Law History Profiles
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“What in hell is the Jokers Club?” reads the first line of a Ubyssey article published in October, 1945. “A club for all nitwits, screwballs, and zanies,” was the answer of Alan Beesley, founding member, Noise Joker and club publicity man. “We are lunatics at large.” The Jokers Club is the first thing Beesley mentions now when asked about his years at UBC. “I was so busy I had to take every second day off from my studies,” he deadpans.
For the first time since the early 1950’s (when William Haldane served as Master Treasurer), a Master Treasurer will hail from Victoria. This is not an insignificant feat when one considers that to lay claim to this office one must serve long and sufficiently well to achieve re-election at least three times over, and perhaps most importantly, if from Victoria, must survive many years of almost weekly round trips in the not so friendly skies of what was until recently known as “Scare-West”! ...
Diana M. Priestly, who has served as Law Librarian and a member of the Faculty at both of the Province’s law schools, will retire from her position at the University of Victoria on June 30, 1987. Her association with the law and the legal profession in British Columbia began in January, 1946 when she enrolled in the Special Veteran’s Class at the U.B.C. Faculty of law. Prior to enrolling, she had served in the Womens’ Royal Canadian Naval Service from 1943-46 …
As lawyers, we like to tell “war stories.” We usually mean some court room drama, or perhaps a deal that went sideways. At 89 years of age, Don Easton has lots of war stories, gathered over a remarkable life and career. With 61 years at the bar, he has plenty of lawyer “war stories” from his time as a solicitor working at the heart of our province’s business community. He also has some other war stories, of the literal kind …
Richard Fraser Gosse, Q.C., known across Canada as Dick Gosse, was a lawyer of many careers, all of them pursued with flair and verve. He died in Vancouver on November 18, 2008. Few have had a legal career filled with such adventure, changing positions and new challenges, all of which were characterized by enthusiasm, delight in novel circumstances and great success.
On Thursday, August 4, 1983 Louis Allan Williams, Q.C. was dealing with the routine of filling out an application to the Secretary of State for External Affairs for a new passport. Accompanying his application would be the green passport issued to him as a provincial Cabinet Minister and Provincial Attorney General. He was thus giving up one of the last perks which came to him as the 33rd Attorney General of British Columbia ...
Leslie Peterson grew up on a farm outside Viking, Alberta, and recognized the value of education at an early age. At fourteen, he moved away from the family farm to go to school, and paid for a small housekeeping room by doing part-time janitorial work.
Mr. Peterson served in the Canadian Artillery during the Second World War, and graduated from law school at UBC in 1949 alongside many other veterans.
According to Malcolm G. King, he never seriously considered a legal career until his father suggested that he go to work in the family sawmill. At that point, he says, he ran for cover and after having consulted a career psychologist who thought he had some latent potential for the law he decided to enroll in law school at UBC rather than continue with an arts program - which he admits he would have preferred.
On November 14, 1993, the kindly face that graces the front cover of this edition of the Advocate completed a quarter of a century of useful service on the Court of Appeal of British Columbia. He joins a select group of only five Justices of Appeal who have served that long …
Montague Lawrence Tyrwhitt-Drake came from a family line closely associated with the legal profession. His grandfather (also Montague Tyrwhitt-Drake) came to Canada from England with dreams of making it rich in the gold rush. He didn't, but instead had settled in Victoria by 1863. He quickly became established in the community, representing British Columbia in the Legislative Council from 1868-1870…
Robert Duncan Ross remembers two things from his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia - playing rugby and compulsory military drills required of all men his age during the Second World War. He continued schooling at UBC, graduating from law school in 1949. He left Vancouver half-way through articling to road trip with a friend to Florida, where they found a berth on a sailing vessel to adventure around the Caribbean for half a year.
The luxury setting is spartan yet sensual, with none of the almost mandatory indiscretions of taste one commonly finds in business offices (polished floors, thick carpets, and substantial furniture awaiting the arrival of the stars of Dallas or Dynasty). The place is the 15th floor executive offices of Westcoast Transmission and John Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer, comfortably dominates his surroundings. His windows command an exhilarating view of Vancouver's mountain-rimmed harbour; he can look down to the moorage of his 34 ft.
“I was born in a tar paper shack in Saskatchewan called Piapot, where Buff Sainte-Marie is from. My parents moved from Vancouver to get free land. It was the biggest mistake they made. They were there for about five years – that’s where I was born – and then they came back to Vancouver" ...
Garde Basil Gardom, in the eyes of many of the bright eyed, young lawyers practicing today, is old-fashioned. He believes in “putting breach on the water” – not overcharging the client; he believes good manners and courtesy are important; he makes judgments of other people’s character on the basis of whether or not they would “pull someone out of the water,” if they were in difficulty …
Of the some 130 members of the class of 1949, four were women: Joan Hall, Virigina Galloway, Helen McCoy and Valerie Manning. Valerie Taggart (née Manning) was born in 1926 in Cranbrook, and into a family with strong legal ties – one of her family members had articled with Sir John A. MacDonald. In 1934 her older brother decided to attend UBC, and the family came to the Coast with him and settled in West Point Grey.
Brian was born in Saskatoon in January 1923, the second of four brothers. Their father was a professor of economics and for a time had George R Curtis (later the first dean of UBC law school) as a student. One of Brian's brothers was Fred Carrothers. Fred was at various times dean of law at Ottawa and Western, president at the University of Calgary, and a long-time member of the Faculty of Law at UBC…
It is no small challenge to capture, in a few short pages, the essential details of the professional and personal lives of those distinguished folk who appear on the front cover of the Advocate. The challenge is particularly daunting with a subject like William C. McConnell—“Bill” to his friends. A prominent and successful barrister for 34 years, a distinguished writer and editor—there is so much to say and so little space in which to say it …
Born in Kamloops in 1923, David R. Williams was a student during the earliest years of UBC Law, at a time when the classes were still conducted in repurposed army huts from the Second World War. After graduating in 1949, Williams practised civil and criminal litigation in Duncan.