Wilfrid Eggleston

Wilfrid Eggleston OBE (25 March 1901 – 13 June 1986) was an Anglo-Canadian journalist, author and civil servant. Born in Lincoln to middle-class English parents, he relocated to Netherfield, Nottinghamshire where his father was convinced to move the family to a ranch in Orion, Alberta. Suffering from boredom in his teenage years, Eggleston advanced his basic English education through a fast-track course at Regina College, which qualified his entrance to Queen's University in 1926. Graduating in 1928, he found journalistic work at the Lethbridge Herald before occupying his role as Ottawa correspondent for the Toronto Star by the following year, becoming parliamentary correspondent before his resignation in 1936.

Joining the civil service through his productive membership of the secretariat in the Rowell-Sirois Commission of 1937, the Canadian government entrusted him with the position of Chief Censor of the nation in 1942 to combat negative coverage of Canada's role in the Second World War at home and overseas. Resigning in 1944, much to the regret of the authorities, Eggleston found work as an academic at Carleton University in 1947, establishing the Carleton School of Journalism upon accepting his lectureship; he directed the faculty until 1966. Eggleston died in Ottawa on 13 June 1986 at the age of 85.