Robert Baker Allan was a history graduate student at the University of Regina. His master’s thesis was about Moose Jaw politician John Wesley Corman. Allan conducted some of his research in the Moose Jaw Public Library Archives Department and acknowledges the archives’ staff for their guidance in his thesis. He completed his thesis in 2004 and donated his research papers to the Moose Jaw Public Library Archives Department in 2006. He has a wife, Glenda, and a son, Joseph.

Born in Norland, Ontario in 1904, John Stuart Mill Allely studied Economics at Queen's University, earning a BA in 1929 and an MA in 1930. He did further postgraduate study at Harvard University, receiving an AM degree in 1932. He married Phyllis Parkin in September 1934. Prior to his appointment at the University of Saskatchewan in 1939, he taught at a number of institutions including McMaster University, the Universities of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Alberta, and the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He was on the staff of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois Commission) in 1937 and 1938. Allely took a leave of absence to serve in the Canadian Army in World War Two. He served in Ottawa in the Adjutant General’s Branch and the General Staff. He held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Army and was seconded to the British Army to serve as the Senior Finance Officer of the Control Commission for Germany (British Element) from 1944 to 1946. Allely returned to the University of Saskatchewan in 1947. Following the Second World War, he served as Officer Commanding of the Saskatchewan Contingent, Canadian Officers Training Corps from 1947 to 1957. Professor Allely retired from the University in 1972 and died in Saskatoon on March 23, 1986.