University Archives
& Special Collections

Thomas Head Raddall Collection

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION | COLLECTION HISTORY | T.H. RADDALL DIGITAL COLLECTION MAJOR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

In 1913, Captain Thomas Raddall accepted a transfer from the British Army School of Musketry in Hythe, England into the Canadian Army. His posting was to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ten-year old Thomas Jr. was delighted with the prospect of moving to a new and wild land. Nova Scotia did not disappoint. Especially captivating were the exciting tales of Nova Scotia's colourful past and a cast of historical figures. Young Raddall's fascination would prove to be a lifelong one.

In the last year of the war, Lt. Colonel Raddall was killed in action. At fifteen, his son became the man of the house. To help support his mother and sisters, Thomas left school and trained as a wireless operator. For the next three years, he worked at a series of coastal stations, aboard ships, and for a year on Sable Island. It was while he was serving on Sable Island that Raddall began to write fiction. His first story was published in the Halifax Sunday Leader, Dec. 11, 1921. Unhappy with the isolation of Sable Island, Thomas retrained as a book-keeper and took a job with the MacLeod pulp mill at Milton, outside of Liverpool. The hunting and fishing were great; Raddall made friends with the local people and discovered an area steeped in lore. There was more than enough inspiration for his growing interest in creative writing. Raddall married Edith Freeman in June, 1927, and settled to raise his young family on Nova Scotia's South Shore.

Raddall began to devote his evening hours to reading and writing. With the acceptance of a story by Maclean's in 1928, Raddall was encouraged to continue writing fiction for magazines. The respected Blackwood's Magazine of Edinburgh was especially receptive to his reality-based fiction and became his main publisher. Blackwood's wide distribution carried Raddall's work across Britain, Canada, and the United States. It found an appreciative audience that wanted more. Raddall was willing to oblige. By 1938 it was clear he could not keep up both his day job and his writing. Raddall opted to try his hand at making his living as a full-time writer.

It was the British writer John Buchan who noticed Raddall's work in Blackwood's and suggested Raddall bring out a collection of short stories. The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek was issued in 1939 and was immediately successful. When the Canadian edition was issued four years later, it received a Governor General's Award for literature. Finally able to devote all his energy to writing, Raddall decided to switch from short stories to a novel. His meticulously researched history of the conflicting situation Nova Scotians found themselves in during the American Revolution was hailed as "the historical novel discovery of the year" by the New York Times Book Review. His Majesty's Yankees (1942) was followed by an account of the fall of Louisbourg in Roger Sudden (1944). Pride's Fancy, the adventure of a privateer, came out in 1946.

For a change, Raddall switched to writing a history of Halifax. It was a masterful piece of writing--Halifax: Warden of the North received the recognition it deserved with a Governor-General's Award for creative non-fiction in 1948. In just ten years of full-time writing, Thomas Raddall had established himself as a major Canadian writer.

Raddall had many more great Nova Scotia stories to tell and went on to publish seven more novels, two more short story collections, five more histories, his memoirs, and yet more short stories. He also wrote and presented approximately thirty-two radio and TV scripts, gave lectures, wrote a number of Nova Scotia tourism pamphlets, and contributed forewords and introductions to the publications of other authors. Although he officially retired from creative writing in 1968, Raddall continued writing. His memoirs, In My Time, were published in 1976 and he wrote a short history entitled The Mersey Story in 1979.

The drama of real life, whether in the past or as he saw it unfolding before him, always interested Thomas Raddall. Blessed with an inquiring and retentive mind, he absorbed the riveting tales of Nova Scotia's exciting past. He was also a perceptive observer of Nova Scotian society and the pressure modernization brought to bear on it. In his work, Raddall carefully and respectfully interpreted Nova Scotia's past and present to his fellow Nova Scotians and to the world.

Nova Scotia provided Raddall with his themes and locales throughout his writing career. In return he gave his native province a pride in its past, a strong, enduring sense of place, and a cast of truly memorable Nova Scotian heroes and heroines. We are fortunate that Thomas Raddall chose to make Nova Scotia his home and had the strength of character to use his talents to pursue a writing career.