Finding Aid
Jack de Hart fonds. – 1935-1985. – 3 cm of textual records. – 2,122 photographs.
Box 1
Album 1 – “Coronation Trip, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth … 25 April 1927 to 1 August 1937”. The b&w photographs depicts a group of young men in their trip across Canada from Lethbridge to Montreal, the voyage across the Atlantic on board the S.S. Montcalm, landing at Le Havre, King George’s House in Stockwell where the group stayed in London, various London scenes, coronation day, Canterbury, Herstmonceux and Pevensey Castles in Sussex., Sir Paul Latham, M.P., Oxford, Bumping Race on the Thames, Windsor Castle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Alnwick Castle, Durham Cathedral, Dunbar and Glasgow; Kew Gardens, their return on the Empress of Britain. Jack de Hart was one of the group, a school boy representing the Lethbridge schools. A news clipping article by de Hart about the trip is included in the album. 208 photographs.
Album 2 – b&w photographs taken in Lethbridge, Banff, Calgary, Edmonton and other places in Alberta from the summer of 1939 to 1942. There are photographs of Sarcee Camp (a military training camp) in 1941 and 1942, as well as the University of Alberta from which Jack graduated. There is one photograph taken on board the S.S. Montcalm in 1937. 199 photographs
Album 3 – b&w photographs of military training taken in 1943. There is portrait of “13 Platoon “C” Company, O.S.A.C. (W.C.), 1 June 1943”. There are a few col. photographs taken in 1944 followed by b&w photographs taken in Pembroke, Ont., as well as portraits of Jack in his military uniform.
Album 4 – b&w photographs taken from 1944 to 1946. Many of these photographs presumably have captions on the verso but they have not been examined. Near the front of the album is a photograph of Jack and others at Petawawa Military Camp in October 1944. Near the end are the ruins of Tintern Abbey in Wales and HMS Vanguard in Portsmouth harbor in 1946. 110 photographs.
Album 5 – b&w photographs taken in 1949 in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria. Includes a photograph of Jack with fellow gunnery officers. It ends with photographs of the Alaska Highway and the Donjek River camp. 124 photographs.
Box 2
Album 6 – b&w photographs, col. postcards of the Alaska Highway, 1949-1950. Includes Whitehorse, Donjek River camp, Kluane Lake camp, O’Hara Transit Camp, trip from Whitehouse to Skagway in March 1950 by train. The album also contains photographs taken in Victoria at the Work Point Barracks followed by vacation photographs. 236 photographs
Album 7 – Korean War, b&w photographs. The album begins with departure from Seattle on U.S.N.S. James O’Hara on 15 Jan. 1953 with stops in the Aleutian Islands and Yokohama. There are photographs of Pusan, Korea, the U.N. cemetery, the Dutch Battalion (Hill 131), Samichon Valley, Rest Centre on Miya Jima, Hill 123 with the Van Doos regiment, Hill 207, and Christmas in 1953. The album is fully captioned. Two postcards and a photograph of a skeleton are in the album but were not pasted into it. 215 photographs.
Album 8 – “Presented to Major J.E. de Hart on the occasion of your visit to Fort Knox, Kentucky, February 1960”. The album contains stock b&w photographs; it does not appear to contain any of de Hart at Fort Knox. With the album were 13 loose photographs documenting the visit. De Hart is one of them. 14 photographs.
Box 3
The remainder of the albums are compilations, put together at a later date, and containing photographs from various time periods. They have not been captioned and are placed in sticky sheet albums; captions may/may not be written on the verso of these photographs. Some text does appear in the photographs themselves.
Album 9 – Begins with b&w photographs from the 1940s; there are photographs of the de Hart’s father. There is col. post card of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Lethbridge, Alberta. Later on there are col. photographs of de Hart as an older man. There is a b&w photograph of “3 RCHA Basic Boffin 40 mm Air Defence Course , 22 Jul.-3 Aug 74”; de Hart is in civilian dress in this group. There are col. photographs of a commemorative military service, possibly in Japan. Note: It is not the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea. 183 photographs (18 col; 165 b&w)
Album 10 – Begins with b&w photographs from the 1940s; col. photographs are interspersed. Although there are some military photographs, including recruitment photographs and an army airplane, many are of family and places. There are two photographs of a “Farewell party for Gosta Isaakson” taken in the Airport Restaurant, Damascus, 18 Nov. 1962; de Hart is in both of them. The album ends with col. family photographs and military social events, followed by yet more b&w photographs. Postcards: col. postcard from Korea; col. postcards of Israel and Malta (Hotel Phoenicia); b&w postcards of Cairo and the Pyramids, S.S. Homeric. 141 photographs (53 col; 88 b&w)
Album 11 – St. John Ambulance / Order of St. John. Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (1944-) at an event in 1984 (if all the photographs in the album are from the same year). B&w photographs. Gloucester holds the Service Medal of the Order of St. John; there is a man in medieval dress on a horse in some of the photographs. Following are col. photographs of the 75th Anniversary (1909-1984). The first St. John Ambulance Brigade division for men was formed in London, Ontario, in 1909. De Hart is shown speaking at a podium in the Chimo Inn, Ottawa”. De Hart appears in photographs throughout the album, including some with the Duke of Gloucester. 109 photographs (78 col; 31 b&w)
Box 4
Album 12 – St. John Ambulance. The album begins with col photographs of de Hart presenting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with an award on 13 July 1983; the text of the de Hart’s remarks are also in the album. These are followed by two photographs of de Hart being recognized for his work by Governor General Jeanne Sauvé in her role as Dame of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. Some family photographs follow as well as a b&w photograph of de Hart in his St. John Ambulance uniform. At the end are b&w photographs: de Hart in his military uniform; a signed photograph of H.A.Merklinger playing the organ in Shilo, Manitoba on 13 March 1949; “CASC [Royal Canadian Army Service Corps] – 3rd Syndicate 1955”, includes de Hart; army recruiting photograph in 1940s. 21 photographs (14 col; 7 b&w)
File folder 1: St. John Ambulance; 8 col photographs were found on album pages that had been cut out of an album. De Hart is in his military uniform.
Album 13 – B&w photographs, military social events, de Hart appears in uniform and civilian clothes; on board a navy ship; military camp and in the field; portrait of de Hart with his parents; entertainment in the Mess. A few col. photographs are interspersed. 76 photographs (3 col; 73 b&w)
Album 14 – Album begins with 2 b&w post cards of S.S. Samaria nd S.S. Empress of Britain. Album contains a pictures of b&w and col. photographs, military and family. There are some photographs of the Wrights in 1985. Near the end is a formal military portrait of de Hart from the 1940s. 118 photographs (102 col; 16 b&w)
Album 15 –There are several pages of family pictures, de Hart is not in them. They are followed by photographs of de Harte with Governor General Jeanne Sauvé at Rideau Hall. They are both in civilian dress so this occasion appears not to be connected to the one depicted in Album 12. The album ends with military social events and then family photographs. 98 photographs (96 col; 2 b&w)
Photographs removed from 2 albums that were not full in order to save space and placed in file folders.
File 2: Formal b&w portraits of de Hart and others. Includes wedding pictures taken by C.B. Elliott; it a double wedding and one of the bridegrooms is de Hart. 12 photographs
File 3: Military social occasions. There is also a photograph of Perrin Beatty who was Minister of Defence, 1986-1989; the other photograph is presumably of Paul Davison Manson who was Chief of the Defence Staff, 1986-89. 18 col. photographs
File 4: Family photographs, 16 photographs (15 col; 1 b&w)
File 5: Letter from the German Ambassador to Canada to de Hart, 1958
File 6: Printed mimeograph of lyrics for “underneath the Moosehead or The Fort Osborne Swoon Song” by Matron Betty Pense, RCAMC, 1947
Clippings:
Files 7 to 9. Clippings about de Hart, his parents, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, the Wrights, and others. File 7 contains a photocopy of a column written by de Hart as editor of The Observer for the people of Shilo.
File 10: General news clippings.
Oversize:
Royal School of Music. piano certificate, 1935
Two degrees, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws, from the University of Alberta, text entirely in Latin, 1943? They are signed by Frank Ford who was the Chancellor from 1942 to 1946.
Appointment as an officer (2nd Lieutenant, Royal Canadian Artillery), 28 Feb. 1944
Certificate of Service in the Canadian Armed Forces, 24 May 1943-18 Dec. 1971. Signed by General Frederick Ralph Sharp, Chief of the Defence Staff.
