Baron Byng High School

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Baron Byng High School was located at 4251 St. Urbain Street, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was named after the Julian Hedworth George Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy, the Governor General of Canada from 1921 to 1926. Byng was a World War I hero at the battle of Vimy Ridge, an important battle that many historians, like Pierre Berton, believe formed Canada's national character. Byng was also involved in a political scandal dealing with the succession of the Canadian Government, the King-Byng Affair in 1926.

From the 1920s through the 1950s, the school predominately catered to Montreal's lower-income Jewish population. From the 1980s onwards, the building is the home of the non-profit community organization Sun Youth (Jeunesse au soleil).

Baron Byng High School is notable because it had a virtual who's who of Canada's academic, arts, business and political leaders. It has been immortalized in many books, including many by Mordecai Richler.

[edit] Famous Alumni

Morris Fish, Supreme Court of Canada judge.
Mel Hoppenheim, cinema entrepreneur.
A. M. Klein, poet.
Irving Layton, poet.
David Lewis, Rhodes Scholar, labour lawyer, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada 1971-75
Frederick Lowy, medical educator and president & vice-chancellor of Concordia University.
Rudolph A. Marcus, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1992.
Louis Nirenberg, mathematician.
Simon Reisman, civil servant.
Mordecai Richler, author.
Philip Seeman, schizophrenia researcher.
William Shatner, actor
Lorne Trottier [1], business owner
Bernie Lowsky. business owner