Bernard Keble Sandwell

Bernard Keble Sandwell

Bernard Keble Sandwell, editor and essayist (b at Ipswich, Eng 1876; d at Toronto 7 Dec 1954). Sandwell will forever be identified as the editor, 1932-51, of Saturday Night, a magazine he made the ears and voice of Canadian liberalism.

Sandwell has been characterized by Robert Fulford, a later editor of the same journal, as "progressive but not too progressive, tolerant but not too tolerant." But for his time, Sandwell's championing of civil liberties, his belief in Canadian nationalism within an imperial framework, and his instinctive anti-Americanism made him an important figure in a broader movement.

Sandwell's pen was prolific and seemingly adaptable to any task, from corporate panegyrics to a history of music in Montréal. But his best and most representative books are The Privacity Agent and Other Modest Proposals (1928) and The Diversions of Duchesstown and Other Essays (published posthumously 1955).