| Main entry | Lizars, K.M. (Kathleen MacFarlane) |
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| Birth place | Stratford, Ontario |
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| Birth date | 28 June 1863 |
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| Death place | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Death date | 20 April 1931 |
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| Identifier | 0203 |
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| Birth name | Kathleen MacFarlane Lizars |
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| Marital status | single |
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| Religious affiliation | Presbyterian; Anglican |
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| Paid work | secretary |
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| Biography | Educated in Toronto and in Scotland, Kathleen MacFarlane Lizars (1863-1931) collaborated with her sister, Robina Lizars Smith,* on two works of history and a novel. The sisters, as part of a prominent family in Stratford, Ontario, descended from Irish naval and military men, as well as Scottish professionals and men of letters. Their father, Daniel Home Lizars (1822-1894), progressed from barrister to judge of the County Court in Perth, Ontario. The Lizars sisters' historical works were praised for the quality of the writing and the infusion of wit and humour into a frequently dull genre. COMMITTED TO HIS CHARGE (1900), their local colour novel, is set in the expressively named "Slowford-on-the-Sluggard." Kathleen wrote a third history on her own, THE VALLEY OF THE HUMBER 1615-1913 (1913). For a time, she served as private secretary to John Robson when he was premier of British Columbia, and as part of her extensive travels through Europe, travelled with him to England where she also summered for much of the 1920s. Living at Toronto's Windsor Arms Hotel for twenty-five years, Kathleen died of a stroke in 1931. She is likely buried at the Lizars family plot in Avondale Cemetery, Stratford. |
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| Travel | England, 1909, 1914, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1929 |
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| Other notes | Robert MacFarlane, Kathleen's namesake, was Daniel Lizars' law partner in Stratford. According to family legend, the Lizars arrived to the Huron Tract in 1834 when Daniel's grandfather (who'd taken over command from an ailing captain) ran the ship aground in the harbour, bringing the townsfolk out of their church service and to the rescue. |
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| Residences | Stratford, Ontario (1863, 1871, 1881); Gravenhurst, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario (1891-1931) |
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| Geographic regions | Ontario |
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| Primary genres | non-fiction (history); fiction |
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| Books | THE VALLEY OF THE HUMBER 1615-1913 (1913); IN THE DAYS OF THE CANADA COMPANY (1896) with Robina Lizars Smith; HUMOURS OF '37: GRAVE, GAY, AND GRIM (1897); COMMITTED TO HIS CHARGE: A CANADIAN CHRONICLE (1900) |
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| Father's name | Daniel Home Lizars |
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| Life dates of father | 11 February 1822, Renfrewshire, Scotland - 5 March 1894, Stratford, Ontario; m. 1848 |
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| Father's note | barrister; County Attorney (1858-); County Judge (1864-); master in chancery (1877-); local judge of High Court of Justice (1882-1886); lieutenant in first battalion of Huron militia |
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| Mother's name | Esther Longworth |
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| Life dates of mother | c1822, Westmeath, Ireland - after 1871; m. 1848 |
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| Biographical references | MACMILLAN DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY; ONTARIAN FAMILIES: Chadwick, GENEALOGIES OF UNITED EMPIRE LOYALIST AND OTHER PIONEER FAMILIES OF UPPER CANADA (1895), p. 137; Dagg, THE FEMININE GAZE (2001), p. 170 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 329, 702, 881 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | Smith and Lizars Papers, University of Western Ontario Library; correspondence, Henry Morgan Papers, National Archives of Canada; Lizars Family Papers, University of Guelph |
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| Image credits | Photo by Fraser Bryce, Toronto. Image from Henry Morgan, TYPES OF CANADIAN WOMEN (Toronto: Briggs, 1903). |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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