The purpose of The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History is to encourage research and writing in the history of Canadian law. The Society, which was incorporated in 1979 and is registered as a charity, was founded at the initiative of the Honourable R. Roy McMurtry, a former attorney general for Ontario, now chief justice of Ontario, and officials of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Its efforts to stimulate the study of legal history in Canada include a research-support program, a graduate student research-assistance program, and work in the fields of oral history and legal archives. The Society publishes...

Colonel Reuben Wells Leonard placed his signature on the third and final version of the Leonard Foundation Trust deed in late December 1923. He had, with this act, donated over $500,000 to create a fund for scholarships tenable across Canada. It was at the time the largest gift of its kind in Canada and, along with a myriad of other benefactions, had served to earn for Leonard a reputation as one of the countryʹs most generous philanthropists.

The deed contains a lengthy preamble that was designed to explain the underlying principles of the trust. It begins with a statement of...

Sara Jeannette Duncanʹs novelThe Imperialistis set in a small town that she named Elgin. It was a quiet provincial community in southern Ontario that ʹknew two controlling interests - the interest of politics and the interest of religion.ʹ¹ This fictitious place is thought to represent the town of Brantford, Ontario, where Duncan was born in 1861. One year earlier it had been the birthplace of Reuben Wells Leonard. He was one of seven children born to Francis Henry and Elizabeth Leonard (née Catton). The Leonardsʹ paternal ancestors had left England during the period of the Puritan persecution. Fleeing...

At the gala dinner held at the York Club of Toronto in late 1923 in honour of Reuben Wells and Kate Leonard, Canon Henry J. Cody, then chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto, gave a speech as a tribute to his long-time friends. After praising the Leonards for their magnanimous gift of Chatham House, he turned to another benefaction, the Leonard Foundation Trust. Cody noted that the Foundation, in place since 1916, had assisted many secondary and post-secondary students; and, as he understood it, the scope of the Foundation was soon to be extended.¹ It...

From 1917 onwards the Leonard Foundation offered bursaries to needy students across Canada. In accordance with the trust, annual meetings of the Foundation were held in May. And each year a dinner was held for members of the General Committee and past Leonard scholars. As his health declined in the late 1920s, Colonel Leonard was unable to attend the meetings and in his place Arthur Bishop and Kate Leonard presided over the affairs of the Foundation. All the while, the General Committee went about its business, establishing operating protocols, receiving and reviewing applications, and granting awards. In the exercise of...

The Leonard Foundation had suspended operation when the litigation had been commenced in 1986. Following the Court of Appeal decision in 1990, it reconvened under the judicially revised trust. Since that time, significant changes have been undertaken. The grants are now administered under what is termed a ʹfinancial assistance programʹ; need is the primary concern.¹ Although the original trust contemplated awards at designated public and private schools, as well as colleges and universities, the modern program does not provide assistance for students at the primary and secondary school levels. Instead, the awards are tenable by full-time undergraduates (including those enrolled...

In the mid-1990s Charles Chan donated $4 million to endow a scholarship at the University of Alberta, his Alma Mater. The award was available to students from Tai Shan in the Peopleʹs Republic of China. A story about Chan and his donation in the EdmontonJournalin April 1997¹ drew a letter of complaint from one reader:

I read inThe Journal... that a former Chinese university student named Chen [sic], who is now a multi-millionaire, gave the University of Alberta $6.5 million in the past 18 months, including a $4-million scholarship fund ʹfor Chinese students who wish to...