MEEKER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-11-26 published
A scholar and a gentle man
'Fine example of a great Canadian' who founded Ontario's Brock
University was once private secretary to prime minister Mackenzie
KING
By Ron CSILLAG,
Special to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, November
26, 2003 - Page R9
In an almost Zen-like fashion, James
GIBSON knew the value of
not acting. In the late 1960s, when a group of student radicals
seized part of Brock University, hoping to be dragged away kicking
and screaming, Dr.
GIBSON, who had helped found the institution
a few years earlier, reacted in a way no other university president
did when faced with the same problem: He did nothing. The protesters,
he reasoned, may have had legitimate grievances, but their unseemly
actions offended his firm sense of propriety. In time, the students
simply went away.
It was an effective, though uncharacteristic, action for a man
who embodied Brock's Latin motto: "Surgite," freely translated
as "push on." That he did, through some 65 rich years of advancing
higher education and in public service, most notably as a private
secretary to former prime minister Mackenzie
KING, whose penchant
for soothsaying and assorted eccentricities Dr.
GIBSON kept mainly
to himself until later in life.
Just five days before his death in Ottawa on October 23 at the
age of 91, Dr.
GIBSON was doing what he loved: Watching a new
group of graduates receive their diplomas at the fall convocation
of Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, the school he
had launched as founding president in 1963.
At a recent memorial service at Brock, David
ATKINSON, the university's
president and vice-chancellor, recalled a man whose attributes
a strong moral fibre, clarity of thought and a general uprightness,
all tempered by a warm and gentle touch -- harkened to a quaint,
bygone era. "It's unlikely we will meet anyone like him again,"
Dr. ATKINSON said.
In the House of Commons on October 27, Dr.
GIBSON was praised
by St. Catharines Liberal member of parliament Walt
LASTEWKA
as "a fine example of a great Canadian."
Dr. GIBSON, whose knowledge of Canadian history and government
were legend, was in the news this past summer as the oldest of
over 1,000 Rhodes Scholars who flew to England for a five-day
bash honouring the centenary of the trust. With his brother William,
also a Rhodes Scholar, Dr.
GIBSON dedicated a re-leaded stained-glass
window at the chapel of Oxford's New College.
A normally discreet man, he had sharp words for former prime
minister Brian
MULRONEY, not an Oxford graduate, who surprised
guests at the alumni dinner -- and raised a few eyebrows -- when
he took a seat on the podium alongside Oxonians Bill
CLINTON
and Tony BLAIR, and guest Nelson
MANDELA.
Many alumni, Dr.
GIBSON
included, felt that Mr.
MULRONEY, who had been invited by The
Independent newspaper chain, had no business being there. Though
upset, Dr.
GIBSON retained his dignity, saying simply, "I was
offended."
James Alexander
GIBSON was born in Ottawa, in 1912, to Canadian-born
parents of Irish-Scottish stock with strong Methodist and Quaker
leanings. Raised in Victoria, he graduated with a B.A. in history
from the University of British Columbia at age 18. Less than
a year later, he was one of the youngest boys at Oxford.
"That was the real dividing line in my life," he told The Globe
and Mail last July. "The economic depression was beginning to
take over and some of the graduates in my year at University
of British Columbia ended up digging ditches, but I had a guaranteed
income for three years."
The annual stipend was only £400 but it enabled Dr.
GIBSON to
live comfortably and travel to the rest of Europe when he wasn't
studying modern history, debating in the Oxford Union Society
and keeping wicket for the New College cricket squad, the Nomads.
Back in Ottawa and armed with a doctorate in history, he joined
the Department of External Affairs. On his second day on the
job, he was whisked to the prime minister's office for a six-month
secondment that lasted nine years. Mr.
KING, who was also External
Affairs minister, blocked Dr.
GIBSON's promotions to postings
abroad three times because "he told me I stopped him getting
into trouble."
The prime minister was a notorious taskmaster, calling on his
assistant to work most evenings and weekends to draft letters
and speeches. Throughout, "Dad never complained about anything,"
said his daughter Julia
MATTHEWS. "
But as he got older, he loosened
up a little."
According to his daughter, he came to describe the famously erratic
leader as "a very grumpy man and a very lonely man, insensitive,
and quite damaging to work for."
Ultimately, it occurred to the clan that perhaps the unmarried
prime minister was simply jealous of Dr.
GIBSON's status as a
beloved family man and father of three children. "Whenever we
went on a family holiday, Dad always got called back," remembered
Ms. MATTHEWS.
But a high point came in the spring of 1945, when Dr.
GIBSON
accompanied Mr.
KING and 380 other delegates to San Francisco
and the founding of the United Nations. During the historic two-month
conference, Dr.
GIBSON got personal glimpses of such leaders
as the Soviet Union's Andrei
GROMYKO and Britain's Anthony
EDEN,
but the task at hand, he later recalled, was to keep the Canadian
prime minister "on the rails."
Fearing he would never advance in the public service, Dr.
GIBSON
resigned in 1947 and took a teaching post at Ottawa's Carleton
University, where he later served as the first dean of arts and
science and deputy to the president. By the early 1960s, he was
courted by a group of community leaders in the Niagara peninsula
to establish Brock University. When he began as founding president,
the school had seven faculty (known as "the magnificent seven"),
29 students and a "library" consisting of a shelf of books. Today,
it boasts more than 15,000 students and 47,000 alumni.
His first order of business at Brock was the creation of a library.
Now housed in the campus's Schmon Tower, it has become something
of a landmark on the Niagara Escarpment. Dr.
GIBSON, fondly known
by faculty as "James A.," remained as Brock's president until
1974. He was named to the Order of Canada in 1992, and the library
was named after him in 1996.
He was also a leading figure in the Unitarian faith, serving
for a time as chaplain of the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara.
Asked what dinner-table conversation was like at home, Ms.
MATTHEWS
sighed good-naturedly. "Oh, God. There was a lot of current events.
He had all the answers. He was always lecturing, but he could
be really charming." Even after his vision started to fail, he
travelled, read and wrote. "He never felt old."
After moving from his beloved St. Catharines to an Ottawa retirement
home, Dr. GIBSON lectured residents on "governors-general I have
known."
Dr. GIBSON was predeceased by his wife of 57 years, Caroline
(née STEIN,) and leaves three children, seven grandchildren,
two great-grandchildren, his brother, and a sister, Isobel
SEARLS.
His final days were summed up poetically by Josephine
MEEKER,
a former professor at Brock. After attending the university's
convocation last month, Dr.
GIBSON "went for a long walk, returned
to his residence, went into the lounge area, took off his coat
and folded it up, put it on the back of his chair, sat down,
folded his hands in his lap, closed his eyes, and died."
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