Background
Born in Buckingham, Quebec (in the outskirts of Ottawa, Ontario), Allen was a graduate of St. Michael's College High School, the University of Toronto, and Osgoode Hall Law School. After being called to the Ontario Bar in 1949, he was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1960. During World War II, he enlisted with the Queen's York Rangers and attained the rank of Captain, serving overseas in Britain and Europe.
His father, Robert Allen, was an alderman and then a Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament representing Riverdale during the 1930s. Allen was the first Liberal to be elected to the legislature from Riverdale since Confederation in 1867. Robert Allen's father-in-law, Randall McDonnell, was the Mayor of Mayo, Quebec for 13 consecutive years.
Allen married Marjorie Hornberger. Together they raised three children - Francis, Rosemary, and Jane.
Read more about this topic: William Allen (Canadian Politician)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)