Sheila Watson
Sheila Watson was a notable Canadian author and educator, born in 1909 in New Westminster, British Columbia. She completed her education at the University of British Columbia, where she earned an honors degree in English and later a master's degree focused on eighteenth-century journalism. Watson began her teaching career in British Columbia, where her experiences in rural education inspired her novel, "Deep Hollow Creek," published decades later in 1992. Throughout her career, she faced challenges, including her dismissal from a teaching position while advocating for teachers' unionization.
Watson was married to poet Wilfred Watson, and together they were influential in the Canadian literary scene, founding the literary magazine "White Pelican." She joined the University of Alberta faculty in 1961, where she taught until her retirement in 1975. Her literary contributions included poetry and plays, influenced by her studies with Marshall McLuhan. Watson received the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1984 and is recognized for her significant body of work that reflects her dedication to literature and education. She passed away in 1998, shortly after her husband's death, leaving behind a legacy in Canadian literature.
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Sheila Watson
Writer
- Born: October 24, 1909
- Birthplace: New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
- Died: February 1, 1998
- Place of death: Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
Biography
Sheila Watson was born in 1909 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, the daughter of Charles Edward Doherty and Elweena (Martin) Doherty. Watson’s father was a doctor as well as the superintendent of the Provincial Mental Hospital in New Westminster and the family lived on the hospital grounds. As a child and teenager, Watson attended schools run by the Sisters of St. Anne convent, and after two years of college studies at the convent school she attended the University of British Columbia. At the university, she completed her honors degree in English in 1931, obtained her teaching certificate in 1932, and earned her graduate degree in 1933 with a master’s thesis on eighteenth century journalists Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.
Watson began her teaching career at Dog Creek, British Columbia, which inspired her novel Deep Hollow Creek (1992), and she remained there until the government closed the school. She then taught high school in Langley Prairie; that position ended after several years when Watson and other teachers who were trying to form a union were fired. While in the area of Victoria, British Columbia, Watson met a sawmill worker and poet named Wilfred Watson, and she convinced him to enroll at the University of British Columbia; the two wed in 1941. Watson accepted a teaching position at Moulton College in Toronto, leaving there in 1948 to lecture at the University of British Columbia for two years before returning to high school teaching for one more year in Powell River. While living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in the early 1950’s, Watson focused on finishing her novel The Double Hook (1959), which received the Beta Sigma Phi Canadian Book Award in 1960.
In the meantime, Watson lived in Edmonton, Alberta, and France for two years and then began her doctoral studies at the University of Toronto in 1957. She joined the University of Alberta faculty in 1961, completed her dissertation on author Wyndham Lewis in 1965, and continued teaching as an English professor at the University of Alberta until 1975. During her doctoral work, Watson studied with Marshall McLuhan, who significantly influenced the poetry and plays written by her husband, Wilfred Watson.
Watson was coeditor from 1971 to 1978 of White Pelican, the literary magazine she founded with her husband and other Canadian writers. When Watson retired from teaching in 1975, the journal published a special issue featuring Watson’s uncollected prose; in 1984, she was awarded the Lorne Pierce Medal. Her novel Deep Hollow Creek, which Watson had written nearly sixty years earlier, was finally published in 1992. The Watsons retired to Vancouver Island in the late 1970’s; Wilfred Watson died in January, 1998, followed by Sheila Watson’s death the following month.