George Edwin Britnell was born at Wimbledon, England on June 9, 1903. His family came to Canada in 1910 and subsequently took up a homestead near Macrorie, Saskatchewan in 1913. Britnell split his early education between Outlook and Prince Albert before attending the University of Saskatchewan where he won the Governor General's Gold Medal in 1924 and graduated with a BA in 1929. He went on to the University of Toronto where he earned both an MA (1934) and PhD (1938). With the exception of two brief stints at the University of Toronto, Dr. Britnell's teaching career was centred around the University of Saskatchewan. He received his first appointment in 1930 as a Lecturer in Economics. He rose to the rank of Assistant Professor of Economics in 1938, Professor and Head of Political Science in 1938 and Professor and Head of the joint department of Economics and Political Science in 1945. Dr. Britnell was known as both a fine teacher and a productive scholar. Among his areas of interest and expertise were transportation problems, dominion-provincial relations, the problems of developing countries and energy resources. Britnell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1950. He died on October 14, 1961 after a lengthy illness.