The Society’s Records
F. O. Baird
← People of the Society · on record 1951
Everything the Society’s own records say of F. O. Baird — the offices held, the standings conferred, and the awards won — gathered on one page. Where the records are silent, so is this one.
This is the Society’s own record of F. O. Baird. A biography: Master Pioneer of Leather Carving, Winter 1974 →
Author of Leather Secrets, Leather Carving, Leather Art and the Baird Home Study Course, and recipient of the Society's first Honorary Life Membership, offered in 1951.
From December 1951; and Spring 1962, page 3.
Honours
- Honorary Life Membership 1951
The Society's first Honorary Life Membership. The Executive offered it to the author of "Leather Secrets", "Leather Carving", "Leather Art" and the Baird Home Study Course, as "one token of the admiration and gratitude shared among Canadian beginner students of leathercraft". Baird accepted by letter on 13 November 1951 — "I deeply appreciate the tribute in your offering me the Society's first Honorary Life Membership and I accept with the utmost gratitude and pride" — and in the same month gave the Society's library a copy of Leather Secrets and his new portfolio of handbag and belt patterns. The Spring 1991 newsletter still recalled him as an Honorary Life Member "in recognition of his contribution to the field of Leathercraft". Dr. Ralph K. Larmour's address at the 1962 Annual Meeting repeated the fact from the platform: "In November 1951, Mr. F.O. Baird was given the Society's first Honorary Life membership in recognition of his important contributions to the advancement in decorative leathercraft."