1st Battalion, 48th Highlanders (Canadian Active Service Force)

Honorary Colonel 48th Highlanders of Canada (1979-1984)

Frank Flavelle McEachren joined the Regiment  and served with the 1st Battalion during throughout the Second World War.

In May 1940, he married Florence Mary Eaton, daughter of Sir John Craig Eaton and Lady Eaton, of the prominent Eaton family, at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church.

After the war, he began his career with Eaton’s, his wife’s family’s department store chain, beginning as public relations manager in 1944. In 1951, he became the first director of the newly established Public Relations Office.

In 1955, he began work in the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario’s office. He served as chief aide-de-camp to six Lieutenant Governors: Louis Orville Breithaupt, John Keiller MacKay, William Earl Rowe, William Ross Macdonald, Pauline Mills McGibbon and John Black Aird. He retired in 1982.

A personal friend of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1977, when Prince Andrew attended Lakefield College School near Peterborough, Ontario, McEachren was his guardian. He often hosted the Prince at his cottage in Muskoka.[1][2]

From 1980–1982, McEachren was Grand Prior of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem in Canada. He was a founding member of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada and involved in the creation of the Canadian Heraldic Authority.

Active in philanthropy, McEachren held prominent roles in many organizations. He was chairman of the Eaton Foundation, president of the Ontario Council of St. John Ambulance, chairman of the Ontario Arts Council, president of the Canadian Cancer Society, president of the Canadian Opera Company, governor of the Canadian Players Foundation, and governor of St. Andrew’s College. He sat on the boards of the Toronto Board of Trade, Canadian Public Relations Society and Bishop Strachan School.[1]