A busy participant in the Canadian literary community, Toronto-based author Marjory MacMurchy was well-known for her journalism and fiction.
Entry revised by Linnea McNally and Daryn Wright
Marjory MacMurchy was born in 1870 in Toronto, ON, to educator and author Archibald MacMurchy (1832-1912) and Marjory Jardine Ramsay (c1838-1889).
Educated at the Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute, which was headed by her father, Marjory published her first stories in the early 1890s in
In 1926, Marjory married widower Sir John Stephen Willison (1856-1927), thus becoming Lady Willison. Together they founded
In addition to her journalism and many short stories published in periodicals, Marjory wrote at least seven books, two of them novels. Active in the Canadian Authors Association, she was also well known for giving personal support to novice women authors.
Suffering from arteriosclerosis, Marjory died of a stroke in 1938. She was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.
Archibald MacMurchy was born in 1832 in Stewartfield, Argyleshire, Scotland, to Angus MacMurchy (c1807-1895) and Elizabeth MacPhail (c1807-1894). The family emigrated to Upper Canada in 1840, and Archibald initally studied at Rockwood Academy Normal School. He earned his BA from the University of Toronto in 1861—winning the Silver Medal in Mathematics—and his MA in 1868. In 1855, Archibald opened the first public school in Collingwood, ON. Three years later, he was appointed Mathematical Master at Toronto’s Home District Grammar School (later, sequentially, Toronto High School, Toronto Collegiate Institute, and Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute).
In 1859, Archibald married Marjory Jardine Ramsay (c1838-1880), with whom he had six children. He took brief pause from his profession in 1866 to fight at the Battle of Ridgeway, and from 1872 to 1900, was Rector (Headmaster) of the Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute. From 1877 to 1884, he was a member of the Senate at the University of Toronto, from which he received an honourary LLD in 1907.
Archibald was also editor and proprietor of
Marjory Jardine Ramsay was born in about 1838 in Linlithgow, Scotland, to James Ramsay and his wife Helen. She arrived in Upper Canada prior to her 1859 marriage to Archibald MacMurchy (1832-1912), with whom she had six children.
Marjory was involved in the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society in Toronto. She died, likely in Toronto, in 1889.
Angus was a lawyer in Toronto, ON.
Helen was a doctor and author.
Dougald was a lawyer who practiced in the western US. He was killed by
gunshot wound at Dunnville, ON.
Bessie was a nurse who served in London and Paris as part of the American Ambulance staff during the First World War. She was also a church administrator. She never married, living with her sister Helen in Rosedale, ON, in her early eighties.
John was a clerk in the customs office, and later a lawyer in Toronto, ON. He died of multiple sclerosis in his mid-fifties.
John Stephen Willison was born in 1856 near Hills Green, Upper Canada, to Stephen Willison (c1816-1907) and Jane Abrams (1824-1881). Intensely involved in Canadian federal political, John was a first a journalist and then editor of the
For a more detailed biography, see his entry in the
Jarvis Street Collegiate Institute, Toronto, ON
University of Toronto
Journalist
Secretary, Ontario Unemployment Commission
Co-founder and president, Canadian Women’s Press Club
Head, Women’s Department, Canadian Reconstruction Association
Honourary president, Canadian Women’s Press Club
P.E.N.
Toronto Ladies’ Club
Census records indicate that Marjory’s birth date was between the 2nd and the 6th of April 1870, but no birth certificate has been found.