Frances Firth Gammon

1918-2015

Frances Allison (Firth) Gammon (historian, writer, and poet) was born in Campbellton, New Brunswick, 2 September 1918. Firth graduated from Campbellton High School in 1935. Firth graduated from the Fredericton Normal School (Teacher’s College) in 1937 and taught in rural schools in Dalhousie Junction and Glencoe alternately while pursuing a BA in English and history from the University of New Brunswick (UNB). During her undergraduate studies, she won the Douglas Gold Medal for best composition, and upon graduating in 1943 with honours, she won the James Simonds Prize for an essay entitled “The Purpose and Place of History in the School Curriculum.” In 1943 Firth became one of the first women to join the UNB faculty as an assistant professor of English and history. Firth graduated in 1945 with an MA in history. She assisted Dr. Alfred Bailey in preparing the Robb Papers, which eventually became the publication The Letters of James and Ellen Robb: A Portrait of a Fredericton Family in Early Victorian Times (1983). Firth was appointed as the first archivist of the new UNB Archives (then a division of the Bonar Law Bennett Library). In 1950, she worked for Lord Beaverbrook, compiling a catalogue of the Beaverbrook Collection. Brigadier Michael Wardell commissioned Firth to do research for a Beaverbrook biography. It was Frances Firth’s participation in the Bliss Carman Poetry Society in the 1940s that led to her becoming a poet. Firth’s poems appeared in the earliest issues of this group’s literary review, The Fiddlehead. As a tribute to her contributions, a book of Firth’s poetry (There Was the Lord, Adjusting his Binoculars) was edited and published by her daughter Carolyn Firth Gammon in 2004. It was also at the Bliss Carman Poetry Society that Frances Firth met Donald Gammon, the first editor of The Fiddlehead. In 1951, the two married and attended library school together at the University of Toronto. Firth graduated with honours in 1952 and returned to live the rest of her life in Fredericton. She died on 18 November 2015.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton, Campbellton

Archival Material

• Frances Firth Gammon fonds (unprocessed)
  ⌄
  Location

  University of New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections

  Retrieval Number

  Accessions 2000.010, 2016.002, 2018.035, 2018.036

  Date Range of Material

  [ca. 1880]-[ca. 2015]

  Extent

  approx. 3 m of textual records and photos; 8 photo albums

  Scope and Content Note

  Consists of family photos, artifacts, and France Firth's research on Beaverbrook.