Gwladys Downes (1915-2005)
A scholar of French literature, Gwladys Downes was well known as a poet.
22 April 1915, Victoria, BC
17 September 2005, Victoria, BC
Name at birth:
Gwladys Violet Downes
Alternate names:
G. V. Downes
Gwladys V. Downes
Entry written by Daryn Wright
Gwladys Downes (1915-2005)
Gwladys Violet Downes was born in Victoria, BC, on 22 April 1915, to teacher Gordon Downes (1890-1929) and actress Doris Gwendolyn Bywater-Jones (1891-1959). Her early education took place in Oak Bay, BC, and she later attended Victoria College (now the University of Victoria). Gwladys attended the University of British Columbia, earning her BA in 1934 and her MA in 1940. She completed her doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1953, writing her dissertation on French symbolist poet Paul Valéry, whose work influenced her own.
Gwladys’s first teaching job was at Duncan High School, where she taught from 1936 to 1939. She became a faculty member with the Departments of French and English at the University of British Columbia from 1940 to 1941 and 1946 to 1949 before briefly teaching at the University of Toronto. She joined the Department of French at Victoria College in 1951, where she retired as a full professor in 1978.
Gwladys’s successful teaching career was supported by her work in poetry, translation, and criticism. Her poetry and essays were published in several periodicals, including
Canadian Forum, Canadian Literature, the Malahat Review, and Saturday Night. Her first book of poetry, Lost Diver, was published in 1955, followed by several other collections. Her work was also included in the anthologies 40 Women Poets of Canada (1971), Vancouver Island Poems (1973), and Poetry by Canadian Women (1989). A translator of Québécois poetry, Gwladys often included translations of French poets alongside her own work. Some of these translations were included in The Poetry of French Canada in Translation, edited by John Glassco and published in 1970.
During the Second World War, Gwladys spent time in Ottawa, where she worked in Intelligence for the National Research Council. She was a volunteer archivist at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and was a Chair of the Music and Art lecture series at the Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria.
Gwladys earned several awards throughout her career for her work in bringing francophone work to Anglophone readers. She was a recipient of a Canada Council Senior Arts Award in 1969, and was honoured by the League of Canadian Poets, of which she was a member, in 1998. The University of Victoria conferred on Gwladys an honourary Doctor of Letters in 1994. Gwladys died in Victoria on 17 September 2005.
Published Texts
Poetry
Lost Diver (Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry, 1955)
When We Lie Together (Vancouver, BC: Klanak, 1973)
Out of the Violent Dark: Poems and translations (Victoria, BC: Sono Nis, 1978)
Cannibal Speech (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1980)
House of Cedars (Victoria, BC: Ekstasis, 1999)
Periodical Contributions
Alphabet (London, ON)
Canadian Forum (Toronto)
Canadian Literature (Vancouver, BC)
Canadian Poetry Magazine (Toronto)
Event (New Westminster, BC)
Fiddlehead (Fredericton, NB)
Malahat Review (Victoria, BC)
Prism (Sydney, Australia)
Saturday Night (Toronto)
Tamarack Review (Toronto)
Other Publications
Contributed to:
Skelton, Robin and Ann Saddlemyer, eds. The World of W.B. Yeats: Essays in Perspective (Seattle, WA: U of Washington P, 1965).
Family and Relationships
Father: Gordon Downes (1890 – 20 December 1929)
Gordon Downes was a geologist and teacher at Victoria High Schoolin Victoria, BC. He married Doris Gwendolyn Bywater Jones (1891-1959) in 1914, with whom he had three daughters. Gordon and his family spent the years during the war in England and France before returning to Victoria in 1918. Shortly after his return, Gordon became the principal of Oak Bay High School, where he remained until his death on 20 December 1929.
Mother: Doris Gwendolyn Bywater-Jones (April 1891 – 16 April 1959)
Doris Gwendolyn Bywater-Jones was born in Doncaster, England, in April 1891. She came to Canada in April 1914 where she married her fiancé Gordon Downes (1890-1929). They had three daughters.
Doris was a successful actress and was a member of the Little Theatre company, which was later called the Theatre Guild. She worked with the St. Barnabas Players, Intimate Stage, the York Theatre and the Lancaster Summer Stock Company in Penticton, BC. Doris was known as the “Puppet Lady” because of her performances for children, for which she wrote scripts and designed the costumes and props.
Siblings
Sheila Gwendoline Downes (28 August 1917 – December 1976): m. Charles S. Morden
Marguerite Downes (4 October 1919 – 5 December 2003): m. Norman Russell Gierman (1914-1985)
Religion
Anglican
Residences
Duncan, BC (1936-1939)
Ottawa, ON (c1941-c1946)
Toronto, ON (c1949-c1951)
Vancouver, BC (c1930-c1936)(c1940-1941)(c1946-1949)
Victoria, BC (1915-c1930)(c1951-2005)
Education
Victoria College
University of British Columbia (BA, 1934)
University of British Columbia (MA, 1940)
Sorbonne (Doctorate, 1953)
Awards
Canada Council Senior Arts Award (Canada Council, 1969)
Honourary Doctor of Letters (University of Victoria, 1994)
Honored by League of Canadian Poets (League of Canadian Poets, 1998)
Employment and Volunteer Activities
Employment
Critic
Intelligence for National Research Council
Poet
Professor of English, University of British Columbia (1946-1949)
Professor of French, University of British Columbia (1940-1941)
Professor of French, University of Toronto
Professor of French, University of Victoria (1951-1978)
Schoolteacher, Duncan High School (1936-1939)
Translator
Unpaid and volunteer work
Chair, Music and Art lecture series at Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria
Chair, University Art Committee, University of Victoria
Volunteer archivist, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Memberships
Association for Canadian and Quebec Poetry
League of Canadian Poets
The Letters Club, University of British Columbia
Tangential Information
The Gwladys and Gwen Downes Scholarship in Theatre was established at the University of Victoria by Gwladys in honour of her mother, Gwen Downes, who was a prominent member of the Victoria theatre community.
Gwladys, as the Chair of the University Art Committee at the University of Victoria, was instrumental in the formation of the John and Katharine Maltwood collection, which is comprised of art and antiques from their travels as well as Katherine's own works of sculpture and drawings. Katharine Maltwood was the author of several works of non-fiction.
Published Resources
British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872-1990.
Dance, George J. Gwladys Downes. Penny’s Poetry Pages. Web. 20 May 2015.
California, Death Index, 1940-1997.
England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007.
England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915.
Gwladys and Gwen Downes Scholarship in Theatre. University of Victoria. Web. 3 June 2015.
Lynes, Jeanette. Gwladys Downes. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 88: Canadian Writers, 1920-59, Second Series. Ed. William H. New. (Detroit, MI: Gale, 1989).
Obituaries: Downes, Gwladys. Victoria Times-Colonist (27 September 2005).
U.S. Public Records Index, Volume 1.
U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014.