Edwin C. Guillet

Edwin Clarence Guillet (September 29, 1898 – 26 June 1975) was a Canadian historian, author and educator. He wrote or edited about 150 books, many about the history of Ontario.^[1]

Early life and education

Guillet grew up in Cobourg, Ontario, the son of Edwin Guillet, Sr. and Lula Kemp. He attended Cobourg Public School and also attended high school in Cobourg. An asthmatic condition prevented enlistment during World War I. He studied at the University of Toronto, and graduated in 1922 with a bachelor's degree in Political Sciences and Economics.^[2] He attended the Ontario College of Education from 1922 to 1923, and after graduation went on to earn a master's degree in history.

Career

Guillet taught high school at the Eastern High School of Commerce in Toronto,^[3] and later worked as an archivist at the Ontario Archives.^[4]

Guillet wrote many books about the history of Ontario.^[5] Two of his best known books are Early Life in Upper Canada (1933) and Pioneer Days in Upper Canada (1933).^[6] His book The Lives and Times of the Patriots, about the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion, has been extensively referenced by later historians.^[7] He also published a study of Ontario taverns and inns.^[8] Some of his books, including his 1948 history of the town of Cobourg, are considered "popular histories" and don't specify sources for much of the information.^[9]

In 1957 Guillet was the editor of Valley of the Trent, the first of a series of Ontario history books published by the Champlain Society.^[4][10]

He wrote a series of papers about Canadian trials,^[11] and a short work exploring the death of Canadian painter, Tom Thomson.^[12]

Guillet's papers have been preserved in the archives of Trent University.

Personal

Guillet married Mary Elizabeth Scott in 1925, and the couple had three children.^[13]

References

1. George Sherwood (3 February 2006). Legends In Their Time: Young Heroes and Victims of Canada. Dundurn. pp. 230–. ISBN 978-1-55488-208-3.
2. "Guillet wrote popular book on Cobourg". Northumberland Today, April 14, 2010. Written by Ciara Ward.
3. "Bilingualism Hard on French Students". The Montreal Gazette - May 3, 1946 page 2.
4. Christie Bentham; Katharine Hooke (15 July 2000). From Burleigh to Boschink: A Community Called Stony Lake. Dundurn. pp. 5–. ISBN 978-1-55488-172-7.
5. Heather Robertson (1995). Driving Force: The McLaughlin Family and the Age of the Car. McClelland & Stewart. p. 371. ISBN 978-0-7710-7556-8.
6. WorldCat report for Edwin C. Guillet
7. Frank Murray Greenwood; Barry Wright; Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002). Canadian State Trials: Rebellion and invasion in the Canadas, 1837-1839. University of Toronto Press. pp. 35–. ISBN 978-0-8020-3748-0.
8. Robert A. Campbell (2001). Sit Down and Drink Your Beer: Regulating Vancouver's Beer Parlours, 1925-1954. University of Toronto Press. pp. 5–. ISBN 978-0-8020-8377-7.
9. Journal of Scholarly Publishing. University of Toronto Press. 2002. p. 46.
10. R.B. Fleming (7 April 2011). The Wartime Letters of Leslie and Cecil Frost, 1915-1919. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. pp. 79–. ISBN 978-1-55458-685-1.
11. Brian McKillop (30 November 2011). The Spinster and the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past. McClelland & Stewart. pp. 593–. ISBN 978-1-55199-621-9.
12. Gregory Klages (14 May 2016). The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson: Separating Fact from Fiction. Dundurn. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-1-4597-3198-1.
13. Anne Innis Dagg (1 January 2006). The Feminine Gaze: A Canadian Compendium of Non-Fiction Women Authors and Their Books, 1836-1945. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. pp. 121–. ISBN 978-0-88920-845-2.