James "Jim" Stewart Pritchard, 11 May 1939 - 14 April 2015

Jim Pritchard, (BA, Carleton University; MA, University of Western Ontario; PhD, University of Toronto) nurtured the highest standards of scholarship, invariably with good humour, good sense, and generosity.

Under the direction of William Eccles, at the University of Toronto, he chose as his field the French navy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is not too much to say that he brought many aspects of the subject out of obscurity, with the gaps he has filled, and the correctives he has made to existing interpretations. He taught in the History Department at Queen's University on New France, Quebec, and early modern European expansion. His research has been in the areas of early Canadian colonial and maritime history. He retired some years ago as Professor Emeritus of History at Queen's.

He is the author of:

• Louis XV's Navy; A Study of Organization and Administration, (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987) re-issued in paperback with a new preface in 2009
• Anatomy of a Naval Disaster; The 1746 French Expedition to North America, (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), paperback edition 2011
• In Search of Empire, The French in the Americas, 1670-1730, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), paperback 2007
• A Bridge of Ships; Canadian Shipbuilding during the Second World War, (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011)

and numerous articles and book reviews, many for the Canadian Nautical Research Society of which he was President from 2002 to 2005.

He was most recently working on studies of Canadian shipping, ship owning, and shipbuilding businesses on the Great Lakes during the first half of the twentieth century.

Jim was a staunch supporter of our organization and activities, and most gracioulsy donated his personal library to us.