McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Eugene Alfred Forsey Fonds
Fonds
3.5 cm of textual records.
One of Canada's foremost authorities on constitutional law, Eugene Forsey was born in Newfoundland, and received his B.A. in 1925 and his M.A. in 1932 from McGill. He was a lecturer in economics and political science at McGill from 1929 to 1941, when he received his Ph.D. from the University, and won a Guggenheim Fellowship. Forsey was one of the authors of the Regina Manifesto of 1933 and a pioneering member of the C.C.F.; his socialist views caused some difficulties for him at McGill. In 1942, Forsey became director of research for the Canadian Congress of Labour, and worked for this organization (after 1955, the Canadian Labour Congress) until 1966. He was a member of the Canadian Senate from 1970 until 1979. Forsey wrote several books and essays on social, political, and economic issues, among them the Royal Power of Dissolution of Parliament in the British Commonwealth (1943) and Freedom and Order (1974). He passed away in 1991.
In September 1973 and February 1974, D. Lorne Gales, director of McGill’s Fund Council, donated records concerning Forsey to the Archives, probably on his behalf. On April 4th, 1974, Forsey himself donated other material to the Archives.
Fonds concerns Forsey's activities as a student, and later as a teacher at McGill. Included are his fourth-year essay on Chaucer's Summoner's Tale, and his valedictory address (1925). His teaching career at McGill is documented by a file of correspondence, memoranda, and examination papers relating to one of Forsey's students in 1939, and files of correspondence concerning Forsey's reappointment in 1940 in the light of accusations, from various quarters, of Communist sympathies. Two letters from Forsey (1973, 1980) illustrate his later perspective on these events.
Examination papers relating to one of Forsey's students in 1939 are restricted.