Ward, Norman McQueen (1918-90)

Norman Ward and his wife, Betty, January 1984.

Richard Marjan (Saskatchewan Archives Board) S-SP-A21258-4, Saskatoon StarPhoenix fonds

Born in 1918 in Hamilton, Ontario, Norman Ward joined the Department of Economics and Political Science at the University of Saskatchewan in 1944, and remained there until his retirement in 1985. Through a series of important books, articles and reports on representation, bilingualism, procedure in the House of Commons, election expenses, and government information, he established himself as an authoritative interpreter of national politics and institutions. The politics of his adopted province also won his attention, as evidenced by Politics in Saskatchewan, which he co-edited in 1968, articles in Saskatchewan History, and long membership on the Saskatchewan Archives Board and chairmanship of the province’s Public Administration Foundation. His scholarship did not cease on retirement: his biography of Jimmy Gardiner: Relentless Liberal, was published in 1990. Norman Ward’s literary achievements were not confined to academic scholarship. His humorous essays were published in three volumes: Mice and the Beer (1960), for which he won the Leacock Medal for Humour; The Fully-Processed Cheese (1964); and Her Majesty’s Mice (1977). Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1962, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976. Ward died in Saskatoon in 1990.

David E. Smith