Memorable Manitobans: Edmund Guthrie Perry (1873-1962)

College professor.

Born at Ottawa, Ontario on 13 March 1873, son of Edmund Alexander and Anna Jane Perry, he was educated at Ottawa before coming to Winnipeg as a boy, in 1882. He attended the Winnipeg Collegiate Institute then college where he graduated with an Arts degree in 1893, obtaining a Theology diploma three years later. After graduation, he preached for four years in mining and lumber camps near Wellington, British Columbia. He then attended universities at Edinburgh, Berlin, and Leipsic, securing a PhD in the latter in 1905. Later that year, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature at Manitoba College, later United College, from which he retired in 1942. He specialized in the translation from cunieform tablets of the hymns and prayers to the God Sun.

In 1909, he married Lavinia Bell Riley (1880-1920), daughter of R. T. Riley, at Winnipeg. He served as President of the Alma Mater Society at Manitoba College, and Secretary of the Winnipeg Branch of the Archaeological Institute of America. A member of the Winnipeg Historical Society.

He died at Winnipeg on 5 December 1962 and was buried in Old Kildonan Cemetery.

Sources:

Who’s Who in Western Canada: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women of Western Canada, Volume 1, edited by C. W. Parker, Vancouver: Canadian Press Association, 1911.

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 6 December 1962, page 33.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 20 May 2011

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