Fraser Wilson subseries
https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/archivedescription58314
- Repository
- City of Burnaby Archives
- Date
- [19--]-1969
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby Historical Society fonds
- Description Level
- Subseries
- Physical Description
- Textual records nd graphic material
- Scope and Content
- Subseries consists of one photographic album of locations in Vancouver photographed in the 1880s, sixteen original illustrations by Fraser Wilson and three files of textual records, including the comic book "Bill Northwood".
- Repository
- City of Burnaby Archives
- Date
- [19--]-1969
- Collection/Fonds
- Burnaby Historical Society fonds
- Subseries
- Fraser Wilson subseries
- Physical Description
- Textual records nd graphic material
- Description Level
- Subseries
- Accession Number
- BHS1988-06
- BHS1985-23
- BHS1991-25
- Scope and Content
- Subseries consists of one photographic album of locations in Vancouver photographed in the 1880s, sixteen original illustrations by Fraser Wilson and three files of textual records, including the comic book "Bill Northwood".
- History
- Fraser Wilson was born in Vancouver on July 1, 1905 and brought up in the Grandview area, with fond memories of berry picking in the wilds of North Burnaby as a child. He left school in 1923 and, although interested in art, he didn’t try to make it a career until a double hernia forced him to stop working in factories and start apprenticing for commercial artists, later opening a sign shop of his own. In 1926 he worked in Australia as a set decoration painter, but had to return to Vancouver when his father fell ill in 1927. Wilson was a political cartoonist for the Vancouver Sun newspaper from 1937 to 1947. When he moved to Burnaby in April of 1943 he was also the artist and author of the cartoon-type serial “Bill Northwood - the personification of the modern Resource Manager” which served to teach the community why forests are important and should be preserved. He lost his job at the Vancouver Sun in 1947; he was the chairman of the Co-ordinating Committee of Newspaper Unions which was involved in the Vancouver Province strike and his publisher didn’t approve. Soon after, Bill White, then-president of the Marine Workers’ and Boilermakers Union, asked Wilson to decorate the Marine Workers’ Auditorium at 3337 West Pender, the Union's hall. The mural that Wilson painted depicts the BC labour movement to honour British Columbia’s workers. This mural launched a new career for Wilson; to this day, hospitals and libraries across British Columbia display his work in lobbies. In 1988, when the building housing the Marine Workers’ Auditorium was sold to a new owner, Fraser Wilson’s mural was removed from the wall, restored by Ferdinand Petrov of the Vancouver Centennial Committee, and installed permanently at the new Maritime Labour Centre on Victoria Drive in Vancouver. Throughout the 1960s, Wilson served as president of the Burnaby Historical Society. He ran for City Council as a Burnaby Citizens Association candidate in 1969 and 1970. Fraser Wilson died on 31 July 1992.
- Media Type
- Textual Record
- Photograph
- Creator
- Wilson, Fraser
- Notes
- PC492, MSS062
- Title based on contents of subseries