George Parkin

For a farm boy from New Brunswick, George Parkin did pretty well for himself. In his dotage, he once advised a Canadian Rhodes scholar always to travel first class “for the sake of the people one meets.” That’s what Parkin did—always travelled first class, making sure to meet the right people along the way. William Christian, a professor of political science at the University of Guelph, has described George Parkin’s journey in a biography entitled Parkin: Canada’s Most Famous Forgotten Man.

In a conventionally distinguished career, Parkin was, among other things, principal of Upper Canada College and organizing secretary of the Rhodes Trust (which finances and administers Rhodes scholarships). He was a leading and passionate proponent of the virtues of the British Empire. He knew the great and the good the world over. He dined with presidents and prime ministers (Christian records, for example, his lunch with President Theodore Roosevelt on January 5...