Background
Mccurdy was born on April 13, 1856 in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada; the son of David McCurdy and Mary Archibald.
Arthur Williams McCurdy
Astronomer Businessman scientist
Mccurdy was born on April 13, 1856 in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada; the son of David McCurdy and Mary Archibald.
Mccurdy attended the Witby Collegiate Institute.
McCurdy began his career as a law clerk in a relative’s firm, W. H. and A. Blanchard in Windsor and held it for four years. Then he returned to Baddeck to join the family enterprise. In 1881, Arthur acquired his father’s share and, with his brother William Fraser, expanded the business by building a new wharf, opening a meat-curing operation and starting the Island Reporter. Four years later the business failed and the same year he met Alexander Graham Bell in Baddeck. In 1887, Arthur became private secretary to Bell and an assistant in Bell's lab in 1889.
Bell had fallen in love with Red Head peninsula, on Baddeck Bay, and he tasked McCurdy to acquire the property and 50 adjacent acres. Together they designed The Lodge, the Bells’ rustic home on the point.
In 1889, he produced a small portable tank for developing film in daytime, dubbed the Baddeck, has been used by generations of photographers. Arthur spent three years commercializing it, with financial assistance from Bell. After obtaining a United States patent in 1902, he sold the rights to Eastman Kodak.
He left Bell’s employ in 1902 to pursue invention full-time, including a method of printing statistical maps using interchangeable "map type". Then McCurdy had moved to British Columbia and set up a laboratory at his country home outside Victoria. He continued to photograph and was active in community affairs. As he was named the first president of the local Canadian Club in 1907, he also pursued his keen interest in nature. On 6 March 1914 Arthur chaired a meeting and lecture by federal astronomer John Stanley Plaskett.
Through his connection to Denison, who was a president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, McCurdy lobbied for the establishment of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory on Vancouver Island, for a brief time the site of the largest telescope in the world.
In 1916, McCurdy had run for a seat in British Columbia’s legislature as the Liberal candidate in the riding of Esquimalt. Although he was declared elected on 21 November by a two-vote margin over Conservative candidate Robert Henry Pooley, he resigned over alleged irregularities in taking the soldiers’ vote.
McCurdy was a president of Natural History Society of British Columbia and vice-president of Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
Arthur was enthusiastic and driven by a boundless energy.
Physical Characteristics: McCurdy was tall and had a prominent moustache and Vandyke beard.
On September 20, 1881 Arthur McCurdy married Lucy O’Brien. They had three sons and a daughter. Then, on October 2, 1902 he married Hattie Maria Mace and they had two daughters and a son.