Halton, Matthew, 1904-1956 : Matthew Henry Halton, journalist, broadcaster and author, was born 7 September 1904 in Pincher Creek, Alberta. He was the third child of Henry Halton and Alice Thornley Halton and had five siblings: Sam, James, Annie, David and Seth. After high school, he attended the Calgary Normal School and taught for several years in Alberta before commencing studies at the University of Alberta in 1925. While at university, he served as both reporter and editor for the university newspaper, The Gateway, and during his summers, he taught school, sold insurance and hunted. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1929. The recipient of an Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire Post-Graduate Overseas scholarship, Halton traveled to Britain where he studied at the Kings College of the University of London and at the London School of Economics. While in England, he wrote over two hundred stories for various newspapers. Of particular note was a series of articles written by Halton for the Lethbridge Herald recounting a "Southern Alberta Student's Impressions in England".
Returning to Canada in 1931, Halton got a job as a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star. Initially responsible for covering the university scene and writing obituaries, he won popular acclaim in 1932 for his "Alice in Wonderland" series on the Imperial Conference held in Ottawa. At the end of 1932, he was sent to England to serve as the Star's London correspondent. He was assigned to cover the political events, social issues and current events across Europe. In autumn 1933, he spent two months traveling for the Star with his wife, Jean. While there, he wrote a series of articles, informally known as the "German series", which was critical of the political ideology of the Nazi Party in Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Halton was often accused of war mongering and sensationalism for his staunch condemnation of Nazism and international attempts at appeasing Germany. During his time in Europe, he also covered such events as the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Abdication Crisis (1936) and the Russo-Finish War (1939-1940). In July 1940, Halton returned to North America for a brief stint as the Washington correspondent for the Star.
The Star sent Halton to North Africa in 1941 for eighteen months to cover the fighting in Egypt. While there, he also did some radio broadcasts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 1942, he returned to Canada and while living in Vancouver and Victoria, he wrote his highly successful book entitled Ten Years to Alamein (Toronto: S.J. Reginald Saunders, 1944).
Halton ended his twelve-year career at the Star in 1943 to take up the position of senior war correspondent with the CBC. He returned to London to serve in the CBC Overseas Unit, which was the tactical headquarters for the CBC in Europe. War correspondents were sent out in the field to report on the events of the war and had their dispatches and broadcasts sent back to London to be transmitted to Canada. The Overseas Unit worked closely with the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), sharing resources and expertise. Halton reported on the war campaign from Sicily, Italy and northwestern Europe. He was with the Allied invasion forces on D-Day, broadcasting accounts from the beachhead in France. His unique poetic-prose style of news reporting made him one of the most beloved voices in Canadian broadcasting. In the post-war period, Halton continued his work as the London-based senior foreign correspondent with the CBC, doing regular broadcasts for the Capital Report, the News Roundup and the Report on Britain. Halton also did several radio series for the BBC. He traveled to Yugoslavia in 1950 for the Star Weekly to report on Yugoslavian and Soviet relations. In 1954, he covered the Summit conference in Geneva. The following year, he traveled to the Gold Coast in order to produce a radio documentary for the CBC.
Halton was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1945 for his work as a war correspondent. In 1956, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Alberta. In 1982, he was posthumously elected to the Canadian News Hall of Fame. The CBC Radio Canada AV Preservation Trust selected Halton's Second World War radio broadcasts as part of its 2002 Masterworks program.
He married Jean Campbell on 15 September 1932. They had two children Kathleen Jeannette, born in 1937 and David Campbell, born in 1941.
Halton died at the age of 52 years on 3 December 1956.
