Grube, George
George Maximilien Antoine Grube
(1899-1981)
Joined Trinity College (Department of Classics) 1928
Head, Department of Classics 1931
League for Social Reconstruction, President 1934-35
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Excerpt from: http://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/trincms/ckeditor/ckfinder/userfiles/files/GRUBE%20F2006(1).pdf
Georges Maximilien Antoine Grube, classicist, Trinity College professor, and active member
in the Co‐operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and New Democratic Party (NDP), was born in
Antwerp, Belgium, on 3 August 1899, the son of Antoine and Marie Reiners. At the beginning of the
Great War in 1914 he emigrated to England where he attended King Edward's High School, Birmingham.
He served briefly with the Belgian army towards the end of the war and after the cessation of hostilities
he acted as an interpreter to British forces in Belgium. He completed his education at Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a B.A. in classics in 1922 and an M.A. in 1925. It is perhaps
by this time that he started generally using the name George Maximilian Antony Grube. He became a
naturalized British subject on 25 January 1924, and on 7 August he married in London Gwenyth Deen
Macintosh, a fellow graduate in classics at Cambridge.
After four years as a lecturer at the University College of Swansea, Wales, George Grube
came to Toronto in 1928 to take the position of Professor of Classics at Trinity College. He acted as head
of the Department of Classics at Trinity College from 1932 to 1965 and as head of the Graduate
Department of Classics at the University of Toronto from 1951 to 1966. He retired from Trinity College in
1968, but was re‐appointed as a special lecturer during 1968‐69 and became emeritus professor of
classics in 1969.
As a classical scholar, G.M.A. Grube is best known as author of Plato's Thought (1935), The
Drama of Euripedes (1941), A Greek Critic: Demetrius on Style (1961), and The Greek and Roman Critics
(1965), and as translator of Plato's The Republic (1974), a work that continues to be widely used. He
published over 30 articles in various scholarly journals. A founding member of the League for Social
Reconstruction, he served as president of the Toronto branch in 1934‐35, and he was managing editor
of the Canadian Forum from 1937 to 1941. His interest in both cultural and political affairs found further
scope in writing political pamphlets and in making frequent contributions to the Canadian Forum and
the New Commonwealth. He was also a member of the Toronto Labour Council and of the Civil Liberties
Association of Toronto.
Grube became a member of the Co‐operative Commonwealth Federation in 1934; he was
elected as the first Ontario vice‐president and served as president in the 1940s, was a member of the
C.C.F. National Council, and president of the C.C.F. in Ontario. He was elected to serve as trustee for
Ward 1 to the Toronto Board of Education in 1942 and 1943. He was the C.C.F. candidate in the riding of
Toronto Broadview in the general elections of 1940, 1945, and 1950, but was not successful. In 1961 he
was co‐chairman of the founding convention of the N.D.P. He wrote numerous articles and pamphlets
on the C.C.F. and the N.D.P
Grube was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1951. His book, The Greek and
Roman Critics, was winner of the American Philological Association's Award of Merit in 1965. After his
retirement he was honoured with a festschrift, "Studies Presented to G.M.A. Grube on the Occasion of
His Seventieth Birthday," published in Phoenix in spring 1969. In 1973 he was awarded an honorary
degree by the University of Victoria and in 1977 was awarded the Canada Coronation Medal. G.M.A.
Grube died in Toronto on 13 December 1982.
Gwenyth Deen Macintosh Grube, classicist, teacher, and active member in the C.C.F. and
N.D.P., was born 24 September 1900 in London, England. In 1919 she entered Girton College, University
of Cambridge, where she gained Part I of the Classical Tripos in 1921 and Part II in 1922 and received an
M.A. degree in Classics. She continued her studies in 1922, doing postgraduate work at Bryn Mawr in
Pennsylvania. Gwenyth Macintosh met George Grube at Cambridge, and after their marriage in 1924
she taught Latin and Greek at Bedales, a co‐educational boarding school in Hampshire. She came to
Canada in 1928 when her husband was appointed a professor at Trinity College. Gwenyth Grube
returned to England for the period 1932 to 1934 with her two children in order to teach at Dartington
Hall, a progressive school in Totnes, Devon.
A supporter of the Labour Party in England since her college days, Gwenyth Grube joined the
C.C.F. in 1934. In the 1950s she was a member of the Ontario C.C.F. Provincial Executive. She ran
unsuccessfully in 1945 for election as trustee of the Toronto Board of Education in Ward I, a post her
husband had held previously. She was the C.C.F. candidate for the riding of Eglinton in the federal
election of 1957. She was always particularly interested in educational and welfare issues, and a number
of her articles were published in various journals. After her children were adults, she was a part‐time
teacher at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in the 1950s. Along with Agnes Macphail she was an
active member of the board of the Elizabeth Fry Society. Gwenyth Grube died in Toronto on 24 March
1987.
George and Gwenyth Grube had three children: Antonia (Toni) Joan (m. Swalgren), born in
England in 1927, John Deen (1930‐2008), born in Toronto, and Jennifer Julia (m. Podlecki), born in
Toronto in 1935.
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Publications
Plato's Thought. London: Methuen, 1935.
The Drama of Euripides. London: Methuen, 1941.
On Great Writing, translation of On the Sublime, by Longinus. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957.
On Poetry and Style, translation with an introduction of The Poetics, by Aristotle. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958.
A Greek Critic, translation with an introduction of On Style, by Demetrius of Phaleron. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961.
Meditations, translation of same by Marcus Aurelius. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963.
The Greek and Roman Critics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965.
How Did the Greeks Look at Literature. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati Press, 1967.
The Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1974.
Plato's Meno. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976.
Plato's Phaedo. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977.
Five Dialogues, translation of Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo, by Plato. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Maximilian_Anthony_Grube
http://www.archivescanada.ca/english/search/ItemDisplay.asp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&lvl=1&v=0&coll=0&itm=213817&rt=1&bill=1
