William Roger Graham, PhD, LLD, FRSC (1919–1988) was a Canadian academic historian whose area of specialization was 20th-century Canadian political history. Born in Montreal March 10, 1919, Graham lived in Chicago, IL, where his father, William Creighton Graham, was a professor of Old Testament history, before moving with his family to Winnipeg, MB, Canada when his father became principal of what was then United College

United College, Winnipeg

United College was a college in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It was founded in 1938 with the merger of Manitoba College and Wesley College . The college was affiliated with the University of Manitoba. In 1967, United College received a charter and became the University of Winnipeg....

 (now the University of Winnipeg). After completing his BA in history at United College, where he held the senior male student appointment of "Senior Stick" in his graduating year, Graham moved to Toronto where he completed his MA and PhD at the University of Toronto after marrying Kathleen McGirr (later Kathleen Birchall following her marriage to Air Commodore Leonard Birchall

Leonard Birchall

Air Commodore Leonard Joseph Birchall, CM, OBE, DFC, O.Ont, CD , "The Saviour of Ceylon", was a Royal Canadian Air Force officer who warned of a Japanese attack on the island of Ceylon during the Second World War....

 after Graham's death). In 1946, Graham took his first academic position at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, teaching there for one year before moving in 1947 to the Regina College (now the University of Regina), where he taught until 1958 (though on leave 1957-1958), when he accepted a position in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan, thus moving back to Saskatoon. In 1968, he took up the position of Douglas Professor of Canadian History at Queen's University in Kingston, ON

Kingston, Ontario

Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

, where he remained until his retirement in 1984, serving a three-year term as chair of the Department of History and winning election to the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

. In 1969, the University of Winnipeg awarded him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. He died in Kingston on November 17, 1988.

Graham was the author of a number of works of political biography, of which the most important was his three-volume biography of Arthur Meighen

Arthur Meighen

Arthur Meighen, PC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served two terms as the ninth Prime Minister of Canada: from July 10, 1920 to December 29, 1921; and from June 29 to September 25, 1926. He was the first Prime Minister born after Confederation, and the only one to represent a riding...

 published in Toronto by Clarke Irwin: The Door of Opportunity (1960), And Fortune Fled (1963), and No Surrender (1965). Other works by Graham include The King-Byng affair, 1926: A Question of Responsible Government (Copp Clark, 1973), a collection of papers related to the 1926 constitutional crisis that involved then Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King and Governor-General Lord Byng and the posthumously published Old Man Ontario: Leslie M. Frost (University of Toronto Press, 1991), a biography of former Premier of Ontario Leslie Frost

Leslie Frost

Leslie Miscampbell Frost, was a politician in Ontario, Canada, who served as the 16th Premier from May 4, 1949 to November 8, 1961. Due to his lengthy tenure, he gained the nickname "Old Man Ontario".-Early years:...

. In addition to his full biography of Meighen, Graham also contributed a chapter called "Some political ideas of Arthur Meighen"' to a volume of essays edited by Marcel Hamelin, The political ideas of the prime ministers of Canada (Ottawa, 1969, pp. 107–20) and a booklet, Arthur Meighen, published by the Canadian Historical Association

Canadian Historical Association

The Canadian Historical Association is a Canadian organization founded in 1922 for the purposes of promoting historical research and scholarship. Marius Barbeau, the anthropologist, was its founding Secretary...

 (Ottawa, 1968). With Frederick Gibson, Graham edited and completed the first volume of the history of Queen's University, Queen's University, Volume I, 1841-1917: And Not to Yield that had been begun by Hilda Neatby

Hilda Neatby

Hilda Marion Ada Neatby, was a Canadian historian and educator.Born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Andrew Mossforth Neatby and Ada Deborah Fisher, she received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota...

 (1904–1975) but remained unfinished on her death; the volume appeared in 1978.

External references

• The article on Arthur Meighen in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online contains an extended reference to Graham's work.
• The awarding of the LLD by the University of Winnipeg is confirmed by http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/hd-index.