Edgar Andrew Collard was born in Montreal in 1911. He completed a MA in history at McGill University in 1937. He aspired to continue his studies to become a history professor. Unfortunately, his ambitions were put on hold due to serious health problems. Despite this bad twist of fate, he changed his career path.
The year 1942 marked the 300th anniversary of Montréal and the newspaper The Gazette wanted to recognize this event. Its management recruited Edgar Andrew Collard to write a weekly column on Montréal history. His contract, which was supposed to last one year, was renewed for another six decades.
On 14 August 1944, the first issue of Collard’s columns was published in The Gazette under the heading “All Our Yesterdays…”. These weekly columns on local habits and customs were popular and created such interest that they were published for decades. Amongst the loyal readers of Collard’s columns were numerous personalities, including Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Robertson Davies.
In 1953, Collard joined the editorial team of The Gazette and held the position of editor until 1971. In 1949, he won the National Newspaper Award for editorial writing; an award he won three other times which is a record in that category.
During his long career, Collard had published 17 books, all of them beautifully illustrated by his longtime collaborator John Collins. His publications had a critical success and they are still greatly appreciated by the public.
Sources:
Related information:
