McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Wilfrid Bovey Fonds
Fonds
3 m of textual records and photographs
Educationist and writer Wilfrid Bovey was born in Montréal, the son of Henry Taylor Bovey (see Section I: University Teaching and Research). He earned his B.A. from McGill in 1903 and his LL.B. from Cambridge in 1906, and practiced as a lawyer in Québec from 1907 to 1923, save for the War years, when he served with the Black Watch. He was McGill's first director of Extramural Relations and Extension from 1923 to 1948, and served in a number of other positions connected with adult education, particularly as chairman of the Canadian Legion Educational Services (1939-1946) and president of the Canadian Handicrafts Guild (1930-1936). Bovey was a member of the Quebec Legislative Council from 1942 to 1948, and a governor of the C.B.C. from 1938 to 1951. He was a prolific author, particularly on the subject of French Canada.
Bovey's papers document his involvement with a number of organizations, his political, literary, and military careers, and his travels. His files as president of the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, 1930-1936, include reports, correspondence and speeches, while those connected with the Canadian Legion Educational Services also include photographs and printed material, 1939-1946. The C.B.C. series comprises programmes, draft speeches and letters, 1936-1944. His political correspondents include St. Laurent and MacKenzie King, 1940-1944. Speeches made by Bovey before the Legislative Council, business and other groups discuss a wide range of political, social and educational issues are supplemented by clipping files on Québec politics. Bovey's literary ventures generated correspondence and book reviews, as well as manuscript poems, 1939-1941, n.d., while his World War I military service is the subject of a small file of correspondence, 1915-1953. Finally, Bovey assembled scrapbooks of photographs and souvenirs of his voyages between 1930 and 1939. For Bovey's files as director of Extra-Mural Relations and Extension at McGill, see McGill Administrative Records, Record Group 44.
Originals, Printed Materials and Photographs