MacDermot, Terence William Leighton, 1896-1966

Terence MacDermot was born in Jamaica in 1896 and grew up in Montreal. He attended McGill University from 1913 to 1916, where he became editor of the McGill Daily. He was granted a B.A. in 1917, while serving overseas in the 7th Canadian Siege Battery. A Rhodes scholar, he obtained his M.A. from Oxford University in 1922. In 1923, after working for a year at Hotchkiss School, Connecticut, MacDermot returned to Montreal and taught at both, Lower Canada College and at McGill’s History Department. Between 1925 and 1930 he was editor of the McGill News. McGill promoted him to the level of Assistant Professor in 1929, and he remained there until 1934, when he left to serve as national secretary of the League of Nations Society in Canada. The following year Upper Canada College appointed him as its Principal. During the Second World War, he worked first for the War Service Department and then as a Chief Army Examiner for the Toronto district. In 1944, he joined the Department of External Affairs, receiving appointments as High Commissioner to South Africa in 1950-1954, Ambassador to Greece and Israel in 1954-1957, and High Commissioner to Australia in 1957-1961. He then became Professor of Political Science at Bishop’s University. MacDermot received an honorary LL.D. degree from McGill in 1957. He had a life-long interest in the life and works of British writer D.H. Lawrence. He died in 1966.