Diana Fitzgerald, a Canadian literary author, was born in London, England. She was best known for her poetry, but also wrote novels, reviews, and columns. Her family lived around the corner from the Jordanian Embassy; its occupation by protesters demanding the release of a PLO hijacker, Leila Khaled, made a big impression on her at age 9. She later attended North Toronto Collegiate Institute with her younger sister, graduating in 1980, with a Kerr award for character, scholarship, and leadership. In 1984, she graduated from Trinity College. She has been a course instructor at Humber College in Toronto. Her poems have appeared in two Insomniac Press anthologies and Vintage 96, the anthology of the League of Canadian Poets. The Torontonian’s first collection of poems, "Learning Russian", shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, was published in 2000, followed by "Clinic Day" in 2004. Her first novel, "No Place Strange", which appeared in 2009, features a female terrorist reminiscent of Leila Khaled, who later became a member of the Palestinian National Council.

Charles John Brydges was born on February 23, 1827, in London, England.

Brydges was a railway official, civil servant, and HBC land commissioner. In 1843, he was appointed a junior clerk in the London and South-Western Railway Company. He initiated a “friendly society” to benefit the railway’s workmen, and, knowing the need for financial prudence, he pressed on the company and its employees the urgency of contributory superannuation provisions. In 1852, he published a pamphlet “Railway superannuation: an examination of the scheme of the General Railway Association for providing superannuation allowances to worn out and disabled railway employés”. In 1852, he came to Canada to become the managing director of the Great Western Railroad which was incorporated to build a line from Burlington Bay to Lake Huron. From 1862 to 1874 he was general manager of the competing Grand Trunk Railway. Afterwards, he became one of the Commissioners of the Intercolonial Railway which connected Montreal, Quebec, with Halifax, Nova Scotia. He built up the employees’ morale and loyalty by supporting reading-rooms, education for workers, and improved benefits. From 1879 until his death, he was a Land Commissioner for the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipeg. The town of Mount Brydges, Ontario, is named in his honour.

In 1849, he married Letitia Grace Henderson (1823–1912). He died on February 16, 1889, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges was born on November 30, 1762, in Wootton, Kent, England.

He was an English bibliographer, genealogist, and author. He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School and The King's School, Canterbury, and was admitted to Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1780. Although he did not complete his degree, he studied poetry in seclusion from his peers. He joined the Middle Temple, London, in 1782 and was called to the bar in 1787 but never practiced law. In 1795, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Despite his early forgotten literary works, such as "Sonnets and other Poems" (1785), he made valuable contributions through his bibliographical publications, including "Censura Literaria," "Titles and Opinions of Old English Books" (10 vols., 1805-1809), "Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum" (1800) and "Peerage of England" (1812). He was a founding member of the Roxburghe Club, a publishing club of affluent book collectors. In 1807, he was appointed a Knight Grand Commander of the Equestrian, Secular, and Chapterial Order of St. Joachim. In 1814, he was made a baronet. He also served as Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1812 to 1818.

In 1786, he married Elizabeth Byrche (1766/7–1796), and in 1796, he remarried Mary Robinson. He died on September 8, 1837, at Campagne Gros Jean, near Geneva, and was buried in Geneva.

William Brydone Jack was born on November 23, 1817, in Trailflatt, Tinwald, Scotland.

He was a mathematician, astronomer, and professor. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. In 1840, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at what was then King's College (later the University of New Brunswick, 1851) in Fredericton, Nova Scotia. He also designed a small wooden observatory which became operational in 1851. In 1855, William Brydone Jack, together with Dr. J.B. Toldervy, determined the longitude of Fredericton using the exchange of telegraph signals with Harvard College Observatory. This was the first precisely determined longitude in Canada. In 1861, he became the University of New Brunswick's first surveying professor and its second president (1861-1885). He introduced a course in civil engineering and surveying. The Brydone Jack Observatory was marked by an official plaque in 1955 which identified the building as the "First Astronomical Observatory in Canada."

In 1844, he married Marian Ellen Peters (1825–1858). In 1859, he married Caroline Amelia Disbrow (1829–1910). He died on November 23, 1886, in Fredericton, Nova Scotia.

Miss Bryson was a Victorian composer of songs. Her song "Far out of sight" was first published in 1884.