Charles W. (Charles William) Colby

Born in Stanstead, Quebec, on March 28, 1867, Charles William Colby studied at McGill University before continuing at Harvard, where he earned both an M.A. and a PhD. He returned to McGill at a young age, joined the history faculty, and went on to play an important role in building the university's history department.

Colby is remembered as both a historian and a financier, but his writing is especially notable for making Canadian history readable for a broad audience. His books include The Founder of New France: A Chronicle of Champlain, The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac, and Canadian Types of the Old Régime, works that brought major figures and eras of early Canadian history to life.

He died on December 10, 1955. The surviving archival record and university sources present him as an influential scholar in Canadian historical studies, especially in the teaching and interpretation of New France and the colonial past.