=Deroche, William Paschal= (Napanee, Ont.), Local Registrar of the Supreme Court of Ontario, is the son of Paschal and Elizabeth Jane Deroche, and married on January 1, 1919, Helen Aylesworth Asselstine, daughter of the late Benjamin Asselstine, of Kingston, Ont. He was born at Newburgh, Ont., on August 27, 1854, and educated at Newburgh Academy. After graduation, Mr. Deroche taught school at Deseronto (then Mill Point) and other places for five years successfully, and began the study of law in 1878 with his brother, the late H. M. Deroche, K.C., and Judge Madden, at Napanee, and also with the well-known firm of Beatty, Blackstock & Co., at Toronto. He was appointed local Registrar of the Supreme Court of Ontario, Clerk of the County Court and Registrar of the Surrogate Court in June, 1887, and has been a member of the Public Library Board in Napanee for several years. Outside of these offices, however, Mr. Deroche has sought no public honors, devoting his entire energies and finding his best reward in discharging them to the satisfaction of the public and the members of his chosen profession. He is a member of the Anglican Church and a Liberal in politics. Judge Deroche, W. D. M. Shorey, Barrister, both of Belleville, Ont.; Col. Alex. P. Deroche, Director of Works and Buildings at Ottawa; and H. M. P. Deroche, Barrister, of Melville, Sask., are all nephews of Mr. Deroche. With the possible exception of Chief Justice Sir Glenholme Falconbridge, of Toronto, all the Judges of the High Court who were on the Bench when Mr. Deroche was appointed to his present position, are dead. His brother, H. M. Deroche, K.C., died March 10, 1916.
=Forster, J. W. L.=, Artist (Toronto, Ont.), was born at Norval, Ont., and was educated at the Brampton Grammar School. Of him, an eminent public man gives us the following: “Canada, though in some senses a young country, has already produced a group of noted artists, whose depiction of her landscape and life is helping to make the Dominion known throughout the world. Among the leaders in this group is John Wycliffe Lowes Forster, than whom none of our artists has done so much for our national portraiture. Not only has he painted more of our public men than any of his contemporaries, but he is the only Canadian artist who has devoted his whole genius to the painting of portraits. If all Mr. Forster’s portraits of famous Canadians, which hang in public buildings and noted homes, were gathered together, they would in themselves constitute a large national portrait gallery, and this gallery would be quite representative of the great leaders in all walks of life. Among our statesmen—Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Alexander Mackenzie, John Sandfield Macdonald, Sir John Thompson, Robert Baldwin, Wm. Lyon Mackenzie, William S. Fielding, Sir George Ross and Sir James P. Whitney, constitute a comprehensive group. In divinity, such noted personalities as Punshon, Cavan, Carman, Primate Archbishop Machray, Primate Archbishop Sweatman, Bishop O’Connor, Milligan, Kellog, Maclaren; in the Judiciary—Chancellors Moss, Boyd, Meredith and Mulock; in University life—Paxton Young, Geikie, Nelles, Burwash, Rand, Wallace, Loudon and Galbraith; among noted military men—Wolfe, Brock, Roberts, Denison, Merritt and Otter; in other walks—Strathcona, Goldwin Smith, General Booth, Egerton Ryerson, Sir Sandford Fleming, Senator Cox, Senator Jaffray, MacKenzie King, Sir Gilbert Parker and George Brown are representative of a brilliant galaxy preserved to posterity by Forster’s indefatigable genius. Added to his Canadian clientele, Mr. Forster has in recent years painted many distinguished portrait subjects in the United States. Born in Halton County in the middle of the Nineteenth century, of cultivated English stock, he was reared, like other men of genius, amid the simpler pursuits of country life, and his pictures are therefore remarkable for subtle insight into character, and have at the same time the refined atmosphere of old world culture.”