Judith Robinson

Judith Robinson (April 6, 1897 – December 17, 1961) was a Canadian journalist. (called Brad by family and friends) Robinson was best known as an investigative Canadian journalist during the Depression, the Second World War and until her death in 1961. Daughter of a prominent Canadian newspaperman, she went to work for The Globe of Toronto in 1928 where she was to make her name as a progressive journalist, a fighter for social justice, and a lifelong watchdog on the actions of governments. She specialized in social causes, particularly pushing for help for the underprivileged, wounded veterans or victims of short-sighted bureaucracy. She was also the author of a well-known biography Tom Cullen of Baltimore (1949) about a leading Canadian gynecologist and cancer surgeon. She died in Glenora, Ontario in 1961.

Judith Robinson was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1897 – youngest of four children of John Robinson, for thirty-eight years editor of The Telegram, one of Toronto’s daily papers. As a child, she suffered from rheumatic fever as well as typhus and gave up school at the end of grade eight, although she continued learning through wide reading, keen discussion and a practice of precise observation. After her father’s death in 1928, she cut her long hair into a business-like bob and applied for a reporter’s job with The Globe., on the understanding that she would not work on the Society or Women’s pages. Consequently, she started her reporting career in the Sports department. In 1932 Judith went to England and free-lanced for The Globe at $6 a column. In 1934 she was put in charge of Letters to the Editor and began to write editorials She also covered special events, and soon after was writing a daily front page column under her own byline.

During the Depression she wrote clearly and compassionately on behalf of the unemployed and homeless, berating the government for their lack of concern for the poor. She was an instigator and main proponent of the drive to collect money to open the John Franck house in Toronto, which offered shelter in Toronto for those who had none.

Munich came, and after some of her columns had been killed, Judith offered to take three weeks vacation to save the Globe & Mail from the need to refuse to print her bitter denunciation of Chamberlain. Her offer was accepted.

At the beginning of the Second World War, as the jobless were discovering a chance to find employment in the army, a couple of new recruits burst into her office one day to thank her for her past support and, rejoicing that they now had work, presented her with a bouquet of roses. The ironic and sad column that she wrote as a result was called “Roses for Mr. Hitler”.

Her attitudes and priorities can perhaps be understood by a quotation from her column in The Globe & Mail of Sept. 12, 1939, days after war was declared, where she wrote,

"men who have already volunteered to defend freedom with their lives against the Nazi aggressor are still free to sleep in the parks in Toronto. A grateful democracy has accepted their offer and passed them as fit for service in democracy’s first line of defense. It has generously agreed to pay them a dollar something a day and provide them with food and shelter as soon as it needs them. But owing to press of political business in Ottawa, it doesn’t need them quite yet."

A few months later, she fell foul of the editorial department when she criticized the government for lack of manufacturing preparedness for the war. She met with and edited writing by Col. E.J. Carter, former chief instructor of the Royal Tank School of England, which described means by which tank training should and could be given. As well, he expressed an informed opinion on which tanks could be first off the assembly lines. She wrote a scathing article about Canadian troops at Camp Borden drilling for tank warfare by having six men holding a rope to represent the tank while the men inside the perimeter tried to prepare themselves to face the real thing.

Shortly thereafter the editor of the G. & M. called her in and asked if she was being fair to the paper and could she not toe the line. Judith replied, “I don’t think I can. There are a lot of men dead, and a lot more going to die. We must each act according to our consciences. “ Accordingly, she broke with The Globe & Mail.

Frustrated by the apathy of the Government, she, along with associates, ran a campaign of newspaper advertisements called CALLING CANADA attacking the government for failing to supply the army with sufficient tanks, weapons and airplanes. They also criticized the government’s foot-dragging on allowing British children shelter in Canada to escape from Nazi bombs.

Together with Oakley Dalgleish. Robinson began publishing a new weekly newspaper, NEWS (May 8, 1941 to May 1946). As L.L.L. Golden wrote at the close of NEWS in 1946: Judith founded NEWS to help better prosecute the war. Her understanding of the issues involved in the war, her passionate belief in principles, in freedom, in the rights of little people, made the goal of the paper clear. It is not easy for a person as gentle as Judith to cut public men to pieces. It was done to serve a purpose. By exposure, by criticism, by attack, NEWS did far more than a great number of huge circulation publications to goad, to push, to frighten, to force our politicians into giving Canada a better war effort. NEWS had subscribers across Canada and in other parts of the world, but it was not well supported by advertisers and had to rely on donations from interested Canadians to keep going.

Another drive she undertook, both before and during the war,was the replacement of the overcrowded Christie Street Veterans’ Hospital, (which she thought both a disgrace and a dishonour to past soldiers,) with a new, more appropriate hospital. She was the spur behind the women’s committee which filled hundreds of petitions and shamed the Government into building Sunnybrook Hospital for the returning veterans. (Opened 1948)

She had become a regular contributor to Chatelaine when in 1953 Robinson joined THE TELEGRAM as the Ottawa columnist for their new Op-Ed “page 7” a position she held till her death from heart failure in December 1961.

Frustrated by the apathy of the Government, she, along with associates, ran a campaign of newspaper advertisements called CALLING CANADA attacking the government for failing to supply the army with sufficient tanks, weapons and airplanes. They also criticized the government’s foot-dragging on allowing British children shelter in Canada to escape from Nazi bombs.

Together with Oakley Dalgleish. Robinson began publishing a new weekly newspaper, NEWS (May 8, 1941 to May 1946). As L.L.L. Golden wrote at the close of NEWS in 1946: Judith founded NEWS to help better prosecute the war. Her understanding of the issues involved in the war, her passionate belief in principles, in freedom, in the rights of little people, made the goal of the paper clear . . . It is not easy for a person as gentle as Judith to cut public men to pieces. It was done to serve a purpose . . . . By exposure, by criticism, by attack, NEWS did far more than a great number of huge circulation publications to goad, to push, to frighten, to force our politicians into giving Canada a better war effort.

NEWS had subscribers across Canada and in other parts of the world, but it was not well supported by advertisers and had to rely on donations from interested Canadians to keep going.

Another drive she undertook, both before and during the war, was the replacement of the overcrowded Christie Street Veterans’ Hospital, (which she thought both a disgrace and a dishonour to past soldiers,) with a new, more appropriate hospital. She was the spur behind the women’s committee which filled hundreds of petitions and shamed the Government into building Sunnybrook Hospital for the returning veterans. (Opened 1948)

She had become a regular contributor to Chatelaine when in 1953 Robinson joined THE TELEGRAM as the Ottawa columnist for their new Op-Ed “page 7” a position she held till her death from heart failure in December 1961.