Seary, E.R.

Edgar Ronald (Ron) Seary (1908-1984), World War II veteran, linguist, educator, researcher, author, was born in Sheffield, England, on 17 Jan. 1908, the son of Edith (Brunt) and Henry Seary. He married Agnes Gwendolen Crookes. Seary died in St. John's, Newfoundland, on 18 May 1984.

Seary was educated at Sheffield Univesity, where he received an honours degree, education diploma and PhD.

Following the war, he again taught English at Rhodes until his appointment as chair (1951-54). Seary came to Newfoundland in 1954 and for the next 16 years was head of Memorial University's department of English. He helped to develop the field of Newfoundland studies at Memorial and published several articles on Newfoundland toponymy and the derivation of names. With G.M. Story and W.J. Kirwin, he co-authored an ethno-linguistic study of the Avalon Peninsula in 1967. In 1970 he was named Henrietta Harvey Research professor. His Place Names of the Avalon Peninsula of the Island of Newfoundland was published in 1971 and became a standard reference work. Seary's second major work, Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland, was published in 1976. It provided a comprehensive account of Newfoundland surnames from the earliest historical documents.

Seary was a founder and sometime president of the Canadian Linguistics Association and of the Association of Canadian Teachers of English. Among his honours were the Heritage Award of the Newfoundland Historical Society and honorary degrees from Memorial University and the University of Sheffield, as well as Fellowships in the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries of London. After his death, he was commemorated in Seary's Peak, a hill 4 km west of Broad Lake in the district of Bellevue, NF. He was married to Agnes Gwendolen Crookes.

Created - May 3, 2013

• English