Rev. Charles Henry Brooks was born on September 6, 1846, in Lennoxville, Quebec.

He was educated at Bishop's College School and McGill University. His father was one of the founders of the Grand Trunk Railway. He belonged to a Congregationalist family and took his divinity course at the Theological Seminary, Andover, Massachusetts. In 1876, he left for missionary work and he spent sixteen years working in Constantinople. In 1892, he returned to Canada, joined the Church of England, and after serving several parishes came to Grafton, Ontario as Rector of St. George Anglican Parish.

In 1876, he married Fannie Wallace of London, Ontario. He died on July 17, 1914, in Orillia, Ontario.

Mary Wallace Brooks was born in May 1880 in Constantinople, Turkey.

She was a Canadian author who graduated from Wellesley College in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1902. She wrote the novels "A Prodigal" (1907) and "A Christmas Robin" (1911). Additionally, Brooks contributed to "The Passing Show," an annual musical revue produced by the Shubert organization in Montreal. In June 1932, she published the play "Whirr of Wings" in the magazine "Echoes."

She died on August 16, 1949, in Montreal, Quebec.

Murray Gordon Brooks, who devoted his life to the YMCA and the Student Christian Movement, was born at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. He studied at Stanstead College to prepare himself for university, and then entered McGill. While at McGill he helped to organize the Students' Council, and, as an active member of the Glee Club, he helped to write the song "Hail Alma Mater". He obtained a B.A. in History and Economics in 1908. He then turned down a Rhodes scholarship, and began to work for the International YMCA. He served that organization in Ceylon until 1925 and then returned to continue his efforts in Canada. During the years 1938-1940 he served his cause in Rangoon, Burma.

Samuel Towle Brooks was born on December 28, 1823, in Stanstead, during his parents' temporary residence. After attending Dartmouth, he became a medical student at McGill University from 1848 to 1851. Notarial records show that he was indentured to a Dr. MacDonnell in May 1848.

After completing his medical studies, Brooks practiced as a family doctor for 11 or 15 years in Sherbrooke. Around the beginning of the American Civil War, he moved to St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he became a member of the Vermont Medical Society. He was a deacon of the North Congregational Church for about 25 years. On June 6, 1855, he married Lucy Mills. He passed away in 1895.

Vernon Brooks was a pioneer in studies of the neural basis of motor control. He studied the organization of the motor cortex, demonstrated how the cerebellum modulates the cortical control of movement, and was among the first to study the neural basis of motor learning.

Vernon Brooks was sent from Berlin to Britain in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport refugee program. He lived and worked with the Tompsett family in Kent England until 1949 when all German nationals were interned and sent to the Isle of Man. Brooks’ journey continued in the same year with the fall of France forcing the transfer of the camp residents to Canada. It was in Camp “A” at Farnham Quebec that Brooks first encountered McGill University as a source of secondary and pre-university education and exams. Brooks passed his exams in 1941 and was released in 1942 by Order-in-Council of the Governor General to the care of a sponsor in Toronto. He went on to pass Ontario University entrance exams and begin his academic career.

Brooks returned to McGill University as Senior Demonstrator in Physiology (1950), Lecturer in Physiology (1951-1952), and Assistant Professor of Physiology (1953-1955). He is the author of the Neural Basis of Motor Control 1986 and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario.