Vincent Massey, diplomat, philanthropist and patron of the arts, was born in Toronto and educated at the University of Toronto and Oxford. He served as Canada's first Minister to Washington (1926-30) and as Canadian High Commissioner to London (1935-46). Later he was named chairman of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, whose Report (1951) was a landmark in the cultural history of Canada. In 1952 Massey became the first native-born Governor General of Canada, and held that office until 1959. Hart House was the gift of the Massey Foundation, in which he played a leading part.