Hilda Neatby

Hilda Marion Ada Neatby (February 19, 1904 – May 14, 1975) was a Canadian historian and educator.

Early life and education Hilda Marion Ada Neatby was born on February 19, 1904, in Sutton (then in Surrey), to Andrew Neatby and Ada Fisher. The family moved to Saskatchewan when Hilda was 2.

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

Her book So Little for the Mind (1953) criticized contemporary reforms in the Canadian educational system that were based on John Dewey’s philosophical ideas.

In 1969, the board of trustees at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, commissioned Neatby to write the history of that institution. Queen's University, Volume I, 1841-1917: And Not to Yield was published in 1978, after her death.

Neatby died in Saskatoon on May 14, 1975.

Awards and honours In 1967, Neatby was made a companion of the Order of Canada. In 1953, she received an honorary degree from the University of Toronto. Since 1982, the Canadian Historical Association has awarded the Hilda Neatby Prize for works on women's history. In 2000, Canada Post issued a stamp in her honour. In 2005, the former Place Riel Theatre (a former cinema, later converted into a lecture theatre) at the University of Saskatchewan was renamed the Neatby-Timlin Theatre, in honour of her and former economics professor Mabel Timlin.