July 24, 2013

FINEST HOUR 124, AUTUMN 2004

==================

Christopher Hebb’s interest in history began to emerge at Ridley College, St. Catharines, Ontario, under the tutelage of Mr. Morris, an excellent teacher. Christopher did extremely well on his Provincial Final Grade 13 examination, written in the days before multiple choice determined one’s score.

He majored in History at the University of Alberta and obtained his B.A. in 1962. “I was fortunate in my third year to have as my professor a German Jew named Lewis Hertzmann, who obtained films of Hitler’s speeches,” Christopher recalls. “I think I was one of the first to see them in North America. My course focused on World War II, and I found them revealing and fascinating.”

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024

More

“Professor Hertzmann suggested that I take an M.A. in History with him as my primary professor, but economic sanity prevailed and I wound up as a lawyer!” Today he is president of Cavell Capital Corporation, a Vancouver-based investment management and property development company; and an officer and director of Chancellor Partners Management Consultants Inc., a management consultant company.

Christopher’s father joined the Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill Society of Edmonton in 1965—the very first Churchill Society, and the only one founded in Sir Winston’s lifetime and with his personal approval. The Society brought many distinguished speakers to address its members, all of whom had personal tales to tell: Lord Harding, Earl Alexander of Tunis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Gen. Mark Clark, Lord Home, R.A. Butler, Lord Shawcross, Sir John Colville, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, Lady Soames and others. Christopher’s career found him all over the world, but he would always attempt to attend the Churchill Society speeches in Edmonton, Calgary and, later, Vancouver.

In 2001, Dr. Joe Siegenberg, former president of the Edmonton Society and a great ally of the elder Hebb in establishing the Churchill Scholarship for graduate students from the University of Alberta to attend Churchill College, Cambridge, was asked to be president of the Rt Hon Sir Winston Spencer Churchill Society of British Columbia. Christopher joined the board of directors. Since then, membership has doubled, and in November 2003 Christopher Hebb assumed the presidency of the British Columbia Society.

Christopher and Dorothy Hebb attended their first International Churchill Conference in Alaska in 2000. They have not missed one since. “We have always found them fascinating, and the speakers to be of high calibre,” Christopher says. We have also acquired many delightful friends from across the United States and from the UK.”

During the Bermuda conference last year, President Bill Ives asked Christopher to become a member of the Churchill Centre’s Board of Governors, which he joined on January 1st of this year. Meanwhile, in British Columbia, “we have a growing membership and an excellent board whose members have been supportive of my participation in the Centre.” The culmination of this excellent relationship will be the 24th International Churchill Conference in Vancouver in 2007—twenty-one years after the last international conference held there, in 1986.