The following is excerpted from “Walter J. Blackburn, A Man for All Media”, by Michael Nolan for historical and genealogical purposes…

Walter J. Blackburn

A Man for All Media

By Michael Nolan (b. 1940)

Macmillan of Canada

ISBN 0-7715-9200-0

PN4913.B58N64 1989

CHAPTER ONE

Born to the Job 1849 – 1936

THE YOUNG, INTENSE and somewhat shy graduate, who on 3 June 1936 received an honours B.A. in Business Administration at the University of Western Ontario, knew the challenges that lay ahead. In January 1936 following his father's death, he had become president and manager of The London Free Press at the age of 21 — the youngest publisher of a daily newspaper in Canada. His annual salary was $3,500.

Tomorrow he would begin to devote his full energies to the southwestern Ontario newspaper whose origins and tradition dated back to 1849, preceding by five years the incorporation of the city of London. The evolution of The Free Press, owned successively by three generations of the Blackburn family, had paralleled closely the growth and development of the city and region. It would fall to Walter Juxon Blackburn to bring the mass circulation daily into the mid-twentieth century and to expand the family's regional media dynasty.

Early in life the notions of family commitment and individual responsibility were impressed upon Blackburn. His three aunts, Susan, Margaret and Eleanor, and two sisters, Constance and Miriam, relied heavily on his performance as head of the family-owned business. On graduation day he received several reminders of their expectations. His aunts sent him a congratulatory message on his academic achievement. They expressed a collective hope that "the years to come [would] bring ... peace, joy and further success."¹ His sister, Constance, also told him that he had upheld the Blackburn name "in noble style.” Recalling her late father's diabetic condition and the difficulties the family had faced through her brother's university days, she noted that "the past few years have been difficult ones... Perhaps more for you than for [sister] Miriam or me as you have shared more of the responsibility.” She praised him for his "staunchness and courage" and quoted Walpole in her graduation note: "It is not life that matters but the courage that you bring to it.” Their father would be pleased, she said, because "he had the utmost faith in his only lad."²

Walter's father and aunts had made the third-generation publisher acutely aware, as a youngster, of his family's history and the sense of responsibility that inevitably accompanied ownership of a community newspaper. Each Blackburn had managed to assume control of the newspaper at a relatively young age, enabling him to put his own stamp on the enterprise. That successive generations of Blackburns had nurtured the family-owned business, without selling to a larger or richer buyer and simply living off the family inheritance, was evidence of a corporate individualism that had its roots set deeply and firmly in the nineteenth century.

Walter's grandfather, Josiah Blackburn, who had been born in England, had come to Canada in 1850 after a European tour to join his brother, John, at the Star in Paris, Ontario, near London. A couple of years later, Josiah purchased The Canadian Free Press from James Daniell, the holder of a $500 mortgage against William Sutherland, founder of the weekly newspaper.³ Blackburn's takeover on 1 January 1853 marked the beginning of the Blackburn media dynasty in London.

Josiah Blackburn's remote ancestry on the paternal side had its novel aspects. He was descended from North Country folk in England, the Blackburns of Lancaster and Yorkshire. Several of his ancestors had been "men of the cloth," including one of a different stripe, a legendary Blackburn of York who at one time had been a pirate. After forsaking his past, he was consecrated a prelate of the Church of England. He had a keen interest in the violin and was eventually nicknamed the "Fiddling Bishop of York," a character in which he was later sculptured at York Minster.

Josiah's grandmother on his father's side had her ancestral roots in the Juxon family of Suffolk, whose most distinguished member probably was the renowned Bishop Juxon who died in 1663 at the age of 81. He served as Bishop of London and Lord High Treasurer of England under Charles I and as Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles II. Bishop Juxon was involved in a somewhat curious incident at the time of the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. The condemned Stuart king had requested the Bishop to stand with him upon the scaffold. In the midst of the mild confusion prior to the beheading of Charles, the King passed to the Bishop a ring with the word “Memento” engraved upon it. The ring later was placed in the British Museum as an historic relic.⁴ Many generations later Josiah Blackburn's grandson, who was born in St. Joseph's Hospital in London on 18 March 1914, was christened Walter Juxon Blackburn.

On the maternal side Josiah's grandfather was Robert Smith, Squire of Beslyns, a manor in Essex, England. His daughter, Sarah, married the Reverend John Blackburn who had been born in 1792. Reverend Blackburn eventually became an eminent Congregationalist theologian. He participated in the formation of the Congregational Union of England and Wales and acted as Home Secretary. As editor of the Congregational Calendar between 1840 and 1848, his efforts were devoted largely to the literary side of Congregationalism. In his work, The Congregational Two Hundred, Albert Peel described Reverend Blackburn's extensive career and concluded that "Congregationalism had few better minds."⁵

A year after arriving in Canada, Josiah married his first wife, Emma Jane Delamore, on 29 May 1851. She was the daughter of an Englishman who had settled in the Don Valley area of what is now Toronto. The Blackburns had eight children, six daughters and two sons. The two oldest children, Sarah Emma (born on 18 June 1853) and Mary Charlotte, had no direct involvement with their father's publishing business. Both married and moved from London. However, the other four sisters, Margaret Rose, Eleanor Lucy, Victoria Grace, and the youngest, Susan May (born 20 August 1871), all held shares in the company.

These four aunts, especially Grace and Susan, had consider- able influence on Walter Juxon as boy and man. They placed importance on the notions of excellence and personal responsibility. Their code of conduct was strict. Slang was to be avoided in spoken English; their nephew was always to be properly attired. Their literary and cultural interests also impressed him. They were art enthusiasts and early purchasers of Group of Seven works. Susan and her nephew occasionally attended concerts and opera in New York. "WJ.” considered it a unique achievement that these four sisters "who were unmarried lived together ... in harmony.... I was frequently in that house. It was a nice house to be in."⁶

The "aunts," as they were affectionately referred to in family circles, were typical mid-Victorian ladies. Their London home at 652 Talbot Street was a house that had been originally designed as a cottage and later remodeled. Two of the four spinster sisters, Susan and Grace, actively served the newspaper in the editorial department, while Eleanor and Margaret were preoccupied with household duties.

Grace's nom de plume was "Fan-fan.” Her column appeared regularly as a weekend feature providing readers with both literary and drama criticism. An extensive traveler, Grace was frequently in New York for Broadway openings. Her reviews were considered highly informed, among the best of Canadian journalism. Her creative writing also extended to poetry and fiction. Most of her poetry appeared in the four-year period from 1898 to 1902 and during the early years of World War I when she seldom travelled. Her sole novel, The Man Child, was published shortly after her death in 1928 and was well received by reviewers.⁷

Susan, who lived somewhat in the shadow of Grace's dominating personality, spent considerable time traveling in the Far East. A series of articles she wrote on the Orient for The Free Press attracted wide attention. Susan became Western University's second female graduate upon receipt of her degree from the Faculty of Arts in 1900. She was fluent in German and taught school in both Germany and Japan. Like her sister Grace, Susan was keenly interested in the cultural development of London and southwestern Ontario.

The two sons born to Josiah, Walter Josiah on 4 August 1862 and Arthur Stephen on 27 November 1869 eventually succeeded their father as owners of the company. It would be their responsibility to bring the newspaper into the early-twentieth century, the era dominated by the publisher capitalist. Changes in technology would ultimately usher in the age of the mass-circulation daily. For the time being, however, their father struggled to turn a near bankrupt weekly into a profitable enterprise.

London, Ontario, experienced considerable economic growth throughout the early and mid-1850s. However, the town had not yet emerged from the frontier stage when the decade began. The market square on King Street was the hub of activity when farmers from the region came to London to sell produce and purchase supplies. A garrison town, London was the home of the 32nd Regiment of the British regulars. The military had arrived following the Upper Canada rebellions of 1837-38; the presence of the regulars had a lasting effect on the town situated at the forks of the Thames River, which the Indians called Askunesippi, meaning "antlered one."⁸

When Josiah Blackburn assumed official control of The Canadian Free Press on 1 January 1853, the London newspaper was in its third location on the east side of Talbot Street, just a few doors north of Dundas Street. Although London was on the verge of economic expansion with the advent of the railway, publishing a newspaper was still an arduous undertaking. Transportation throughout the city and Middlesex County was difficult given the poor condition of streets and roads. The county contained only about 150 miles of proper roads. Telegraph communication, that would soon become all important to the newspaper business, was relatively new in Canada West when Blackburn took over the newspaper. The problems presented by the social conditions of the day, as well as the actual printing of the four-page Canadian Free Press, made for a time-consuming struggle. Each letter in every word of the weekly was set by hand. This requirement meant that compositors spent a good portion of their time setting copy in type. They had to redistribute the type to the proper places in the type cases after the paper had been printed. Until the invention of the linotype machine at the beginning of the twentieth century, many hours were spent in what was clearly mundane, repetitive labour. In his reminiscences on the pioneer days of the newspaper, Harry Gorman, an early employee, described Josiah Blackburn as "editor, reporter, proof-reader, book-keeper, collector and canvassing agent," someone who knew "what it ... [was] like to run a country newspaper when money ... [was] scarce and roads bad.”⁹

Spurred on by the interest and enthusiasm which the Crimean War had nurtured in the minds of the reading public, Blackburn launched a daily newspaper. The London Free Press and Daily Western Advertiser made its appearance on 5 May 1855. Except for a brief period in 1857, the daily has been available to Londoners ever since. The weekly Canadian Free Press, which initially served as the financial underpinning of the daily, lasted until the 1880s.”¹⁰

Some twenty years later, on 10 May 1875 amidst a world depression, Blackburn started an evening edition of The London Free Press. The evening edition, which sold for two cents a copy, one cent less than the morning paper, enabled advertisers to get double exposure for their products free of any extra charge. This edition was introduced to counter The London Evening Advertiser started by John Cameron twelve years earlier when he was just 19 years old. The 1872 circulation figures show that The Advertiser had considerable impact. It had a daily circulation of 10,600 subscribers compared to just 2,540 for the The Free Press.¹¹

Josiah's younger brother, Stephen, had joined him after The Free Press became a daily. "J. and S. Blackburn, printers and publishers" was born in 1826. Stephen Blackburn had entered the printing and publishing business in London, England, before immigrating to Canada. His wife was Susanna Whittaker, the second daughter of Henry Whittaker, solicitor of Chancery Lane in London and founder of the noted publication, Whittaker's Almanac. John Cameron, who published The London Evening Advertiser, found the younger Blackburn to be "energetic, quick, impetuous and, like most impetuous men, warm hearted and ready to do a good turn.”

The arrival of his brother meant that Josiah could relieve himself of some of the newspaper's financial responsibilities. He preferred to focus on the editorial department, the aspect of journalism that seemed to delight him most. The result was that Blackburn eventually was successful in turning his newspaper into the most influential journal west of Toronto.

As was the case with other early newspaper proprietors, Blackburn became a central figure in the political controversies surrounding the Reform Party and its leader George Brown, publisher of the Toronto Globe. In the process, Blackburn's trenchant pen moved The Free Press editorially from the Reform Party, which it had supported between 1849 and 1858, to John A. Macdonald and the Conservatives by the time of Confederation. The London journal continued to give its editorial support to the Conservative Party until Walter Blackburn, Josiah's grandson, broke with Arthur Ford, his editor-in-chief of the day, and endorsed the Liberals in the early 1960s, a hundred years later.

Josiah Blackburn himself ran unsuccessfully as a Reform candidate in East Middlesex during the 1857 election, and blamed his defeat on Brown. He felt that Brown, through his preoccupation with the concerns of Canada West and his antipathy toward French Canadians, had hurt the party's chances at the polls and had kept the Reformers in opposition. Under Blackburn's guidance The Free Press played a significant role in the party debates on Reform policies and Brown's leadership throughout the late 1850s and early 1860s” ¹²

During the decade before Confederation, stable government in the Canadas proved to be elusive; ministries lasted for relatively short periods. Within the Reform Party, there was discord. Blackburn broke with Brown over the noted "Double Shuffle" incident, terminology used by Brown's Globe to describe the manner in which the Liberal-Conservative government of Macdonald and Cartier regained office after the Brown-Dorion government was defeated in 1858. A technicality had allowed the Liberal-Conservatives to form a government once again without having to face the electorate. The Free Press opposed the "Double Shuffle," claiming the move was against the spirit of the law; still, the newspaper cautioned that the action could be seen as valid from a strictly legal standpoint.

Brown at first favoured dissolution and then proposed a federation of the Canadas to break the political deadlock that had prevented stable government. In contrast, The Free Press favoured the double majority principle, a concept whereby the country would be governed by voting majorities in Canada West and Canada East. Later The Free Press supported the Great Coalition that led to Confederation and the Conservative Party under John A. Macdonald.” ¹³

Politics fascinated Blackburn. One of the highlights of his career was in the summer of 1864 when he managed to obtain an interview with President Abraham Lincoln who was then in the middle of the Civil War. Blackburn wrote: "I at once placed in the hands of a messenger my card and letters (previously procured from friends in New York and Cincinnati), to deliver to the President and with scarcely a moment's delay I was ushered into his presence, when he arose and stepped forward in a stooping position… I am glad to see you sir; be seated.” Blackburn explained that London was near Detroit and said, "Your position must indeed be responsible and trying, President.” To this comment Lincoln replied, "Yes, to think of it, it is very strange that I, a boy brought up in the woods, and seeing, as it were, but little of the world, should be drifted into the very apex of this great event.” Blackburn included a description of Lincoln's private room in his story and quoted the President as saying "there was never anything in history to equal ... [the Civil War].” The brief conversation with the President, which was written down by Blackburn immediately after the interview, appeared in the Sacramento Daily Union on 23 August 1864. ¹⁴

During the immediate post-Confederation years when The Free Press shifted its political orientation, the newspaper also underwent personnel changes. In 1871 the earlier partnership between Josiah and Stephen Blackburn was dissolved and replaced by a joint stock company prior to incorporation seven years later. Stephen did not appear to have Josiah's keen interest in the editorial aspect of the newspaper business nor his passion for political writing. But he did possess a sharp business sense. He also had shown an interest in the oil discoveries at nearby Petrolia.

In 1871 Stephen was appointed Registrar of Titles for West Middlesex in the town of Glencoe. The Free Press informed its readers that he had decided to leave the newspaper to devote more attention to the oil business. Several opponents of the location of the registry office in Glencoe, especially those in the town of Strathroy, saw the newspaper's announcement as something of a smokescreen to hide what was perceived as blatant political patronage on the part of Sandfield Macdonald, Ontario's first premier, who had made the appointment. The Premier and Josiah Blackburn had been on close terms when they opposed George Brown as head of the Reform Party. Strathroy had wanted the registry office, claiming that "its enterprise, wealth, rapid growth, prospective advancement and rail- way facilities offer advantages, far superior to any other place in the riding.” ¹⁵

The dissolving of the partnership between the Blackburn brothers saw Stephen's interest in the company pass to William Southam, later founder of the newspaper dynasty, and to Henry Mathewson, a former confectioner, and John Kingsley Clare who became secretary-treasurer of the newspaper. When Josiah Blackburn had started his daily newspaper in 1855, Southam, then 12 years old, left school to become a Free Press paper boy. Four years later, he became an indentured apprentice to the printing trade with the newspaper. When the London Free Press Printing and Publishing Company was formed in 1871, Southam donned a leather apron and took charge of the job printing department which supplemented the two dailies and the weekly that the firm published. Starting with a salary of $1,200 annually, he stayed with the newspaper for six more years before selling his interest. He then took control of the Hamilton Spectator and later established a national newspaper empire. ¹⁶

In a fiftieth anniversary issue of The Free Press, Southam recalled that one of his most valued possessions was "a handsome volume of Scott's poetical works with the following inscription on the fly leaf in the handwriting of Stephen Blackburn: 'To William Southam as a token of regard and esteem on the completion of his five years' apprenticeship at the Free Press office, from J. & S. Blackburn, London, Canada West, 7 January 1864.” ¹⁷

The Free Press continued to evolve. After Southam left for Hamilton, the company became incorporated on 8 October 1878, with capital stock to the value of $60,000. A decade later the job printing and lithographic departments of the newspaper were sold, underlining the shift in emphasis that had occurred in Canadian journalism since the early days of The Free Press. Whereas Josiah Blackburn had to support his newspaper enterprise with the operating capital from these two sources of income, his sons Walter Josiah and Arthur Stephen were to concentrate their efforts on increasing readership and building advertising revenue. Job printing could be profitable but demanded both time and production space. On 1 January 1890 the company accepted the offer of Thomas Orr, an old-time Free Press employee, and John Weld, publisher of the Farmers Advocate newspaper, to purchase the job printing and lithographic departments and "the stock in trade for the sum of twenty five thousand dollars."¹⁸

Five months later on 10 May Josiah Blackburn attended his last shareholders' meeting. In ill health at the time, the managing director urged that the utmost economy be observed in the future operation of the newspaper. His death on 11 November 1890 at the age of 68 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he had gone hoping to improve his health, truly represented the passing of the early era of journalism for The Free Press.

During the final decade of his life, Blackburn had served as census commissioner in Western Ontario. The federal government also appointed him to oversee the organization of a printing bureau at Ottawa.” ¹⁹ Blackburn's recommendations following visits to Washington and various state capitals resulted in the formation of the Department of Public Printing and Stationery in 1886, forerunner of the printing section of the Department of Supply and Services.

Josiah was a man seemingly given to considerable soul searching about both public and private matters which in his day invariably touched upon the areas of politics and religion. He had shown an independent side in political journalism. He broke with the past when he moved his paper from the Reform Party to the Conservative side. In his religion he was no less given to thoughtful examination. Though raised as a Congregationalist, Blackburn along with his first wife and six of their eight children had been rebaptized as Anglicans in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Ontario. J. Lambert Payne, an early journalist with The Free Press, wrote that Josiah "was scarcely a brilliant writer as that term is understood, but he was marvelously forceful. He gave The Free Press a soul."²⁰

Blackburn's estate had real and personal assets that totaled nearly $20,000. The shares he held in The London Free Press Printing Company and Carling Brewing and Malting Company had a value of approximately $35,000.²¹ In his will, he handed down his 601 shares of common stock in the printing company to Walter Josiah, his son, and to his nephew, Henry Stephen Blackburn, his executors and trustees.

The will stipulated that any sale of the stock must be done "en bloc but not otherwise" and that five thousand dollars from the sale was to be invested for his second wife Marion Billington, whom he had married in 1886, after the death of his first wife; the interest on that investment was to be paid to her during her lifetime. The remainder of the proceeds from selling of the stock was to be divided among the children of his first wife, with one quarter going to each of his sons, Walter Josiah and Arthur Stephen, and the remainder to be divided among his daughters. According to the will, "pending the sale of the said stock," it was not lawful "for any of my said children to dispose of their beneficial interest therein or any part thereof to any person or persons other than to his or her brother or sister."²² Josiah was determined to keep it in the family.

Between Josiah's death and the start of the First World War, The Free Press, with its Conservative orientation, continued in keen competition with the Liberal Advertiser. Walter Josiah and Arthur Stephen Blackburn, who became president and secretary treasurer, respectively, of the company in 1900, continued to raise advertising revenue; from $84,158 in 1907 to $155,481 in 1914. The Advertiser had its best year in 1911 when it accumulated $74,292.32 in advertising revenue, but still well short of the $117,022.64 taken in by The Free Press. ²³ Arthur succeeded his brother as president following Walter Josiah's death in 1920.

In 1902 Arthur Blackburn had married Etta Irene Henderson of Wardsville near London. Arthur and his wife had two girls and a boy; the oldest, Constance Margaret, was born on 14 August 1904, the younger, Miriam Irene, on 18 December 1909. The couple gave birth to their only son, Walter Juxon, on 18 March 1914. The arrival of a new male in the Blackburn family, the heir apparent to Arthur, was a much-heralded event. The ordained successor later hinted that he would have preferred to be a mechanical engineer or an astronomer, but as he explained, "I had been born into the job."²⁴

Walter Blackburn was a quiet and unassuming young man, almost solemn in his demeanor. His aunt Grace occasionally predicted that he would become a bishop. John Ralph, a classics professor at the University of Western Ontario and a father figure to the young Walter, remembered that Arthur Blackburn gave his son steady support and encouragement. A sometimes-strained atmosphere in the household prompted Walter to spend a considerable amount of time during his youthful years with his four aunts in their house at 652 Talbot Street. They were well traveled and read and taught him much. The aunt's adoration of their nephew was matched by his fondness for them.

Walter's father, Arthur, was an austere individual who suffered from diabetes. He would leave London occasionally for medical treatment at the Stenben Sanitarium in Hornell, New York, leaving much of the responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the newspaper to Charles Thomas who was appointed secretary-treasurer of the company in January 1921, later becoming general manager. Thomas, who had been born at Cold Stream near London, had joined the newspaper in 1900 as a bookkeeper. A hard-driving individual, he would later have a personal clash with the third generation publisher when he succeeded his father.

Arthur was a member of the London Hunt and Country Club, which he joined in December 1920 when the entrance and annual subscription fees were $50 and $75 respectively; however his socializing was generally confined to business friends. In the early 1920s he held 23 shares of capital stock in the Carling Brewery and Malting Company of London and was also a director of Big Creek Muskrat Farms Limited, a Port Rowan, Ontario, company specializing in the sale of live muskrats for breeding purposes.

Blackburn removed himself largely from London's social life and spent endless hours as a recluse on the third floor of the family's Richmond Street home to which they had moved in the 1920s, with a remarkable collection of radio apparatus and equipment. Despite this reclusive nature, his personality was not without contradictions; he enjoyed luxurious automobiles and loved speed. On an occasional afternoon, he would turn to Ernie Agnew, a member of the newspaper's advertising department, and ask to be taken for a drive in his Steams-Knight. "Could you take me out and give me the air for a little while?" was a frequent request.²⁵

Perhaps the notable achievement of Arthur's presidency was the company's expansion of its media operations. CJGC radio, a new form of communication, was introduced to London on 30 September 1922. Arthur Blackburn's hobby interest in radio made him eager to introduce the medium to London as early as possible. He saw that radio could supplement but not necessarily supplant the form of service provided by The London Free Press. At a time when numerous newspaper owners throughout Canada saw this new electronic medium as a threat to their advertising revenue, Blackburn saw it as an alternative that could not be forestalled, and so should be absorbed.

CJGC was born at a time when the radio "studio" was in the early stages of its evolution. Initially the station's studio was situated in the executive offices of the newspaper; the studio consisted of not much more than a large, old-fashioned microphone on a tripod, a homemade transmitter constructed by a local gunsmith and an upright piano for whatever programming could be provided. Later the station was moved to its own separate quarters on the third floor of the newspaper building on Richmond Street.

During the first broadcast over CJGC on 30 September 1922, listeners heard the voice of Sir Adam Beck, the father of Ontario Hydro. Beck noted that the medium had been considered a fad just a year earlier but now was perceived as a supplement to newspapers. On 18 August 1925, CJGC provided a remote broadcast of Beck's funeral, following his death three days earlier.

The personality of Arthur contrasted with that of his wife, who was an attractive, fun-loving twenty-three-year old at the time of the marriage. On the other hand, he was thirty-two. She enjoyed travel, parties and was something of a free spirit. Her husband, on the other hand, had little time for that kind of social activity. He would retire after dinner to his radio room, source of endless fascination for him, just as the medium was for many Canadians in the 1920s, the era of the ukulele, the coonskin coat and bootleggers. Moreover, his diabetic problem was always a cause of concern for the family, especially in his later years when the Blackburns kept a resident nurse full time to attend to him. On her travels to such places as Florida, Bermuda and Cuba, Blackburn's wife always maintained regular contact with the family in London. The family had moments of enjoyment but did not always seem to pull together.

Although Arthur as president of The Free Press was prominent in business circles, the family tended to be removed from London society. Both he and his wife kept a low profile just as Josiah, Arthur's father, had done. The only major community project in which Etta Irene Blackburn became involved was with Anna Burgess Shaw-Wood, a prominent figure in church and social work during and following the First World War. The two women directed a Red Cross committee which established a clothing supply depot for civic relief in London.

Like many other young Londoners of his day, Irene's son, Walter, made the transitions from Ryerson Public School to the London Central Collegiate Institute and then to the University of Western Ontario. Throughout his elementary, high school and university days, Blackburn remained a steady and conscientious student. In his final year at Ryerson, he finished fifth in a class of 31 students.

The year of Canada's Diamond Jubilee, 1927, Blackburn entered Central Collegiate Institute. He graduated four years later in 1931 with a junior matriculation. He missed a year of high school following an attack of scarlet fever and therefore did not complete the usual five-year stay. Central was a high school with a long tradition dating back to its founding in 1878. The high school tended to stress the fundamental Anglo-Saxon qualities of stability, hard work and class loyalty.

In few ways was Blackburn a conspicuous student at Central. He remained aloof from the crowd and played virtually no sports with one exception: he joined the school's track team. Surprisingly, he did not appear to show any interest in the school newspaper. His fellow students remembered Blackburn as being quiet, reserved and seldom a partygoer. "He always seemed to have a low profile," said Cedric Tanner, a fellow student, "although he had a nice car."²⁶ The luxurious automobiles he drove made Blackburn the envy of students during his Central days. Another long-time friend who also attended the school remembered that Arthur Blackburn "always had great, big cars ... he always supplied Walter with the most beautiful, expensive convertibles that you have ever seen, big Buicks and Chryslers. While the rest of us were driving Fords, Walter always had the great, big cars."²⁷

Perhaps his extra-curricular interests help to explain why Blackburn was not more active in the school's social life. In the late 1920s he became a radio amateur, a ham operator, which involved learning Morse code, a considerable amount of radio theory and passing examinations in both of these categories. "Walter's amateur station in those days was... a good one," said Cedric Tanner. "It takes quite a bit of study to become a ham and he operated mostly on Morse. You [could] have contact with places all over the world.” He also had "an elaborate electric train in his basement [where] he was always rigging up motors and gadgets. On one occasion he gave me about 15,000 volts in the seat of the pants.”

Even at the age of thirteen, Blackburn had shown he had inherited the mechanical interests of his father. He was a camera enthusiast and later joined the London Camera Club. "My father had, at my request, bought a motion picture camera for