Hilda Neatby

Who was Hilda Neatby?

Hilda Marion Ada Neatby, CC was a Canadian historian and educator.

Born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Andrew Mossforth Neatby and Ada Deborah Fisher, she received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She taught history at the University of Saskatchewan and was head of the History department from 1958 to 1969. Fluent in the French language, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1966, she published a seminal work in both French and English as part of The Canadian Centenary Series. The historical book examined the transitional events between 1760 and 1791 in the province of Quebec, Canada following victory by British forces over the French Army and the decision made by the King of France to hand over Quebec to the British in the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War.

From 1949 to 1951 she was the only female member of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Science, which recommended the establishment of the Canada Council.

She wrote the book, So Little for the Mind, which was critical of the Canadian educational system.

Neatby accepted a special appointment as Professor of History at Queen's University with specific responsibility for writing the history of that institution, a work published in 1978.