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

Robert Horne Bryson was born on March 22, 1849, in Montreal, Quebec. He was a druggist and owned a pharmacy Brysons, Limited. In 1896, he registered a trade-mark for a compound syrup of licorice at the Department of Agriculture, Copyright and Trade-Mark Branch. In 1883, he married Mary Ann Clarkson Wright. He died on June 28, 1924, in Montreal, Quebec.

Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch and 10th Duke of Queensberry, was born on December 30, 1894, in Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland.

He was a British Conservative politician. He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, and had a military career commanding the 4th King's Own Scottish Borderers. He was also Captain-General of the Royal Company of Archers. Scott was a Scottish Unionist Party Member of Parliament for Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire from 1923 until 1935. He had attended Hitler's 50th birthday celebration in 1939 and opposed war with Germany. Once war broke out, he campaigned for a truce that would allow Hitler to keep all his conquered territory. In 1940, seen as pro-German, he was compelled to 'resign' as Lord Steward by King George VI. Scott inaugurated a racist campaign against workers in the British Honduran Forestry Unit who had come to Scotland to help in the war effort. He served as Lord Clerk Register in Scotland from 1956 until he died in 1973.

In 1921, he married Vreda Esther Mary Lascelles (1900–1993). He died on October 4, 1973, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

John Stuart Buchan was born on October 28, 1852, in St. Andrews, Argenteuil, Quebec.

In 1864, he graduated from McGill University Law School and became a member of the law firm Taylor and Buchan (1864-1927). In 1894, he was elected President of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. He was also an author who wrote the novel "A Bit of Atlantis" (1900) under the pseudonym Douglas Erskine.

In 1885, he married Catherine Jane McMartin (1853–1894). In 1896, he remarried Annie Henderson (1859–1911). He died on February 10, 1927, in Verdun, Quebec.

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was born on August 26, 1875, in Perth, Scotland.

He was a Scottish novelist, historian, biographer, editor, and Unionist politician. He attended Hutchesons' Boys' Grammar School, Glasgow University, and Brasenose College, Oxford. Buchan won the Stanhope essay prize in 1897, the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1898 and was elected as the president of the Oxford Union. In 1901, he entered a career in diplomacy, becoming the private secretary to Alfred Milner, the High Commissioner for Southern Africa. Upon his return to London, he entered a partnership in the Thomas Nelson & Son publishing company and became editor of The Spectator. With the outbreak of the First World War, Buchan wrote for the British War Propaganda Bureau and worked as a correspondent in France for The Times. In the mid-1920s, he became president of the Scottish Historical Society and a trustee of the National Library of Scotland. In 1935, he was appointed to the Order of St. Michael and St. George and was elevated to the peerage by King George V as 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. The same year he was sworn in as Governor-General of Canada. He established the first proper library at Rideau Hall and founded the Governor General's Literary Awards. He published over 100 works, e.g., "Sir Quixote of the Moors" (1895), a spy-thriller "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915), and the autobiography "Memory Hold-the-Door" (1940).

In 1907, he married Susan Charlotte Grosvenor (1882–1977). He died on February 11, 1940, in Montreal, Quebec.

Emily Phyllis Buchanan, born in 1914, is the daughter of William and Emily Gould, niece of the Canadian-American author Palmer Cox. In the 1930s, she lived in Montreal and worked as a secretary, frequently vacationing in different places in Québec. During that time, she meets John Edger Buchanan, whose father was a soldier during the First World War. She marries him some time later. During the later part of her life, she assisted several projects or institutions in preserving and transmitting the legacy of Palmer Cox. To this end, she donated part of her collections of Palmer Cox-related material to McGill University in 1996.