Obituary for George Hudson
George Barton Hudson, age 94, of Brockville, passed away Wednesday, November 23, 2022 at the Brockville General Hospital of natural causes.
George was born on November 28, 1927 in Wickwar, Gloucestershire, UK. He was the second youngest of six children, one of whom died young. George was the son of a wounded veteran of the Great War (including the Somme offensive) and was raised almost single handedly by his mother. He graduated from Merrywood Secondary School (Bristol, UK) in 1944 and was immediately hired locally by the National Smelting Company reporting to the Works Metallurgist as an industrial chemist. His initial pay was less than 1 ½ pounds per week.
He served in the Royal Air Force as a Radar Mechanic from September 1946 to January 1949 (national service), giving “good and conscientious service” before returning to National Smelting. He sometimes remarked that one of the most dangerous activities during his RAF service was participating in a football match on behalf of his RAF unit against a SAS Special Forces squad.
While working in the early 1950s George took advanced Chemistry courses in the evening with the College of Technology, Bristol leading to his passing the examination for, and being elected to, the Royal Institute of Chemistry’s Associateship (A.R.I.C.). Subsequently he was a proud Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 1954 until his death.
George emigrated to Canada in April 1957, working initially for Atomic Energy of Canada as a metallurgist at Queen’s University where he met and later married Meda Luise Graham on March 3, 1961, his life-long love.
After Queen’s George worked for DuPont in Maitland (1960-67 and 1981-92), Sandvik in Montreal (1967-70) and Toronto (1972-1977), as well as Associated Tubing (Markham, 1977-1981). His last post, at DuPont, was Senior Corrosion Chemist (Specialist) before retirement at 65 in 1992. During his combined service at DuPont George had a number of patents filed concerning technical processes he and his colleagues developed. From 1970-72 George worked for his brother Maurice in Bristol.
George became a Canadian citizen in June 1984, having long ago lost any significant vestiges of his west country of England accent. Not a nationalist George loved the natural wonders of Canada and enjoyed travelling to see them. An avid golfer all his life George in the mid-1970s built, with the help of his children, a cottage on Buck Lake north of Kingston where he loved to swim and fish. George was also a classical music fan who built his own stereo system in the 1960s, and was a voracious reader of fiction and non-fiction all his life, especially in retirement (when he also took up landscape painting).
Active in his Churches over the years, George headed up the Sunday School at St. Edward’s Anglican Church in Pickering with Luise in the middle mid-1970s. In 1977 he was awarded a Lay School of Theology Certificate of Christian Knowledge from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, qualifying as an Anglican lay reader. From the 1980s George was active in Brockville Churches in a number of capacities such as Proclamation.
George Hudson is survived by his wife, Luise Hudson, of Brockville, two of his three children, Geoffrey of Thunder Bay and David of Brockville, his grandchildren David, Elizabeth, and James as well as his sister Mary Lewis of Marshfield, Gloucestershire, UK. He was predeceased by his daughter, Jill Hudson of Cornwall, and his brothers Maurice, John, Charles Ernest (Roy) and Geoffrey as well as his mother Gertrude Vivian Phelps and father Charles Arthur Hudson.
Family and friends are invited to a celebration of George's life Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 11:00 am at Irvine Funeral Home, 4 James St. E., Brockville.
Service Recording - https://event.forgetmenotceremonies.com/ceremony?c=3eeb41d3-1d79-48de-b55e-d12b05f13aa1
The private family interment will take place the same day. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in George’s memory to Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Médecins Sans Frontières (www.médecinssansfrontiers.ca) or the charity of your choice. Share a memory of George by clicking on our Memory Button above.
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George was born on November 28, 1927 in Wickwar, Gloucestershire, UK. He was the second youngest of six children, one of whom died young. George was the son of a wounded veteran of the Great War (including the Somme offensive) and was raised almost single handedly by his mother. He graduated from Merrywood Secondary School (Bristol, UK) in 1944 and was immediately hired locally by the National Smelting Company reporting to the Works Metallurgist as an industrial chemist. His initial pay was less than 1 ½ pounds per week.
He served in the Royal Air Force as a Radar Mechanic from September 1946 to January 1949 (national service), giving “good and conscientious service” before returning to National Smelting. He sometimes remarked that one of the most dangerous activities during his RAF service was participating in a football match on behalf of his RAF unit against a SAS Special Forces squad.
While working in the early 1950s George took advanced Chemistry courses in the evening with the College of Technology, Bristol leading to his passing the examination for, and being elected to, the Royal Institute of Chemistry’s Associateship (A.R.I.C.). Subsequently he was a proud Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 1954 until his death.
George emigrated to Canada in April 1957, working initially for Atomic Energy of Canada as a metallurgist at Queen’s University where he met and later married Meda Luise Graham on March 3, 1961, his life-long love.
After Queen’s George worked for DuPont in Maitland (1960-67 and 1981-92), Sandvik in Montreal (1967-70) and Toronto (1972-1977), as well as Associated Tubing (Markham, 1977-1981). His last post, at DuPont, was Senior Corrosion Chemist (Specialist) before retirement at 65 in 1992. During his combined service at DuPont George had a number of patents filed concerning technical processes he and his colleagues developed. From 1970-72 George worked for his brother Maurice in Bristol.
George became a Canadian citizen in June 1984, having long ago lost any significant vestiges of his west country of England accent. Not a nationalist George loved the natural wonders of Canada and enjoyed travelling to see them. An avid golfer all his life George in the mid-1970s built, with the help of his children, a cottage on Buck Lake north of Kingston where he loved to swim and fish. George was also a classical music fan who built his own stereo system in the 1960s, and was a voracious reader of fiction and non-fiction all his life, especially in retirement (when he also took up landscape painting).
Active in his Churches over the years, George headed up the Sunday School at St. Edward’s Anglican Church in Pickering with Luise in the middle mid-1970s. In 1977 he was awarded a Lay School of Theology Certificate of Christian Knowledge from Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, qualifying as an Anglican lay reader. From the 1980s George was active in Brockville Churches in a number of capacities such as Proclamation.
George Hudson is survived by his wife, Luise Hudson, of Brockville, two of his three children, Geoffrey of Thunder Bay and David of Brockville, his grandchildren David, Elizabeth, and James as well as his sister Mary Lewis of Marshfield, Gloucestershire, UK. He was predeceased by his daughter, Jill Hudson of Cornwall, and his brothers Maurice, John, Charles Ernest (Roy) and Geoffrey as well as his mother Gertrude Vivian Phelps and father Charles Arthur Hudson.
Family and friends are invited to a celebration of George's life Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 11:00 am at Irvine Funeral Home, 4 James St. E., Brockville.
Service Recording - https://event.forgetmenotceremonies.com/ceremony?c=3eeb41d3-1d79-48de-b55e-d12b05f13aa1
The private family interment will take place the same day. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in George’s memory to Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Médecins Sans Frontières (www.médecinssansfrontiers.ca) or the charity of your choice. Share a memory of George by clicking on our Memory Button above.
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