Living History is an ongoing series showcasing just a small assortment of the more than 350,000 items housed at The Salvation Army Heritage Centre in Toronto. This month, we are highlighting one of the most unusual pieces in their possession: eyeglasses that belonged to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.

Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (1897-1972) was one of the greatest prime minsters Canada has produced. Prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis, which earned him global acclaim.

While Prime Minister Pearson’s life is well documented, there is almost no reliable historical information about why a pair of his eyeglasses wound up at the Heritage Centre, but they did.

The prime minister died in December 1972 and, according to the Heritage Centre’s database, the glasses were turned over to The Salvation Army’s public relations department in Ottawa sometime in 1973 at the request of his widow.

When speaking of this matter with then Commissioner Clarence Wiseman, who went on to serve as the 10th General of The Salvation Army, it was felt these glasses might have a place in the Army’s museum. “While not specifically an Army memento,” he is reported to have said, “the glasses represent a most interesting period in Canadian Salvation Army history when the late Hon. Mr. Pearson gave tremendous support to us and, as an organization, we experienced a period of great development.”

Unfortunately, there is no record of the donation or any other provenance information. Nothing more is known about them, where they were between 1973 and 2005, or who was holding on to them. All that is known for sure is that they were accessioned at the Heritage Centre in 2005, which is when the information about the glasses was entered into the database. 

Did You Know?

The name of the optometrist is still visible on the eyeglass case, and his address was located up the street from the Parliament Buildings. George H. Nelms was the mayor of Ottawa from 1957 to 1960 and was an optician by profession, founding George H. Nelms Opticians in 1938. He appreciated the work of The Salvation Army and was also personally involved in the organization. He was the campaign chairman of the Army’s Red Shield Appeal, chairman of the Ottawa Advisory Board and a board member of the Grace General Hospital. Nelms died in 1999 at the Ottawa Grace Hospital.

Photos: The Archives of The Salvation Army Canada and Bermuda Territory, Camilo Mejia