Thomas L. MacDonald

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(November 11, 1900 – ????)

Thomas L. MacDonald was a UK fan from Carlisle active in the 1940s and 1950s. He was a member of the British Fantasy Library (BFL), the Science Fantasy Society (SFS), the N3F, and the 'NW German Society for Exploration of the Universe'.[1]

MacDonald joined the BFL in 1947. Librarian Ron Holmes was unimpressed when MacDonald offered to print the directory and then didn't. (See its entry or Booklist #6, July 1948.) Walt Willis references this in 'I Remember Me',[2] and also that MacDonald's was the first outside reaction to the first issue of Slant (late 1948):

It wasn't a comment though, or even a letter, just a few lines of verse in answer to some of mine about the pronunciation of van Vogt.

"T. L. Macdonald" (sic?) is on the SFS membership list in Science Fantasy News #2 as "Sc/65", where the Society's regional organisation assigned his Carlisle, Cumberland address under Scotland.[3] He is listed in the N3F 1950 Fan Directory and on the roster in The National Fantasy Fan of April 1952.


Person 1900????
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  1. Given in quotes in the 1950 Fan Directory. This would be Gesellschaft für Weltraumforschung, as Germany's counterpart to British Interplanetary Society was named between 1934 and 1956. For a brief "stub" of its current status, see wikipedia:German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics; for slightly more of its history, the German version.
  2. https://taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=IRememberMe
  3. http://www.gostak.org.uk/sfn/SFN2.htm For readers in other worlds and other times, it might be useful to save them looking up that Carlisle is a city in England's northwesternnmost county, some 8 miles south of the (modern/traditional) border; it was held by the Scots until 1092 and then, Wikipedia puts it, "became an important military stronghold", changing hands several times in wars. Of course, this might make sense as there were no other members far away in that corner of England; the only (North) Irish Walt Willis was also lumped under Sc.