James Walter Lyon was born on April 24, 1848, in Herrick, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.

He was a book publisher. He started in life as a school teacher in 1865 and later entered the publishing house industry in Michigan. When a Canadian branch of the company opened in Guelph, he relocated there in 1872. In 1873, he formed the World Publishing Company and achieved great success with branches established in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, China, and other parts of the globe. In 1876, Queen Victoria accepted the dedication of an atlas which Lyon had been working on in Australia. The atlas ended up generating $3 million. He was greatly responsible for the industrial development of Guelph. He fostered the growth of the Ontario Hydro and served as President of the Guelph Radial Railway Co., Director of the Guelph Junction Ry., President of the Board of Trade, and Director of the Home Life Insurance Co. of Toronto. He was also an Alderman of the city of Guelph.

In 1873, he married Lucy Boult (1852–1924) and in 1926, he married Clara Harrington (–1933). He died on May 25, 1933, in Wellington, Ontario.

Victor Wathen Lyon was born on June 29, 1853, in Jeffersonville, Clark, Indiana.

He was a geologist and civil engineer. He attended Union College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1880, he was elected County Surveyor and served fourteen years. He also served several terms as a city civil engineer.

In 1886, he married Gertrude Pettit (1861–1940). He died on August 17, 1919, in Jeffersonville, Clark, Indiana.

Averil Margaret Lysaght was born on April 14, 1905, in Mokoia, near Hawera, New Zealand.

She was a New Zealand biologist, science historian and artist. Initially educated at home by governesses, she was sent to Chilton House Private Girls Boarding School in Wellington when she was 12. She graduated from Victoria University College, Wellington (B.Sc., 1928; M.Sc., 1929 in zoology). From 1931 to 1932, she worked as a temporary assistant in zoology at Victoria University College. She continued her postgraduate research at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in London and was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of London in 1935. She also undertook artistic training, first at Nottingham School of Art and later at St. Martins School of Art in London. From 1935 to 1938, she worked at the Plymouth laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the UK and the Imperial Institute of Entomology. Between 1936 and 1943, she published five papers in parasitology, including two on trematode parasites of gastropods. During World War II, Lysaght lectured at the university colleges of Hull and Nottingham and worked in the Ministry of Information in the China section. This latter work led to a post with the British Council (1945–1946). From 1947 to 1948, she was employed as assistant editor of the zoology section of Chambers’ Encyclopaedia. She catalogued all the bird paintings executed on all of Cook's voyages, researched the British Museum of Natural History collection of Sydney Parkinson's paintings and drawings, and continued to work on this project for over twenty years. Years of research culminated in publishing "The Book of Birds: Five Centuries of Bird Illustration" in 1975. In 1971, Lysaght’s monumental "Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766" was published. She received an honorary D. Litt. from the Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1979.

She never married and died on August 21, 1981, in London, England.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Maase lived at 9 Rockcliff Road, Brockville, ON, Canada in 1975.

Otto Maass was born in New York, but moved to Montréal at an early age. He earned his B.A. from McGill in 1911 and his M.Sc. in 1913. His postgraduate research at the University of Berlin was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, at which time Maass accepted a lectureship at McGill. He left to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard (1919), but returned in 1923 as Macdonald Professor of Physical Chemistry. He was appointed chairman of the department in 1937. During the Second World War, Maass combined the administration of chemical defence research with the directorship of the Pulp and Paper Research Institute. After his retirement in 1955, he became principal research officer in the National Research Council’s division of chemistry. He passed away in 1961.