Diana Kingsmill Wright

Diana Kingsmill Wright (24 December 1908 – 24 January 1982) was a Canadian athlete, journalist and activist.[3]

Diana Kingsmill Wright
BornDiana Kingsmill
24 December 1908[1]
Ottawa, Ontario
Died24 January 1982(1982-01-24) (aged 73)[2]
Occupationathlete, journalist, environmentalist
NationalityCanadian
Period1920s-1970s
SpouseVictor Gordon-Lennox (1932 - bef. 1940)
J. F. C. Wright (1944-1970)

Biography

Diana Kingsmill Wright was born in Ottawa, Ontario, 24 December 1908. She was the daughter of Naval Service of Canada admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill,[3] She was raised and educated in Canada and England.

In her youth, she was a competitive figure skater, who was a winner of the Devonshire Cup.[4] She was later a member of the Canadian alpine skiing team at the 1936 Winter Olympics,[5] and competed despite having suffered a broken hand.[6]

She married Victor Gordon-Lennox, the son of British politician Walter Gordon-Lennox, in 1932.[7] In this era she was a friend of actor David Niven,[3] who wrote about her in his autobiography The Moon Is a Balloon.[8]

She returned to Ottawa in 1940 after separating from Gordon-Lennox.[9] She remarried to historian J. F. C. Wright in 1944, in the Parliament Hill office of J. S. Woodsworth,[10] and moved with Wright to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.[3] Active in the Saskatchewan chapter of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the Wrights became co-editors of Union Farmer, the newspaper of the Saskatchewan Farmers' Union, in 1950.[3] Wright committed suicide in 1970.[10]

In the 1960s, she was active in Voice of Women, and leased the Kingsmill family summer home on Grindstone Island to the Society of Friends to serve as a Quaker retreat centre and an institution for peace studies.[11] She later served as editor of Environment Probe,[3] and served on an advisory committee to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on its coverage of agriculture and farming issues.[3]

References
  1. Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Diana Gordon-Lennox". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  2. "Wright, Diana". Montreal Gazette. Postmedia Network. January 26, 1982. p. 48. Retrieved December 28, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Diana Kingsmill Wright" Archived 2014-10-18 at the Wayback Machine. Saskatchewan Eco Network.
  4. "Canada in Switzerland". Winnipeg Tribune, February 6, 1925.
  5. "Ottawa Ski Star Chosen on Team". Ottawa Journal, September 16, 1935.
  6. "Applaud Efforts Diana Lennox". Ottawa Journal, February 8, 1936.
  7. "Diana Kingsmill Is Bride of Capt. Gordon-Lennox". Winnipeg Tribune, December 28, 1932.
  8. Niven, David (1971). The Moon's a Balloon. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-340-15817-4.
  9. "Ottawa Women Enter Inter-City Ski Meet". Ottawa Journal, January 27, 1940.
  10. "Biography - Wright, James Frederick Church" . Saskatoon Public Library Local History Collections.
  11. "Rebels run retreat". Ottawa Citizen, August 27, 1980.
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