As grandson of the founder of the Henry Birks and Son Ltd., Canada’s largest company of gold and silversmiths, Henry Gifford Birks was destined to play a role in the family business and in the Montreal business community. He entered the business in 1911, became general manager in 1933, then president in 1944. Besides sitting on the boards of many companies, he was president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Montreal Board of Trade. A graduate of McGill, he also served as a governor of the university. He was a member of Montreal City Council from 1940 to 1944.

John Earl Birks was born on March 7, 1876, in Peoria, Illinois, USA. In 1894, he came to Montreal as a young man to join his uncle's jewelry and silversmith business Henry Birks & Sons, Ltd. He spent 50 years working there, mostly as manager of the advertising and mail order departments in the head office in Montreal. He was also well known in Toronto, where he was associated with the firm of Ryrie-Birks, Ltd. from 1923 to 1932 and in Winnipeg where he worked with Birks-Dingwall, Ltd. He was a member and an elder of Knox-Crescent Presbyterian Church, a member of the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Royal Montreal Curling Club. In 1904, he married Selina Terrance Savage. He died on March 18, 1948, in Montreal, Quebec

John Henry Birks was the second son of Henry Birks, founder of Henry Birks and Sons, whose store on Sainte-Catherine Street was designed by E. Maxwell in 1893. J. Henry Birks joined his father's firm at 23 after obtaining an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He would oversee the production shops.

William Massey Birks, the eldest son of Henry Birks, founder of the jewelry firm that bears his name, was born in Montréal. He was educated at McGill University, and entered his father's business in 1885. In 1910 he became a Governor of McGill. Birks also served as chairman of the Joint Board which brought together the Theological Colleges affiliated with McGill, and was a generous contributor to the Endowment Fund of the Faculty of Divinity. He was President of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in 1938, and during World War II organized the Canadian United Allied Relief Fund and the National Clothing Campaigns. He was awarded a C.B.E.

Earle Alfred Birney was born on May 13, 1904, in Calgary, Alberta.

He was a Canadian poet, novelist, and professor of English. He was educated at the University of British Columbia, Toronto, and California, Berkeley. He lectured in English at the University of Toronto from 1936 to 1941, when he left to serve overseas. After the war, he worked for the CBC, and, in 1946, he joined the Department of English at the University of British Columbia, where he taught the first credit course in creative writing offered by a Canadian university. During the next two decades, Birney added more writing courses and tutorials to the curriculum. In 1964, he became editor of the literary magazine Prism International and affiliated it with the creative writing programme. Birney retired from UBC in 1965 to become a writer-in-residence at Scarborough College at the University of Toronto. He was a well-known poet and writer, publishing novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, essays, and plays. He received the Governor General's medal for poetry twice (1942, 1945), the Lorne Pierce gold medal for Literature (1953), the University of Ontario President's medal for poetry, and the Stephen Leacock medal for humourous writing for his novel “Turvey” (1949). In 1970, Birney was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In 1933, he married Sylvia Johnstone (annulled in 1937), and, in 1940, he remarried Esther Bull Heiger (1908–2006). He died on August 27, 1995, in Toronto, Ontario.