The Society’s Records

Ralph K. Larmour

← People of the Society · on record 1953–1969

Everything the Society’s own records say of Ralph K. Larmour — 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 Ralph K. Larmour. A biography: Obituary, 1970 →

In memoriam · 2 October 1970

Died 2 October 1970, per the Society’s own contemporary obituary (Fall 1970 newsletter, page 7: "Dr. Larmour died October 2nd, 1970"), where the Spring 1975 retrospective gives the month only. The obituary adds: a Charter member of C.S.C.L.; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (F.R.S.C.); the Canadian Baking Industry’s first Award of Merit; an Honourary Life Membership from the American Association of Cereal Chemists, who called him the "Dean of Cereal Chemists"; a Canadian delegate to the founding meeting of UNESCO in Paris; scientific adviser to the Canadian High Commissioner in London; a member of the National Research Council’s Defense Board (Food Section); joined the Maple Leaf Milling Company in 1947, working there fifteen years on Canadian diet and nutrition (the Monarch mixes among his work); and a professor at the University of Saskatchewan. The Society’s twenty-five-year retrospective in the Spring 1975 newsletter records that "he was greatly missed by all those that knew him when he passed away in October 1970" and that he "gave a great deal of time and energy to the development of C.S.C.L." The same retrospective places his Honorary Fellow Life membership at the annual meeting of 1970, where the contemporary notice in the Spring 1969 newsletter records it presented at the 19th Annual Meeting by Mrs. Nora Huyck; the archive keeps both statements. His tools and leather supplies were sold in three auctions for the Larmour Memorial Library, raising over $1,000 by 1974. The Toronto Daily Star's own obituary (5 October 1970, "Ralph Larmour, 75 leading Canadian cereal chemist") corroborates the October death date (he "died Saturday," i.e. 3 October, in a Monday paper -- a day off the Society's own 2 October, both kept as printed) and adds outside biographical detail: born in Arena, Ontario; taught school in Ontario and Saskatchewan before serving in the Winnipeg Grenadiers in the First World War, demobilized with a Military Medal; a master's degree in science from the University of Saskatchewan (1923) and a PhD from the University of Minnesota (1927); survived by his wife Reta, of Grimsby, daughter Anne, and son Dr. Peter Larmour of the University of Iowa. On his cereal-chemistry career the Star's own account is internally hard to square -- it has him becoming director of the National Research Council's Saskatoon laboratories and, "in the same year" (1945), the first director of Maple Leaf Mills' Toronto research laboratory, before leaving the NRC in 1947 to concentrate on Maple Leaf Mills work until retiring in 1963. Both accounts are kept as printed.

From Fall 1970, page 7.

Also recorded as Dr. Ralph K. Larmour, R. K. Larmour, R.K. Larmour, Ralph Larmour

Branch

Peterboro · recorded holding office in 1956

Certification

Fellow of the CSCL 1953

A Fellow of the Society from 1953, its Vice-President in 1953 and its President from 1954 to 1956, he later served on its Executive Council, and was the Society's Honorary President, presenting several of its honours from the platform in the 1960s. President of the Society in 1955 and Past President the two years following, he served as the Peterboro Branch's Honorary President in 1956; he served on the Executive Council in 1957 and 1958, as a Member at Large in 1959, and as the Society's Historian in 1960. The Society's printed lists give him as Dr. R.K. Larmour in 1955 and 1956, Dr. Ralph Larmour from 1957 to 1959, and Dr. R. K. Larmour in 1960. He was given an Honourary Life Membership in 1969 'in tribute to his many years of dedication and assistance to leathercraft' and died the following year. Away from the Society he was an internationally known cereal chemist. Born at Irena, Ontario, he taught school in Ontario and Saskatchewan before the First World War, then joined the Winnipeg Grenadiers and was demobilized with a Military Medal. He returned to his studies, taking a master's degree in science from the University of Saskatchewan in 1923 and a PhD from the University of Minnesota four years later, and in 1945 became the first director of the research laboratory of Maple Leaf Mills in Toronto, where he carried on pioneer research for the baking and milling industry until he retired in 1963. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he died at his home in Grimsby, aged 75 — on 2 October 1970 by the Society’s own Fall 1970 newsletter, and on Saturday 3 October by the Toronto Daily Star of Monday 5 October, which says he died “Saturday”. Both are kept as printed.

From Autumn 1955, page 11; The History of the Canadian Society for Creative Leathercraft — its own short account, page 1; Leathercraft Standards and the Point System for Scoring Craft Works, April 1996, page 6; 40th Annual Meeting 1990 — programme, Elmhurst Inn, Ingersoll, page 6; Spring 1956; Autumn 1957, page 11; Spring 1960, page 6; and Ralph Larmour, 1895–1970 — obituary, Toronto Daily Star.

Served the Society as

President 1954–56; c. early 1950s; 1954–1955
Past President 1956–1957
Vice-President 1953
Peterboro Branch Honorary President 1956
Executive Council 1957–1965
Members at Large 1959
Historian 1960

Honours

Honourary Life Membership 1969
Presented by Mrs. Nora Huyck at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting, held at the Scottish Rite, Hamilton, on 22 March 1969, with President Mrs. Dorothy Muma in the chair — "in tribute to his many years of dedication and assistance to leathercraft". Larmour was the Society's Honorary President and the voice of most of its platform occasions: he made the 1962 presentations to Don MacKinnon and Robert Muma and the 1964 presentation to Robert Dengler. The Society's own retrospective history of Spring 1975 dates this honour to the annual meeting of 1970 and calls it an Honorary Fellow Life membership; the contemporary notice of Spring 1969 is followed here, and the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved.

Demonstrations given

A showing of his colour slide record of Canadian leathercraft 1953
4th Annual
From Summer 1953, page 1.
A talk on Leathercraft, with films 1956
Peterboro group meeting, 1956
From Autumn 1956, page 11.
Coloured slides of the pieces on show 1956
CSCL Exhibition, Ryerson Institute of Technology, Toronto, October 1956
From Autumn 1956, page 12.

Where this comes from

This name in the index of people →