Frederick Joseph Ricketts grew up in East End London. His early musical training was on the piano and organ. Orphaned at 14, he heard street musicians and bands and decided joining an army band would be best for his future.
In 1895 Ricketts was enlisted as a Band Boy in the Royal Irish Regiment. A good cornet player, he was put into the regimental band. In his free time, he learned all the other band instruments and in 1903, was recommended for entry into the Student Bandmaster Course at the Royal Military School of Music. He graduated in 1906 and stayed on as chapel organist and assistant to the Director of Music. Ricketts became Bandmaster to the Band of the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1908. The colonel asked him to write a new march for the Argylls, and Ricketts wrote "The Thin Red Line", not published until 1925.
Ricketts wanted to compose music but being engaged in commercial activities was not accepted for officers of Ricketts's rank, so he composed and published under the pen name Kenneth J. Alford.
In 1927 Ricketts was commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Marines Band Service. In 1930, he was posted to the Band of the Plymouth Division, Royal Marines, the principal band of the Royal Marines. Under his direction, the band became world-famous and before and during World War II made a series of 78 RPM recordings of Alford marches, since reissued in LP and CD formats. Ricketts retired from the Royal Marines in 1944 because of ill health and died the following year. While best known for his marches often compared to those of John Philip Sousa, he wrote many other pieces. His championing of the saxophone played a part in getting the instrument accepted in military bands. He is also credited with the first arrangements for bagpipes with military band.

A. Maddick & Co. was a partnership between Alfred Maddick and Albert Levy that operated out of London. They were British and foreign advertising contractors with the concessions for advertisement in England, Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies, and America. The partnership was dissolved in 1873.

Russell Alexander Alger Jr., son of Michigan's Governor Russell Alger was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, on February 23, 1873.

He got interested in the automobile industry after the Packard Motor Car Company moved to Detroit from Warren, Ohio in 1902. He became its Vice President and key investor. Near the turn of the century, he became treasurer of Alger, Smith & Co., the family lumber business. Intrigued by the possibilities of flying, he followed the Wright brothers to France to watch their exhibition and upon their return, invested money in the first commercial airplane. He also built in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a palatial Italian Renaissance style estate, "The Moorings," which was donated in 1949 to Detroit Institute of Arts and became the Grosse Pointe War Memorial, honoring veterans of World War II.

He died in New York on January 26, 1930.

Zara Ali is a composer and multimedia artist. Her music is characterized by carefully woven microtonal harmonies, close attention to tone colour, and translation of structural concepts (geometry, kinetics, temporality) into physical sound. Her music has been performed in Europe, North America, and Asia, with notable recent concert performances at the Royaumont, Archipel, Yellow Barn, and Seoul International Computer Music festivals. She received her B.A. from Columbia University in 2018 and her master’s in music composition at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Germany. She won the 2023 Gaudeamus Award at Columbia University.

Allan Bros. & Co. was the Liverpool agent for the Allan Line, Montreal Ocean Steam Ship Company.

The Allan Shipping Line was established in 1819 by Captain Alexander Allan (1780-1854) of Saltcoats, Ayrshire. The company was involved in trade and transportation between Scotland and Montreal, which became the signature route for the Allan Line.

By the 1830s, the company had offices in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Montreal. All five of Captain Allan's sons were actively engaged in the business, with his second son, Sir Hugh Allan (1810-1882), leading the second generation. In 1854, Hugh launched the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company as part of the Allan Line. Two years later, he took control of the Royal Mail contract between Britain and North America, ousting Samuel Cunard. By the 1880s, the Allan Line had become the world's largest privately owned shipping concern. In 1891, the company acquired the State Line (founded in 1872) and was often referred to as the Allan & State Line. In 1897, Andrew Allan (1822-1901) consolidated the various branches of the Allan shipping empire under one company, Allan Line Steamship Company Ltd., of Glasgow. By then, the company had established offices in Boston and London.

In 1917, the company was purchased by Canadian Pacific Steamships under Sir Montagu Allan (1860-1951), representing the third generation of the Allan family. By the following year, the Allan name had disappeared from commercial shipping.

The Allan Memorial Institute, also known colloquially as "the Allan," is a former psychiatric hospital and research institute located at 1025 Pine Avenue West in Montreal, Canada.

In 1863, Sir Hugh Allan, the Scottish founder and president of the Allan Lines Shipping Company, commissioned Victor Roy and John Hopkins to construct a house that reflected his wealth and power. This Italianate, villa-style mansion was named Ravenscrag after a Scottish castle and was located at the top of McTavish Street with an imposing view over the entire city. After Sir Hugh Allan died in 1882, his son and daughter-in-law, Sir Montagu and Marguerite, respectively, inherited Ravenscrag. They enlarged the house and redecorated it in a more elegant and lavish style. After Sir Montagu's death, Lady Allan gave Ravenscrag to the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1940. It was renamed the Allan Memorial Institute in 1943. To serve the present needs of a psychiatric hospital and research institute, the interior of the building has been altered, and many additions have been made to the exterior. The Montreal experiments were conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1957 and 1964 by psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron. The experiments aimed to treat schizophrenia using methods such as "psychic driving," drug-induced sleep, electroconvulsive therapy, sensory deprivation, and the drug Thorazine. These experiments were funded by the CIA as part of Project MKUltra. They were not made public until 1975, even though they lasted until 1973.

The Allan Memorial's emergency room and use as an active psychiatric hospital ceased in 2015 when a new, modern psychiatry department was opened at the Montreal General Hospital. The building currently houses outpatient psychiatric services for Montreal General Hospital, part of the McGill University Health Centre.

Sir Hugh Allan was born on September 29, 1810, in Saltcoats, Scotland.

He was a Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate, financier, and capitalist. In 1819, his father Capt. Alexander Allan established the Allan Shipping Line, which became synonymous with transporting goods and passengers between Scotland and Montreal. Hugh received a parish education at Saltcoats before starting work in 1823 at the family's counting-house of Allan, Kerr & Co., of Greenock. In 1826, he moved to Montreal to work as a clerk for a grain merchant, William Kerr. By 1835, he was made a partner in the firm known as Millar, Edmonstone & Co. With his father's encouragement and capital, Hugh expanded the company's shipping operations, and J. & A. Allan (headed by his elder brother, James, in Glasgow) became closely involved with the building of the merchant fleet. By 1839 Hugh's younger brother, Andrew, had joined Edmonstone, Allan & Co. In 1851, Hugh was elected president of the Montreal Board of Trade. In 1854, he launched the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company as part of the Allan Line and took control of the Royal Mail contract between Britain and North America. By the 1880s, the Allan Line was the world's largest privately-owned shipping concern.

He also became a director of the Bank of Montreal, president of the Montreal Telegraph Company and he established coal mines in Nova Scotia and factories for textiles, shoes, paper, tobacco, and iron and steel in Central Canada.

In 1860, he built his home, Ravenscrag, at the Golden Square Mile in Montreal.

In 1844, he married Matilda Caroline Smith. He died on December 9, 1882, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is buried in Montreal, Quebec.