Cleric, 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 Manitoba College (BA 1893). For a brief period he taught at Lanark School then obtained a Theology diploma from the College in 1896. 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 in 1905, he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature at Manitoba College from which he retired in 1942. He specialized in the translation from cunieform tablets of the hymns and prayers to the God Sun.
He was married twice, first on 27 December 1909 to Lavinia Bell Riley (1880-1920, daughter of Robert Thomas Riley) at Winnipeg with whom he had three children: Edmund Alexander “Ted” Perry (1911-2001), Robert Riley Perry (1912-1944), and Harriet Maud Perry. In 1928, he married widow Ada Alice Hemenway Clark (c1885-1963). He served as President of the Alma Mater Society at Manitoba College, and Secretary of the Winnipeg Branch of the Archaeological Institute of America. He was a member of the Winnipeg Historical Society.
He died at the Victoria Hospital on 5 December 1962 and was buried in the Old Kildonan Cemetery.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Claydon House (124 Chestnut Street, Winnipeg)
“Chair of Oriental languages filled,” Winnipeg Tribune, 3 April 1905, page 3.
Marriage registration [Edward Gielball Perry, Mary Louisa Bell Riley], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Birth registration [Harriet Maud Perry], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
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.
Obituary [Ada Alice Perry], Winnipeg Tribune, 18 March 1963, page 18.
Obituary [Edmund Alexander Perry], Winnipeg Free Press, 16 June 2001, page 62.
Obituary [Harriet Murgatroyd Lederman], Winnipeg Free Press, 7 July 2001.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 March 2024
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