{"id":390,"date":"2012-07-13T21:13:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T01:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/?p=390"},"modified":"2018-11-06T15:28:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T20:28:07","slug":"a-war-hero-in-our-midst-the-story-of-george-irvine-baillie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/a-war-hero-in-our-midst-the-story-of-george-irvine-baillie\/","title":{"rendered":"A war hero in our midst: The story of George Irvine Baillie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Have you ever noticed any of the 7 portraits hanging on the inside walls of the Schulich Library?\u00a0 Each portrait has captured a moment in that person’s life and invites us to find out the story behind the face.<\/p>\n

The portrait of the young soldier on the library’s 4th floor recounts the story of George Irvine Baillie, a chemical engineering student from McGill University who enlisted in the First World War.\u00a0 George started his studies at McGill in 1912 and served one year in McGill\u2019s Officer Training Corps<\/a> before applying to be a member of the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in June 1915 at the age of 21. \u00a0A copy of his military attestation papers can still be viewed on the Library and Archives Canada<\/a> website.\u00a0 He was appointed Lieutenant of the 60th Battalion and died on August 8th<\/sup>, 1918<\/a>, on the first day of the Battle of Amiens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His father, John Baillie, who was managing director of the Dominion Oil Cloth Company (the first Canadian company to make oil cloths and linoleums), made a financial endowment to McGill University to open the Baillie Library of Chemistry in memory of his son.\u00a0 At the library\u2019s opening ceremony on Tuesday, December 11th<\/sup>, 1923, Professor Ruttan, who was the Director of McGill\u2019s Department of Chemistry at the time, said that \u201cthe Baillie Library will stand as a constant reminder to future generations of Mr. John Baillie\u2019s deep interest in the University, and of the heroism of his son, who gave his life in the great fight for humanity\u201d (The Montreal Gazette, Dec. 12, 1923<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The library continues to receive support, to this day, from the \u201cLieutenant George Irvine Baillie Chemistry Collections Fund.\u201d\u00a0 A list of books purchased with this fund in recent years can be found at https:\/\/mcgill.worldcat.org\/profiles\/mcgill.library\/lists\/3573117<\/a><\/p>\n

The Baillie Library of Chemistry is now part of the Schulich Library of Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, & Engineering and George Baillie\u2019s portrait serves to remind us of the courage of all those from the McGill community who valiantly fought in the first and second world wars.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Photo of Baillie’s portrait in the Schulich Library<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever noticed any of the 7 portraits hanging on the inside walls of the Schulich Library?\u00a0 Each portrait has captured a moment in that person’s life and invites us to find out the story behind the face. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/schulich\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}