Thomas Head Raddall
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Thomas Head Raddall (13 November 1903 - 1 April 1994) was a Canadian writer best known for his historical fiction.
Born at Hythe, Kent, England, Raddall was the son of British army officer Thomas Head Raddall and Ellen (née Gifford) Raddall. In 1913, he moved with his family moved to Nova Scotia where his father had assumed a training position with the Canadian Militia. When World War I began, the elder Raddall joined the war effort. He was killed in action in August 1918 at Amiens when Thomas was still a youth.
In Halifax, Thomas Raddall attended Chebucto School until 6 December 1917, when the school was converted into a temporary morgue in the wake of the Halifax Explosion. The Raddall family survived the explosion. Raddall wrote about his experiences in his memoirs, In My Time, and in his civic history Halifax, Warden of the North.
Raddall was a prolific, award-winning writer. He received Governor General's Awards for three of his books, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek (1943 Governor General's Awards), Halifax, Warden of the North (1948 Governor General's Awards) and The Path of Destiny (1957 Governor General's Awards). In 1971, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Raddall’s role as a public historian has largely gone unnoticed, in part due to his own reluctance to label himself as such, in part because he did not strictly adhere to the conventions of the profession. That said, Raddall did contribute greatly to Nova Scotia’s heritage through his work with the Queens County Historical Society, the Historic Sites Advisory Council of Nova Scotia, and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. He played a role in preserving the diary of Simeon Perkins, an early colonial document published in three volumes (the fourth has yet to be published) between 1948 and 1978 by the Champlain Society, and edited by noted Canadian economist and historian Harold Innis.
Raddall was also extremely influential in helping restore and preserve Perkins House Museum, a colonial house built by Simeon Perkins, and now a part of the dynamic Nova Scotia Museum. Beginning in 1936 and culminating in the House’s official opening by Premier Robert Stanfield in 1957, Perkins House was the high point of Raddall’s contributions to Nova Scotia’s built heritage.
He died in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, where he had settled. An exact replica of his study, furnished with his possessions, is on view at the Thomas Raddall Research Centre, administered by the Queens County Historical Society, of which Raddall was a founding member in 1929.
His correspondence is housed at the Dalhousie University Archives, which also runs the Thomas Raddall Electronic Archive Project, currently digitizing his published and unpublished writing. The Thomas Head Raddall Literary Award honours his legacy.
[edit] Bibliography
- At the Tide's Turn and Other Stories
- The Cape Breton Giant and Other Writings
- Courage in the Storm
- The Dreamers
- Footsteps on Old Floors: True Tales of Mystery - 1958
- The Governor's Lady - 1960
- Halifax, Warden of the North - 1948
- Hangman's Beach
- His Majesty's Yankees - 1942
- In My Time: A Memoir - 1976
- The Markland Sagas, With a Discussion of Their Relation to Nova Scotia
- The Mersey Story
- A Muster of Arms and Other Stories
- The Nymph and the Lamp - 1950
- Path of Destiny: Canada From the British Conquest to Home Rule - 1957
- A Pictorial Guide to Historic Nova Scotia, Featuring Louisbourg, Peggy's Cove, Sable Island
- The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek and Other Tales
- Pride's Fancy - 1948
- Roger Sudden - 1946
- The Rover: The Story of a Canadian Privateer - 1958
- The Saga of the "Rover"
- Son of the Hawk
- Tambour and Other Stories
- This Is Nova Scotia, Canada's Ocean Playground
- Tidefall - 1953
- The Wedding Gift and Other Stories
- West Novas: A History of the West Nova Scotia Regiment
- The Wings of Night - 1957
[edit] See also
- Thomas H. Raddall Provincial Park
- Public history
