author

Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

b. 1880

A longtime McGill economist and political science teacher, he is best remembered today for a major early history of Britain’s postal system. His career joined careful scholarship with decades of classroom life in Canada.

1 Audiobook

The History of the British Post Office

The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

About the author

Born in Nova Scotia in either 1879 or 1880, Joseph Clarence Hemmeon studied at Acadia University, earning a BA in 1898 and an MA in 1904. He taught at King's College School in Windsor, Nova Scotia, then went on to Harvard, where he was a Ricardo Fellow in Economics and completed his PhD in 1906.

After teaching economics at Illinois, he joined McGill University in 1907. For many years he worked closely with Stephen Leacock in McGill's Department of Economics and Political Science, and in 1936 he succeeded Leacock as department head. A memorial published in the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science describes him as shy, analytical, dryly humorous, and deeply committed to teaching.

His best-known book, The History of the British Post Office (1912), grew out of his doctoral research and became a lasting part of his scholarly reputation. Hemmeon retired in 1945 and returned to the Wolfville area of Nova Scotia, where he died on December 27, 1963.