Morley, William, 1920-2017

William Felix Edmund Morley was born on September 25, 1920, in London, England.

He was a librarian, bibliographer, and author. He served with the Royal Air Force from 1940 to 1946 and came to Canada in 1947. He studied at the University of Toronto (B.A., 1952; B.L.S., 1953) and Queen’s University (M.A., 1982). From 1953 to 1954, he was Chief Librarian at YM-YWHA, Montreal, Quebec. He also served as Chief Librarian and Archivist at the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Montreal (1954-1959). From 1959 to 1964, he was Bibliographer at the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Morley came to Queen's University in 1964 and served as Curator of the Special Collections Unit, Douglas Library, until his retirement in 1985. His many bibliographical publications include “The Atlantic Provinces: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island “ (1967), “La province de Quebec” (with André Beaulieu, 1971), “A Bibliographical Study of Major John Richardson” (1973), and “Ontario and the Canadian North” (1978). Morley also edited a revised version of Freda Farrell Waldon’s “Bibliography of Canadiana published in Great Britain, 1519-1763” (1990). In 1957, he became a member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada (BSC). He served as its Vice-President from 1968 to 1971, President from 1972 to 1973, and was on Council in 1974 and 1975. Morley was a member of the Canadian Historical Association, the Ontario Historical Society, and the Kingston Historical Society. In 1977, he received the Tremaine Medal for services to bibliography and Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal. In 2003, Morley and his second wife, Beth Watters Morley, created and endowed the Watters-Morley Prize of the BSC. He was made an honorary member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada in 2007.

He died on December 19, 2017, in Kingston, Ontario.