Local History & Author Talk – L.V. Rogers: The Man Behind the Name With Patricia and Robert Malcolmson.

Successful citizens in British Columbia’s Interior are remembered in different ways, if they are much remembered at all. Perhaps the best-known name in Nelson is that of L.V. Rogers (1886-1946), after whom our secondary school is named. LVR had a remarkable life, from his birth in England to an unwed teenager and passage across the Atlantic on his own as a five-year-old and subsequent life with a farm family in Eastern Ontario; to graduation from Queen’s University, teaching in Kelowna and Vancouver, running for elected office, and from 1922 the principalship of Nelson’s high school. LVR served in this position for almost a quarter of a century. He was hugely successful. He was praised by school inspectors; he was admired – even loved – by his students; he was respected by other teachers and almost everyone who knew him. Patricia & Robert Malcolmson will talk about his (in many ways) extraordinary life and how they, as historians, came to discover and write about this notable man.

Patricia & Robert Malcolmson are social historians who have authored and edited over twenty books, most of them focused on English society since 1700. Many of their recent books are editions of diaries written during the Second World War, Including The View from the Corner Shop (2016) and A Nurse’s War (2022). They are currently working on a social history of the South Okanagan between about 1920 and 1950.