The Captain Cornelius Park is named in honour of Captain John Richard Cornelius.
John Richard Cornelius was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in March 1884. As a young man he served with the 4th Battlion, Royal Scots. He immigrated to Canada with his family and in October 1915, at the age of 31, he enlisted in the 58th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. His Battalion set sail for Europe in November 1915 and after a few months of training in England, landed in France in February 1916. At the end of the war, Captain Cornelius joined the staff of the Hamilton Collegiate Institute in 1919. He retired from teaching in 1950 but continued to coach the school’s highly successful track and field team until 1961. During his four decade-long coaching tenure, Cornelius formed an astonishing number of Canadian Olympians for the 1924 and 1928 Olympics as well as the Canadian relay team that won the bronze medal at the 1932 Olympics. A world acclaimed coach, Cornelius died in 1964.
