Head and shoulders image of Dr. Leslie H. Neatby, honourary Doctor of Laws degree recipient; possibly taken at time of presentation.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. Leslie Hamilton Neatby was born on 16 May 1902 in London, England. The family emigrated to Canada in 1906 and his father set up a medical practice in Earl Grey, Saskatchewan. The family moved again, in 1919, to Saskatoon. Having graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1925 with honours in History and Latin, Dr. Neatby taught in Saskatchewan schools until 1940 when he joined the Canadian Armed Forces for active duty overseas. After the war Dr. Neatby recommenced his academic career by enrolling at the University of Toronto. In 1950 he was awarded a PhD in Classics. From 1951-1967 Dr. Neatby was head of the Department of Classics at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. It was at Acadia that he found enough leisure time to embark on his life’s ambition of writing about Maritime history. A few years before joining the staff at Acadia, a 1951 article in Macleans magazine entitled “Franklin’s Folly” ignited his latent interest in Arctic exploration. While Dr. Neatby strongly disagreed with the article, he pursued the Franklin search material by reading Back’s adventure of Great Fish River. All of this lead to Dr. Neatby’s first book, “In Quest of the North—West” which appeared in 1958. He came home to the U of S in 1967, where he was on the faculty of the Department of Classics until his retirement in 1970. Dr. Neatby then assumed the position of historical associate at the Institute for Northern Studies at the U of S, a position that he retained until the demise of that institution in 1982. Dr. Neatby was awarded an honourary Doctor of Laws degree by the U of S in 1974. Dr. Neatby died in Saskatoon in 1997 at age 95.