In memoriam: Peter Francis Neary

A long-time MQUP author, Peter Francis Neary, sadly passed away last month.  Our Executive Director Emeritus, Philip Cercone, worked with Peter for many years and shared this touching message. You can read Peter’s obituary here.  A prolific author, here are some of Peter’s publications with MQUP, and his upcoming edited collection with Melvin Baker, Out Here: Governor Sir Humphrey Walwyn’s Quarterly Reports from Newfoundland, 1936–1946.

We at McGill-Queen’s University Press were saddened to learn that Peter Francis Neary died on 14 March 2024. I was particularly saddened because I had talked with him and his devoted wife, Hilary Bates Neary, on the telephone two weeks earlier, and he was as usual in good and jovial form as he completed his index for his latest book with the Press. As busy as he was, he regaled me with two hilarious Joey Smallwood stories, one of which I am sure he would not have wanted me to repeat, about bringing Newfoundland into the Canadian Federation. I was shocked, then, to hear of his passing so soon after our chat.

Peter was first and foremost dedicated to his family and friends. I was fortunate enough to count myself as one of many among the latter. I first met Peter in 1969 when I took his course in Canadian history at Talbot College, at the University of Western Ontario. Over the years, Peter was not only my professor; he was also my mentor, champion, author, and, above all, good friend. During my six years in London, and whenever I visited during my ten years in Ottawa and thirty-eight in Montreal, there was always time to have lunch with Peter, who, like me, shared a passion for good food. Often we would be joined by Sam Clark (Sociology) and the late Bob Young (Pol. Sci.). At those lunches, he would always share stories about the Rock, where he was born, but always on his mind and heart was another Rock: Hilary.

Peter was an award-winning MQUP author who often twisted the arms of his colleagues to publish with the Press. In 1988, three years after I joined MQUP as executive director and senior editor, I published Peter’s book Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949, which was an examination of the events leading up to Newfoundland’s entry into the Canadian Confederation. It received rave reviews and was nominated for the 1989 Trillium Book Award. In 1997, with Jack L. Granatstein, he followed up with The Veterans Charter and Post-World War II Canada, a collection of essays documenting the establishment of one of the building blocks of the Canadian welfare state. In 2011, he published On to Civvy Street: Canada’s Rehabilitation Program for Veterans of the Second World War, the story of the origins of the Veterans Charter, a program that shaped the future of a generation of Canadians. His last two books with the Press were written in 2021 with Melvin Baker: Joseph Roberts Smallwood: Masthead Newfoundlander, 1900–1949; and Out Here: Governor Sir Humphrey Walwyn’s Quarterly Reports from Newfoundland, 1936–1946 (to be published in June 2024). Not a month went by during my tenure at MQUP that Peter did not telephone to say, Philip, Professor X has just finished a manuscript on such-and-such a subject, or A newly minted PhD student has just defended her thesis, and if I were you, I would jump on it right away. It was Peter’s way of keeping in touch.

Peter was also a supporter of the Press via the J.B. Smallman fund, administered by the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Western Ontario. He was instrumental, with a few other UWO professors, in establishing this fund, and for many years he chaired the awards committee. The fund supports members of the UWO Faculty of Social Science in publishing scholarly books. When he became dean of the faculty, Peter stepped down as chair, handing the baton to Sam Clark – although as dean, Peter signed the cheques! Over the almost forty years I headed MQUP, the Smallman Fund supported the publications of eighty-two UWO social scientists.

Peter will be missed by many for who he was and what he stood for. The Press will miss his manuscripts and his referrals of prospective authors, and I will miss mightily our telephone calls and dinners and his stories about Newfoundland and Canada in the world.

Philip Cercone

Executive Director Emeritus

McGill-Queen’s University Press