John Grierson

John Grierson was born on April 26, 1898 in Kilmadock, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

He arrived in the United States in 1924 because of a grant from the Rockefellerl Foundation. His research was in the field of social sciences.

In 1926 he helped prepare Battleship Potemkin (1925) for American audiences.

In 1939 he became the National Film Board's first film commissioner.

Co-founded--with John Baxter (I) and Michael Balcon--Group 3, a British production company, in 1951.

He was a producer and writer, known for Child's Play (1954), Drifters (1929) and Scotch on the Rocks (1953). He was married to Margaret Grierson.

He was instrumental in establishing and developing the National Film Board of Canada. To recognize this, in 1972 the Governor General of Canada contacted the government of Canada to negotiate an amendment to the Order of Canada's constitution to allow Grierson, who was not a Canadian citizen, to be appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. The Cabinet scheduled a meeting to formalize this change and a telegram was prepared to be sent to Grierson as soon as the necessary documents had been authorized. Unfortunately, Grierson died one day before the Cabinet was scheduled to approve his appointment. Since posthumous appointments cannot be made, Grierson was never appointed to the Order. In recognition of this tragic delay, the Order of Canada was significantly altered during the 1970s to remove the bureaucratic delay for honorary appointments, and since that time non-citizens like Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel have been appointed honorary companions.