Ramsay Traquair (1874-1952) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the first child of Ramsay Heatley Traquair, a distinguished scientist and curator of the Natural History collection of the Royal Museum in Edinburgh and the Irish-born Phoebe Anna Traquair, a talented painter, illustrator and decorative artist closely connected with the Arts and Crafts Movement. Traquair came to Canada in 1913, armed with a well rounded Edinburgh education (Edinburgh University and the School of Applied Arts, now the Royal College of Art), a teaching experience at the Royal College of Arts where, in 1908 he became head of its newly established day course in Architecture, and a series of local apprenticeships and professional associations, first with Stewart Henbest Capper (1889-1925) and later with Sir Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), Arthur George Sydney Mitchell (1856-1930) and George Wilson (1845-1912). His own Edinburgh practice, which he set up in 1905, was brief; his most notable buildings being the First Church of Christ Scientist (1911) on Inverleith Terrace and the Skirling House for Lord Carmichael of Skirling in Peeblesshire (1908). When, in 1912, Traquair applied for the Macdonald Chair in Architecture at McGill University, he promised “to regard teaching as my life’s work with only so much practice as is necessary to keep in touch with realities.” The University, which had previously engaged in skirmishes with the energetic Percy Nobbs over the right to combine teaching with architectural practice, was eager to hire him. Traquair kept his word; the McGill University flag and its library bookplate are the only public reminders, on campus, of his talent as a designer.

Sulpician priest and historian Jean-Léon-Olivier Maurault, born in Sorel, Québec, was ordained in 1910, then finished his studies at the Institut Catholique de Paris from 1911 to 1913. Returning to Montréal, he became vicar of the parish of St. Jacques until 1926 then curé of the prestigious parish of Notre Dame from 1926 to 1929; he served as Superior of the Externat de St. Sulpice (now Collège André Grasset from 1929 to 1934. He was rector of the Université de Montréal from 1934 to 1955. Throughout his career he wrote numerous scholarly books and articles on the topics of art history and the religious history of Canada. In 1943 he was elected president of the Société Royale du Canada.