William Elbert Corman (1886 - 1973)

Born 30 Jul 1886 in Saltfleet Tsp, Wentworth , Ontario, Canada

Ancestors

Husband of Eva Florence Dedman — married 9 Oct 1916 in Toronto, , Ontario, Canada

Descendants

Died 17 Feb 1973 at age 86 in Toronto, , Ontario, Canada

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Dean Oldershaw [send private message] and Adri Oldershaw [send private message]

Biography

This biography is a rough draft. It was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import and needs to be edited.

Note

Note: 1901 - Wentworth (South/Sud), Ontario Census

1921 U of T Alumni newsletter - W. E. Corman, with the Corman Engineering Co., 58 Stewart St., Toronto.

Casa Loma played an important role in the development of sonar technology, when the British government relocated their sonar research to Canada during WWII and chose underground spaces at Casa Loma as the location for advancing this technology. This invention played a significant role in turning the tide of the war.

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Toronto Star

January 2, 2008

The city unseen: Casa Loma

By Joanna Smith�Staff Reporter

Sir Henry's extravagant home holds architectural oddities, family treasures not on view to public

There are few spaces the public is forbidden from exploring at Casa Loma ? even a secret staircase and an underground tunnel leading to the stables are open for viewing.

Still, behind a locked door atop a tiny wooden staircase lies a labyrinthine series of lofts and an untouched tower the public cannot enter for fire safety reasons.

An old hayloft still holds the stench of horses. A staircase runs strangely through the middle of a dank and ancient staff bathroom.

It is unclear what Sir Henry Pellatt had in mind for the extraordinary number of rooms jutting off in all directions from winding red-brick hallways, but one theory is that architect E.J. Lennox used the stables, which were built first, to experiment with building techniques.

The strangest part is the tower itself, composed of four nearly identical rooms stacked on top of one another and reached by a spiralling metal staircase or trap doors in the floors and ceilings.

The uppermost room has four spaces carved out of the wall that look as if they should house statues. Legend says Pellatt was a Mason; museum staff say the room may have had a ceremonial purpose.

Organ pipes heard but not seen

Pipes mounted in the Great Hall are purely decorative ? the real guts of the theatre organ at Casa Loma are found behind doors in the hallways.

The working Wurlitzer organ installed in Casa Loma was originally built for Shea's Hippodrome and was later at Maple Leaf Gardens. It is now the star of regular performances at Casa Loma by the Toronto Theatre Organ Society.

Sir Henry Pellatt never had a chance to hear his castle fill with organ music.

An organ he reportedly bought for $75,000 arrived just in time to be auctioned, still in its crate, for about $40.

Museum not sure what to do with these dusty gems

A musty basement room just off the tunnel leading to the stable holds a stash of dusty treasures the museum does not know exactly what to do with, including a large metal sign left over from the castle's brief days as a luxury hotel.

Another basement door conceals the room where the William Corman Engineering Company Ltd. went to work secretly on the ASDIC sonar device during World War II after the original production site was bombed during the London Blitz.

Tourists visiting Casa Loma, which had been a museum for about four years when the secret operation began in 1941, were kept out by a single padlock and a sign that read:

"Construction in progress. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Lock of hair, scrapbook among personal family items

Sir Henry Pellatt liked documenting his life in scrapbooks.

One such book is filled with newspaper articles and biting political cartoons about his struggle with the province over publicly owned electrical power, a battle that ultimately forced him to abandon his lavish home.

A cartoon carnival scene printed in The Toronto Daily Star on June 10, 1906, includes a caricature of Pellatt calling visitors to see a two-headed pig in a carnival scene.

Other treasures not on public display include family heirlooms donated by one of Pellatt's favourite nieces, Mary Katherine Pellatt.

One is a mid-Victorian locket containing a lock of hair. Another locket holds photographs of his niece as a baby and of her mother, Lucy, who was married to Henry Pellatt's brother Mill.

There is also a chain-mail Edwardian evening purse so delicate it feels like fabric and tin prints of her great-grandparents dating back to the 1840s.

"It made me very upset to see them because these are little things that really should have gone to family, not to a museum," said curator Joan Crosbie.

Time Magazine

Canada: Stable Sonics

Monday, Oct. 28, 1946

Atop a hill in a Toronto residential area stands a stolid, stone anachronism, Casa Loma. A mixture of 17th Century Scotch baronial and 20th Century-Fox, the castle rears its turrets as a memento to one Canadian's short-lived dream of glory. Starting in 1911, financier Sir Henry Pellatt poured an estimated $3,000,000 into the old-world battlements, wine cellars, secret stairways and tunnels; into the new-world trimmings, tiled swimming pool, modern plumbing (solid gold & silver fixtures), bowling alley, shooting galleries. Before Casa Loma's 100 rooms were completely finished or furnished, Sir Henry found the upkeep too expensive, quit.

Attempts to make it a swanky hotel, with imported bands, failed (Glen Gray's Casa Loma orchestra was named after the castle). Eventually, the Kiwanis Club rented it on a share-the-profit plan, used the big ballroom for dances and receptions. This, plus 75,000 tourists a year, netted the council an annual $12,000.

Last week Torontonians were startled to learn that Casa Loma had been the hush-hushest of all Canadian war plants. In 1942, when the Germans bombed out an English plant making supersecret sonic submarine detectors, the British Admiralty picked the engineering works of William Gorman, in Toronto, to do the job. Bill Corman picked an unlikely spot: the huge Casa Loma's stables.

Employes staggered working hours, entered and left singly. Windows were boarded up, parts were shipped in mainly by private cars. Doors were guarded night & day. Only two Kiwanis officers were in the know. Sometimes as many as 1,000 tourists a day swarmed over the castle and poked through Sir Henry's 40-by-60-foot bedroom (Louis XIV style). They passed within a few feet of the stable, were told it was closed because it was "undergoing repairs."

In a year and a half, 500 detectors, 4,800 transmitting and receiving sets were turned out, installed in ships, helped lick U-boats. Corman filled the last of $2,000,000 worth of orders on V-E day.

�Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804015,00.html#ixzz0d6Y3oe73 <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804015,00.html>

Name

Name: William Elbert /Corman/

Given Name: William Elbert

Surname: Corman

Source: #S132

Page: corman.rtf in email file

Quality or Certainty of Data: 3

Source: #S75

Source: #S310

Birth

Birth:

Date: 30 Jul 1886

Place: Saltfleet Tsp, Wentworth , Ontario, Canada

Source: #S132

Page: corman.rtf in email file

Quality or Certainty of Data: 3

Source: #S75

Source: #S310

Residence

Residence:

Date: 1891

Place: Wentworth South, Ontario, Canada

Source: #S310

Residence:

Date: 1901

Place: Saltfleet, Wentworth (South/Sud), Ontario, Canada

Source: #S75

Marriage

Husband: William Henry Corman

Wife: Lucinda Maria Hopkins

Marriage:

Date: 4 Jan 1882

Place: Saltfleet Tsp, Wentworth , Ontario, Canada

Source: #S111

Page: 012940

Quality or Certainty of Data: 3

Child: Carrie Maud Corman

Child: John Wesley Corman

Child: William Elbert Corman

Child: Fred Marvin Corman

Child: Ida Mabel Corman

Child: Henry Merwin Corman

Child: Loyde Willerton Corman

Child: Mary Alberta Corman

Sources

• WikiTree profile Corman-264 created through the import of familytreex.ged on Jul 20, 2011 by Adri Oldershaw. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Adri and others.

This person was created through the import of Ancestry Wiki.ged on 14 March 2011. The following data was included in the gedcom. You may wish to edit it for readability.

Source S111

Abbreviation: Ontario, Canada Marriages 1857 - 1922

Title: Ontario, Canada Marriages 1857 - 1922

Repository: #R30

Repository R30

Name: Ancestry.ca; Ancestry.ca

Address: Ancestry.ca; Ancestry.ca

Name: Ancestry.ca; Ancestry.ca

Source S132

Abbreviation: Corman.rtf

Title: Corman.rtf

Author: Lynn Roseman

Repository: #R16

Repository R16

Name: Lynn & Ken Roseman ; Lynn & Ken Roseman

Address: Lynn & Ken Roseman ; Lynn & Ken Roseman

Name: Lynn & Ken Roseman ; Lynn & Ken Roseman

Note: filed in Microsoft Outlook, under Corman emails

Source S310

Abbreviation: 1891 Census of Canada

Title: 1891 Census of Canada

Author: Ancestry.com

Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2008.Original data - Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1891. RG31, T-6290 to T-6427. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Canada.Original data: Library and Archives Canada. Ce

Reference: 1274::0

Repository: #R2

Repository R2

Name: Ancestry.com

Address: Ancestry.com

http://www.Ancestry.com

Name: Ancestry.com

Address 1: http://www.Ancestry.com

Source S75

Abbreviation: 1901 Census of Canada

Title: 1901 Census of Canada

Author: Ancestry.com

Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.Original data - Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1901. Ottawa, Canada: Library and Archives Canada. RG31, T-6428 to T-6556.Original data: Library and Archives Canada. Ce

Reference: 8826::0

Repository: #R2