Gilbert Girdwood, physician and chemist, was born in London and educated at University College and St. George's School of Medicine. He came to Canada in 1862 as assistant surgeon of the Grenadier Guards. In 1864 he retired from the army, and began to practise in Montréal as a surgeon to local regiments and staff member of the Montreal Dispensary, the Montreal General Hospital, and the Children's Hospital. Girdwood's scientific interests were catholic, but he was fundamentally a chemist. As lecturer, and later Professor of chemistry in McGill's Medical Faculty (1870-1903), he introduced practical chemistry into the programme of medical training. His major research interest was toxicology. While still in London, he worked with a chemist to produce the Rogers and Girdwood test for detecting strychnine and in Canada he frequently testified as medical-legal witness in poisoning cases. He was also consulted in forgery trials, and he was the first to use enlarged photographs and reagents to reveal counterfeits. He published a number of studies on stereoscopic photography. A pioneer in the medical use of X-rays, Girdwood consulted in this field for Royal Victoria Hospital, and was president of the Roentgen Society of America.

Frederick (or Frederic) Newton Gisborne was born on March 8, 1824, in Broughton, Lancashire, England.
He was a British inventor, electrical engineer, and civil servant. He was educated by clergymen and special instructors in England. He concentrated on mathematics, electricity, civil engineering, botany, and other scientific subjects. In 1842, he left England for a trip around the world and settled in Canada in 1845. He enrolled in a course in telegraphy offered in Montreal by one of Morse’s pupils and was offered a post with the Montreal Telegraph Company in Quebec City. As an expert electrical engineer, he was appointed superintendent of the lines of the Nova Scotia government at Halifax in 1847. After studying the problems of ocean telegraphy, he laid the first deep-sea cable in North American waters, between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick in 1852. In 1854, he was appointed the chief engineer of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, laying the Cape Ray–Cape Breton cable in July 1856 and completing the Newfoundland–Nova Scotia line by October. In 1879, Gisborne was appointed superintendent of the Canadian government telegraph service, the position he held until his death in 1892.

In 1850, he married Alida Ellen Starr (1834–1854) and in 1857, he remarried Henrietta Hernaman (1837–1928). He died on August 30, 1892, in Ottawa, Ontario.