Charles W. (Charles William) Colby

Born in Stanstead, Quebec, on March 28, 1867, he studied at McGill University before continuing at Harvard, where he earned advanced degrees in history. He went on to a long academic career at McGill, first as a lecturer and later as a professor and dean, building a reputation as a serious scholar as well as a gifted teacher.

Alongside his university work, he wrote books that made Canadian and imperial history approachable for general readers. Titles such as The Founder of New France: A Chronicle of Champlain and Canadian Types of the Old Régime show his lasting interest in the people, conflicts, and institutions that shaped early Canada.

He is remembered as both a historian and a public-minded man of letters whose writing aimed to make the past vivid rather than distant. He died on December 10, 1955.