. Greenwood's father was a frequent visitor to Port Perry in the sessions of court which took place at the Town Hall. He advertised his services regularly in the Ontario Observer in the 1860's and 70's. His son Thomas often accompanied him to Port Perry and stayed at the Bruce's while his father practiced law. Thomas later assumed the name Hamar. He attended Whitby Collegiate and upon his graduation in 1887 decided to be a teacher. When an opening occurred at the Manchester Public School in 1888, Hamar taught there for a year spending his leisure times with the Bruce family at Prince Albert. The Manchester school was located a few hundred yards west of the four corners of Manchester on the north side of the road. Hamar then went on to the University of Toronto to study political science. After graduation he worked for a brief time at the Department of Agriculture but gave that up and worked his way to England on a cattle boat. He decided to become a lawyer and financed his way through law school in London by giving 4 £58 RT. HON. SIR HAMAR GREENWOOD Teacher at Manchester, 1888 Writing history of Scugog often locates forgotten, or unknown former residents DR. LEWELLYS BARKER Temperance lectures and by suing a bus company after an accident. He ran for Parliament winning the seat as a Liberal candidate for the City of York in the 1906 election. From 1910 to 1922 he was the member for Sunderland. He became Parliamentary Secretary for Winston Churchill who was also a Liberal at that time. Both later changed to become conservatives with Greenwood as the Treasurer of the Conservative Party. When Greenwood married Margery Spencer at Westminster in 1911, wedding guests included the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, the future Prime Minister Lloyd George and the Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Greenwood was appointed as Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Lloyd George's cabinet, and in 1920, he was given the most difficult cabinet post, that of Secretary of State for Ireland. In that position he played a key role in bringing about the treaty which created the Irish Free State in 1922. In 1929 he was named a baronet and took his seat in the British House of Lords and was elevated to a Viscount in 1937. After leaving his seat in the House of Commons he became involved in many aspects of British industry, serving as the president of the British Iron and Steel Federation in 1938. Sir Hamar Greenwood frequently returned to Canada and was honoured many times by the city of Whitby and is regarded as their most famous son. A notable life for a man who had once taught at the little one roomed school at Manchester. Dr. H. A. Bruce maintained contact with Barker and Greenwood throughout his life. In his autobiography, with great pride, he refers to them and the begin- nings of those friendships while a young man in Port Perry. IF YOU HAVE ANY OLD PHOTOGRAPHS OF PORT PERRY AND AREA YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE - GIVE PETER A CALL AT 905-985-7383