Fonds 1551 - McLennan Family fonds

Identity area

Reference code

UTA 1551

Title

McLennan Family fonds

Date(s)

  • 1870-1942 (Creation)

Level of description

Fonds

Extent and medium

2.75 m of textual and graphic records (10 boxes, approx. 385 photographs)

Context area

Name of creator

(1867-1935)

Biographical history

Sir John Cunningham McLennan, KBE, FRS, FRSC, physicist (born 14 April 1867 in Ingersoll, ON; died 9 October 1935 in Paris, France). After graduating in physics from the University of Toronto in 1892, McLennan worked as a demonstrator and in 1898 went to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England. In 1900 he received the first doctorate in physics from the University of Toronto. He spent his career at that university, bringing his physics laboratory to the forefront of research in radioactivity, spectroscopy and low-temperature physics.

During the First World War, McLennan was scientific adviser to the British Admiralty. In 1915, he was elected to the Royal Society of London (receiving its gold medal in 1928) and in 1917 received the Order of the British Empire. After the war he returned to the University of Toronto but spent each summer in Britain, becoming president of the scientific section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1923.

President of the Royal Canadian Institute in 1916, he helped found the National Research Council and was a member of the Ontario Research Foundation (established 1928). He resigned from the University of Toronto in 1932 and moved to England where he continued his pioneering research in the use of radium to treat cancer. He was knighted in 1935.

Name of creator

Biographical history

Sister of Sir John Cunningham McLennan.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

Correspondence, articles, reports and photographs documenting in particular Sir John Cunningham McLennan's career as a physicist and the efforts of this sister, Janet Cunningham McLennan to record his achievements.

Photo albums and photographs document the personal and professional life of J.C. McLennan and indirectly the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Open

Conditions governing reproduction

Language of material

Script of material

Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

No finding aid.

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

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Notes area

Alternative identifier(s)

Accession

B1989-0017

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Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

Dates of creation revision deletion

Added to AtoM by Karen Suurtamm, October 2015

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