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William Bradford Freeman [1] (born October 21, 1938) is a Canadian writer of historical fiction for young adults, film scripts, documentaries, theatrical plays, educational videos and non-fiction books. He specializes in writing about Canada and the Canadian experience. [2]
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After high school, Freeman worked in western Canada for a year and then traveled extensively in Europe. He returned to Canada to attend Acadia University in Nova Scotia. After graduating he worked as a Probation Officer and then did graduate work in sociology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Freeman began to write the Bains Series of books for young adults while living in Hamilton. There are now nine books in the Bains Series. Each focuses on a different industrial setting in Canada during the 1870s. The first book in the series, Shantymen of Cache Lake, received the Canada Council Children's Literature Prize for 1975 and several of the other books have received awards.
Freeman's books for adults follow political and social themes. Local 1005 is a political study of a Steelworkers' local in Hamilton. Their Town, co-authored with Marsha Hewitt, is an analysis of Hamilton city politics and Hamilton: a People's History, traces the development of the political and social life of the city. Freeman also authored a social and pictorial history of Toronto Island, where he now lives, called A Magical Place and another pictorial history, Casa Loma, Toronto's Fairy-Tale Castle and its Owner, Sir Henry Pellatt.
While working in the film industry Freeman and Richard Nielsen wrote Far From Home, Canadians in the First World War. This book emerged from a three-hour documentary film of the same name, produced by Nielsen. That experience led to other film projects. Freeman was the researcher and writer of a series of science educational videos for the high school market called the Elements of Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences.
Freeman's partner on these educational videos was the well-known Canadian children's film producer Wendy Loten. The two went on to work together on Loten's Mighty Machines 2 and 3. These films have been broadcast on TVO and Tree House Television.
Freeman also wrote two plays. Ghosts of the Madawaska is a children's play commissioned and performed by the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa, and Glory Days, a play about the 1946 Stelco strike in Hamilton, has been performed by Theatre Aquarius in 1989 and remounted in 2006.
In recent years Bill Freeman has been writing about urban and political issues. The New Urban Agenda published in 2015 and Democracy Rising in 2017 were both published by Dundurn Press.
Freeman has completed a series of 8 books called Mariner's Story. They will be published on Amazon beginning in 2021.
In 1975, Freeman won the Canada Council Award for Juvenile Literature for his book Shantymen of Cache Lake (retrospectively considered one of the 1975 Governor General's Awards).
A Magical Place: Toronto Island and Its People, Certificate of Commendation, Heritage Toronto, October 2000
Casa Loma: Toronto's Fairy-tale Castle and its Owner, Sir Henry Pellatt, Award of Merit, Heritage Toronto, October 1999 [3]
Prairie Fire selected for the Canadian Children's Book Centre "Our Choice" list and nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, 1998
Several books in the Bains Series were selected for "Our Choice" list. Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature, 1984 (for a body of work, Bains Series)
"Ghosts of the Madawaska", Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa, 1985
Cabbagetown is a neighbourhood in central Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Administratively, it is defined as part of the Cabbagetown-South St. Jamestown neighbourhood. It largely features semi-detached Victorian houses and is recognized as "the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in all of North America", according to the Cabbagetown Preservation Association.
TVO, formerly known as TVOntario, is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates flagship station CICA-DT in Toronto, which also relays programming across portions of Ontario through eight rebroadcast stations. All pay television providers throughout Ontario are required to carry TVO on their basic tier, and programming can be streamed for free online within Canada.
Steven Hillel Paikin is a Canadian journalist, author, and documentary producer. Paikin has primarily worked for TVOntario (TVO), Ontario's public broadcaster, and is anchor of TVO's flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin.
Polka Dot Door is a Canadian children's television series which was produced by the Ontario Education Communications Authority from 1971 to 1993. The series features two hosts who speak directly to the home viewing audience.
Major-General Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, was a Canadian financier and soldier. He is notable for his role in bringing hydro-electricity to Toronto for the first time, and also for his large château in Toronto, called Casa Loma, which was the biggest private residence ever constructed in Canada. Casa Loma would eventually become a well-known landmark of the city. His summer home and farm in King City later became Marylake Augustinian Monastery.
Dundurn Castle is a historic neoclassical mansion on York Boulevard in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The 1,700-square-metre (18,000 sq ft) house took three years and $175,000 to build and was completed in 1835.
Hamilton, from the point at which it was first colonized by settlers, has benefited from its geographical proximity to major land and water transportation routes along the Niagara Peninsula and Lake Ontario. Its strategic importance has created, by Canadian standards, a rich military history which the city preserves.
The Great Western Railway was a railway that operated in Canada West, today's province of Ontario, Canada. It was the first railway chartered in the province, receiving its original charter as the London and Gore Railroad on March 6, 1834, before receiving its final name when it was rechartered in 1845.
Herron's Mills, originally known as Gillies Mills, is a ghost town in the municipality of Lanark Highlands, Lanark County in Eastern Ontario, Canada, near the community of Lanark. It is located on highway 511 between Perth and Calabogie, Ontario.
Transport in Hamilton, Ontario consists of a variety of modes.
Hugh Cossart Baker Sr. was a banker, businessman, and mathematician.
York Boulevard is a Lower City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Formerly known as Highway 2 and Highway 6, it starts in Burlington, Ontario, at Plains Road West as a two-way arterial road that wraps around and over Hamilton Harbour, enters the city of Hamilton in the west end at Dundurn Park, and ends at James Street North. It has a one-way section from Queen Street to Bay Street North, and continues east of James Street North as Wilson Street.)
Jack Blum is a Canadian writer, producer, director, story editor, actor, educator and communications consultant based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With his longtime partner Sharon Corder, he has written and produced more than fifty hours of television drama for both Canadian and American broadcasters.
Casa Loma is a Gothic Revival castle-style mansion and garden in midtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that is now a historic house museum and landmark. It was constructed from 1911 to 1914 as a residence for financier Sir Henry Pellatt. The architect was E. J. Lennox, who designed several other city landmarks. Casa Loma sits at an elevation of 140 metres (460 ft) above sea level, 66 metres (217 ft) above Lake Ontario.
R.J. Harlick is a Canadian mystery writer. Her Meg Harris mystery series is set in the Canadian wilderness.
This is a bibliography of works on the military history of Canada.
William James was an early and prolific photographer who chronicled Toronto, Ontario. His works have been widely collected and republished. James came to Canada, from England, in 1906, when he was forty years old. He and his wife immigrated with five children and seven dollars to their name.
Walter Ritchie Rollo was a Canadian trade unionist and politician in the early 20th century, and was a cabinet Minister in the United Farmers of Ontario - Labour coalition government from 1919 to 1923.
The Desjardins Canal disaster was a rail transport disaster near Hamilton, Canada West. The train wreck occurred at 6:15 p.m. on March 12, 1857 when a train on the Great Western Railway crashed through a bridge over the Desjardins Canal, causing the train and its passengers to fall 18 metres (60 ft) into the ice below. With 59 deaths, it is considered one of the worst rail disasters in Canadian history.
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