Mason, J. Herbert

Founder of the Canada Permanent Mortgage Corporation, and building it to great heights, Mason showed that he excelled in business. He also cared deeply for education as shown by his involvement in the founding of both Wycliffe and Ridley. In 1889 he sat on the first Board of Governors, was a Director from 1899 and Ridley's President from 1900 to1911. But perhaps the thing that Mason valued most, upon which he continuously laid emphasis, was a man's character. In his 1903 indenture endowing two awards for the school - for the Upper School it was the Mason Medal and the second for the Head Boy of the Lower School - he defined the qualifications as: cheerful submission to authority, self-respect and independence of character, readiness to forgive offenses, desire to conciliate differences with others and moral courage and unflinching truthfulness. The Mason Gold Medal since its inception has been voted on by the students for the Prefect who best exemplifies these qualities. Mason died in 1911.

P.O. Box 3013, 2 Ridley Road St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7C3 Canada 905 684 1889

With more than 700 students from 60 countries, the largest boarding programme in Ontario and the third largest in Canada, Ridley College is a truly international, co-educational, day and boarding school of the world that prepares students for the world. It has provided enriching learning and life-shaping experiences focused on the arts, academics, and athletics since 1889. Ridley’s Lower School offers JK-Grade 8, its Upper School consists of Grade 9-PG, and Ridley graduates attend some of the top universities and colleges around the world. Ridley is the only co-ed independent boarding school in Canada and one of only three in North America authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum programme.