Diana Kingsmill Wright (24 December 1908 – 24 January 1982) was a Canadian athlete, journalist and activist.
. Saskatchewan Eco Network.

Biography

Diana Kingsmill Wright was born in Ottawa,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, 24 December 1908. She was the daughter of Naval Service of Canada admiral Sir

Charles Kingsmill Admiral Sir Charles Edmund Kingsmill, (7 July 1855 – 15 July 1935) was a Canadian-born naval officer and the first director of the Department of the Naval Service of Canada. After retiring from a career in the Royal Navy, he played a prominen ...

, She was raised and educated in Canada and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. In her youth, she was a competitive figure skater, who was a winner of the Devonshire Cup. She was later a member of the Canadian alpine skiing team at the

1936 Winter Olympics The 1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IV Olympic Winter Games (german: IV. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known as Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 ( bar, Garmasch-Partakurch 1936), were a winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 16 ...

, and competed despite having suffered a broken hand. She married Victor Gordon-Lennox, the son of British politician Walter Gordon-Lennox, in 1932. In this era she was a friend of actor

David Niven James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in '' Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...

, who wrote about her in his autobiography ''The Moon Is a Balloon''. She returned to Ottawa in 1940 after separating from Gordon-Lennox. She remarried to historian J. F. C. Wright in 1944, in the

Parliament Hill Parliament Hill (french: Colline du Parlement, colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings, and their archit ...

office of

J. S. Woodsworth James Shaver Woodsworth (July 29, 1874 – March 21, 1942) was a pre–First World War pioneer of the Canadian Social Gospel, a Christian religious movement with social democratic values and links to organized labour. He was a long-time leader ...

,"Biography - Wright, James Frederick Church"
. Saskatoon Public Library Local History Collections. and moved with Wright to

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as th ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

. Active in the Saskatchewan chapter of the

Cooperative Commonwealth Federation The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; french: Fédération du Commonwealth Coopératif, FCC); from 1955 the Social Democratic Party of Canada (''french: Parti social démocratique du Canada''), was a federal democratic socialistThe follo ...

, the Wrights became co-editors of ''Union Farmer'', the newspaper of the

Saskatchewan Farmers' Union The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association.MacPh ...

, in 1950. Wright committed suicide in 1970. In the 1960s, she was active in Voice of Women, and leased the Kingsmill family summer home on

Grindstone Island Grindstone Island is the fourth largest of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River and the second largest of the American islands in the St. Lawrence. The island lies near Lake Ontario and is part of the United States of America. In part ...

to the Society of Friends to serve as a Quaker retreat centre and an institution for

peace studies Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

."Rebels run retreat". ''

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the ''Citizen'' in 1851. The new ...

'', August 27, 1980. She later served as editor of ''Environment Probe'', and served on an advisory committee to the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

on its coverage of agriculture and farming issues.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingsmill Wright, Diana 1908 births 1982 deaths Olympic alpine skiers of Canada Canadian women journalists Canadian newspaper editors Canadian magazine editors Canadian feminists Canadian socialists Canadian environmentalists Canadian women environmentalists Canadian pacifists Sportspeople from Ottawa Sportspeople from Saskatoon Canadian female pair skaters Alpine skiers at the 1936 Winter Olympics 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers Writers from Ottawa Writers from Saskatoon Canadian female alpine skiers Canadian women non-fiction writers Women newspaper editors Women magazine editors