Lester B. Pearson

He died due to cancer on 27 December 1972 in Ottawa.

Pearson was born on 23 April 1897, in the town of Newtonbrook, Ontario, to Annie Sarah and Edwin Arthur Pearson, a Methodist minister. He was the brother of Vaughan Whitier Pearson and Marmaduke Pearson.

Pearson graduated from Hamilton Collegiate Institute in 1913 and entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu for his outstanding scholastic performance in history and sociology.

He won a scholarship to study at St John's College, Oxford where he in excelled ice hockey, baseball and lacrosse. His ability to play baseball enabled him to play semipro with the Ontario Intercounty Baseball League.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Pearson volunteered for service with the University of Toronto Hospital Unit, entered the Canadian Army Medical Corps and spent two years in Egypt and in Greece.

Transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, he survived a plane crash during his training maiden flight. In 1918, hit by a bus in London during a blackout, was discharged from service.

He received his B.A from the University of Toronto in 1919 and joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He then spent a year working in Hamilton and Chicago, in the meat-packing industry.

With a Massey Foundation scholarship he studied in Oxford’ St John's College and completed his M.A. in 1925. He taught history at Toronto University, and coached the Varsity Blues Canadian football and ice hockey teams.

Topping the Canadian Foreign Service entry exam, he was assigned, from 1939 to 1942, as the second-in-command at Canada House, London where under High Commissioner Vincent Massey, he coordinated military supply and refugee problems.

Despite heading a minority government he initiated major social programs, including universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans, a 40-hour work week, and a new minimum wage.

He set-up the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1967 and the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. This helped in creating legal equality for women, and brought official bilingualism into being.