Dr. Margaret Ormsby was the dean of British Columbia’s historians and a scholar of national distinction.

Born near Quesnel, raised in the Okanagan Valley, educated in the public school system of the province and at the University of British Columbia, she earned her doctorate from Bryn Mawr University, in Pennsylvania.

After teaching in the United States and in Ontario she joined the Department of History at the University of British Columbia in 1943, became Professor of History in 1955, and Head of the Department in 1964. She continued in that position until her retirement in 1974.

As an historian she is most widely known as the author of British Columbia: A History, published in 1958 to commemorate the centenary of the province, and is the author of many articles published in an impressive number of scholarly journals.

By her contribution to the Reports of the Okanagan Historical Society, as an editor and a writer, she has shown that local history can achieve the highest scholarly standards.

As a teacher, she stimulated the interest of students in widely varying fields of history and directed the research of many towards broadening and deepening knowledge of many previously untouched aspects of British Columbia’s past.

As an academic administrator, she bore the primary responsibility for the growth of the Department of History at UBC and the development of its postgraduate programs.

The union of historical scholarship and love of her native province enabled Margaret Ormsby to interpret British Columbia eloquently as a province within the Canadian nation and also as part of a larger international community.