Douglas G. Lochhead

1922-2011

Douglas Grant Lochhead was born in Guelph, Ontario on 25 March 1922. Douglas attended Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa and spent summers in New Brunswick with his maternal grandparents, the Van Warts, in Fredericton and on the New Brunswick shore of the Bay of Fundy. Lochhead entered the pre-med program at McGill University in 1939 and transferred to the arts faculty, graduating with a BA in 1943. In that year he joined the Canadian Army, training first as an artillery officer, then switching to the infantry. Between 1945 and 1947, Lochhead was enrolled in the MA course in English at the University of Toronto. The subject of Lochhead’s thesis was the English war poets of 1914–1918. Between 1947 and 1950, Lochhead was an advertising copywriter in Toronto and worked in publicity and advertising for an Ottawa newspaper. In 1951, Lochhead received a Bachelor of Library Science degree from McGill University. From 1951 to 1952, he was librarian at Victoria College, Victoria, BC. In 1952 he worked at Cornell; from 1953–1960 he was University Librarian at Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS. From 1960–1963 he was Director of Libraries at York University in Toronto and also an Associate Professor of English. In 1963 Lochhead went to University of Toronto, Massey College to be College Librarian, and also Professor of English. In 1975 Lochhead left Massey College to become Edgar and Dorothy Davidson Professor and Director of Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB. After retiring from teaching in 1987, he became Writer in Residence at Mount Allison in 1990. In 2002 he was chosen Sackville’s first Poet Laureate. In November 2009 he moved to the Drew Nursing Home in Sackville, where he died on 15 March 2011. The flyleaf of the last poetry collection Lochhead published, Looking Into the Trees (2009), lists thirty other titles. Lochhead sometimes published under one of his private press imprints such as Harrier Editions. 

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Sackville

Archival Material

• Lochhead family fonds
  ⌄
  Location

  Mount Allison University Archives

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  24

  Date Range of Material

  1879-1987

  Extent

  14 m of textual records
  1.7 m of photographs

  Scope and Content Note

  Fonds consists mainly of records generated by family relationships and Douglas Grant Lochhead's professional records. Fonds is arranged in six series: William and Lillias Lochhead, 1879-1949; Alan Grant and Helen Lochhead, 1913-1984; Douglas Grant Lochhead, 1939-1987; Kenneth C. Lochhead, 1930-1984; Articles and clippings; and photographs, predominantly of friends and family.