These are a fairly complete set of records documenting most aspects of Prof. Conacher’s career as a Canadian academic, a scholar of British history, a university administrator, and a teacher. There is a voluminous amount of professional correspondence found not only in Series 1 Professional Correspondence but in most other series. Much of it documents his professional and personal relationships with colleagues and friends. Records in Series 8 Professional Activities also give evidence to these relationships as it pertains to activities on associations. Researchers wishing insight into the network of Canadian historians active in Canada from the 1950s to the 1980s will want to consult these records and in particular Series 1 and Series 8. Conacher’s non-academic life is best documented in Series 2 Family Correspondence and Series 12 Non-Professional Activities but again personal correspondence with family and friends is interfiled in Series 1 and discusses life in general for himself and his family.
While manuscripts of his major published works have not survived, (except for his final work Britain and the Crimea), other documents such as correspondence with publishers, contracts, reviews and corrections to drafts give a good sense of his work on these publications. As a whole, his research, writing and editorial works are well documented in Series 4 Books as well as records in Series 5 Talks, addresses and articles, Series 6 Reviews, and Series 7 Disraeli Project. His editorial role with the Canadian Historical Review is documented in Series 8 Professional Activities, while his editorial files for the Champlain Society have been transferred to the Champlain Society Papers (Ms 50) held by the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.
A quick look at Conacher’s c.v. reveals the numerous administrative posts he held in his more than forty years at the University of Toronto. His career covers a period in the University of Toronto that saw unprecedented expansion, changes in University governance, movements by both faculty and students to have a greater say in decision making and the beginning of budgetary constraints on University and external research funding. Within the Department of History, curriculum was rewritten several times, new disciplines were being established and the graduate department further defined. Records found in Series 9 University of Toronto, Series 10 Department of History, and Series 11 University of Toronto Faculty Association document to varying degrees all of these developments. A copy of Conacher’s unpublished memoirs found in Series 5: Talks, addresses and articles lends a very personal voice to these developments.
Conacher’s role as a teacher to his students, as well as a mentor to his graduate students and younger colleagues are reflected in the records found in Series 3 Letters of Recommendation, Series 13 Teaching and Series 14 Ph.D. Student Files. The fact that so many sought his help and advice is evidence of his influence with a whole generation of historical scholars. Much of the correspondence in Series 3 and 14 shows his personal relationships with those he mentored.