Women's Institute Tweedsmuir Histories
As the Federation Women’s Institutes of Ontario (FWIO) approached its 50th anniversary in 1947, the executive decided part of their celebration should include community histories. With the support of Lady Tweedsmuir, the widow of Lord Tweedsmuir (Governor-General 1935-1940) the Tweedsmuir History Book project was launched.
The books were to include the history of the branch as well as the history of the community’s earliest settlers, agricultural practices, industries, churches, schools, community centres and local personalities including war veterans. Within 10 years of this challenge, almost 1000 branches across Ontario were compiling histories.
Today, the histories are an invaluable source of information for school children, Heritage Day organizers and family historians.
We are fortunate to have the Wellesley Tweedsmuir in our collection as well as scanned copies of the Linwood and Dorking histories. All contain a wealth of information in the form of photograph, articles, clippings and hand written accounts of current events.
The files are searchable PDFs. Results will not appear for the handwritten sections, but each Tweedsmuir contains newspaper clippings and typed articles are searchable.
Wellesley Tweedsmuir - The Wellesley Tweedsmuir was found in our collection in a disassembled condition. It was put in chronological order as well as possible, then scanned. When this was compared to the 1980 microfilm copy at the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at the Kitchener Public Library, several discrepancies were found. The scanned version is presented here but it will be re-scanned in the future to include additional material not available when it was scanned in 2013.
Linwood Tweedsmuir - The Linwood Tweedsmuir consists of several scrapbooks. They are available digitally here. The original scrapbooks available in the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at Kitchener Public Library.
Dorking Tweedsmuir - The original Dorking Tweedsmuir is available in the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at Kitchener Public Library.
The books were to include the history of the branch as well as the history of the community’s earliest settlers, agricultural practices, industries, churches, schools, community centres and local personalities including war veterans. Within 10 years of this challenge, almost 1000 branches across Ontario were compiling histories.
Today, the histories are an invaluable source of information for school children, Heritage Day organizers and family historians.
We are fortunate to have the Wellesley Tweedsmuir in our collection as well as scanned copies of the Linwood and Dorking histories. All contain a wealth of information in the form of photograph, articles, clippings and hand written accounts of current events.
The files are searchable PDFs. Results will not appear for the handwritten sections, but each Tweedsmuir contains newspaper clippings and typed articles are searchable.
Wellesley Tweedsmuir - The Wellesley Tweedsmuir was found in our collection in a disassembled condition. It was put in chronological order as well as possible, then scanned. When this was compared to the 1980 microfilm copy at the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at the Kitchener Public Library, several discrepancies were found. The scanned version is presented here but it will be re-scanned in the future to include additional material not available when it was scanned in 2013.
Linwood Tweedsmuir - The Linwood Tweedsmuir consists of several scrapbooks. They are available digitally here. The original scrapbooks available in the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at Kitchener Public Library.
Dorking Tweedsmuir - The original Dorking Tweedsmuir is available in the Grace Schmidt Room of Local History at Kitchener Public Library.