BIAS Governing Committee Chairs, 1944—1966

William B. Hewson, a Princeton graduate, was an executive at the Brooklyn Union Gas Company and retired as vice president in 1963. He was an active Brooklyn community member, a member of the Brooklyn Salvation Army Advisory Board, and a sponsor of the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society. As a young rising star in the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, in 1941 he won first prize ($50 in defense bonds) in its “What Brooklyn Needs” essay contest, for which he’d submitted a 10-point program “for the betterment of the business, civic, and social side of the Borough of Brooklyn.”

In November 1961, as chairman of Brooklyn Academy of Music, Hewson honored Aaron Copland during a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He presented Copland with a citation describing him as a “credit to the borough” in which he was born and educated.

Everett J. Livesey, Chairman, Governing Committee, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BIAS Department of Education)
1957-60

Everett Livesey was a career banker. He joined the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn in 1930, became vice president and secretary in 1952, and was elected president and a trustee in 1958. In 1961, he became president of the City Savings Bank, Brooklyn.

Articles from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from the late 1930s and early 1940s offer a glimpse into another, artistic side of Livesey, reporting his appearances as an accomplished amateur singer. Livesey performed as a soloist with the Dime Savings Bank Male Chorus, as part of a duo at a musical program given as part of a society wedding, and as a soloist with the Grace Reformed Church choir in Flatbush.

Donald G.C. Sinclair, Chairman, Governing Committee, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BIAS Department of Education)
1944-57

Donald G.C. Sinclair came to the US from Scotland and became an agent for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. In 1910 he led a group of immigrant Scotsmen to establish Caledonian Hospital, which provided basic healthcare in Flatbush and central Brooklyn, where no hospital had previously existed. He was active in business and social associations, as a trustee of the Commonwealth Savings Bank of New York, a president of the local Association of Life Underwriters, a member of the Greenwood Lodge, the F. & A.M. Culdean Chapter, St. Andrew’s Society of the State of New York, and the Montauk Club.

Sinclair served the Academy of Music for 13 years. Opening the Institute’s 129th season in 1952, Sinclair spoke of important changes, including the City of New York taking title to the Academy building and providing a $250,000 fund for its rehabilitation. Sinclair noted that more than 400 events were scheduled for the season, many at no extra charge to members, but stressed that Institute membership was “not what it should be.” At the time, the Brooklyn Eagle called the Institute “America’s oldest and largest center for informal adult education.”