William John Eccles (17 July 1917 – 2 October 1998) was a British-born Canadian historian and academic, specialising in the history ofNew France.
Born inThirsk,North Yorkshire,England, his family immigrated to Canada in the 1920s. He grew up inMontréal,Québec. He studied atMcGill University. Following graduation, he did post-graduate studies at McGill under historianEdward Robert Adair.[1] He later dedicated his bookCanada underLouis XIV to Adair.[2]
During World War II, he served overseas with theRoyal Canadian Air Force. He then did further graduate study at theSorbonne inParis.[3]
Upon his return fromFrance, Eccles joined the faculty at theUniversity of Manitoba. He taught there for four years, from 1953 to 1957, then moved to theUniversity of Alberta, where he taught from 1957 to 1963. In 1963, he was appointed to a professorship at theUniversity of Toronto, where he taught for 20 years.[1]
Eccles held visiting Professorships at theUniversity of Chile, McGill University,College of William and Mary (Virginia), and theUniversity of Western Ontario.[4]
Eccles is credited with leading a revival of interest in the history of New France amongst anglophone Canadian historians, and also influencing francophone historians who were re-examining their own understandings of their history.[1][5] He took a revisionist approach to the image of French Canada which had developed in the 19th century.[1] In his first book,Frontenac, The Courtier Governor, he challenged the myth ofFrontenac as an heroic governor. He went on to heavily criticise the work of the American historianFrancis Parkman and accused him of anAnglo-American bias and a prejudiced view of First Nations peoples and the French. Eccles also argued that Parkman had misinterpreted the French sources based on Parkman's own personal biases: "In short, his appeal is to innate chauvinism".[6] In another book, Eccles wrote: "Francis Parkman's epic workLa Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (Boston, 1869) is doubtless a great literary work, but, as history, it is, to say the least, of dubious merit."[7] Eccles was later characterised as a "fearsome iconoclast" in his historical writings.[5]
Instead of the anglocentric view, which he considered to be espoused by Parkman, Eccles argued that the formative value of New France was the 17th-centuryFrench nobility, which emphasised the hierarchy of the seigneurial class and the value of the military establishment.[1] He also developed the thesis that there was an inherent tension between the colonial policy of the French government, and the economic realities of thefur trade. Eccles argued that the French government wanted to develop a "compact colony", of settlers farmers and minor industries, based on theSaint Lawrence River, which was the vision ofJean-Baptiste Colbert, the chief minister to theSun King from 1661 to 1683. He discouraged attempts to build elaborate fur-trading chains to the Great Lakes and the Ohio Country, which he considered would overextend the resources of the colony and the ability of France to defend it. The settlers of New France, however, repeatedly ignored those restrictions and steadily expanded trade chains to the west.[5]
Eccles retired from theUniversity of Toronto in 1983.[1] He died in Toronto on 2 October 1998 after a brief illness. He was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter, another son having predeceased him.[4][8]
His papers are located in the archives ofMcMaster University.[9]
His bookFrontenac: The Courtier Governor received the 1959 Award of the Pacific Coast Branch of theAmerican Historical Association.[3]
In 1979, theRoyal Society of Canada awarded him theJ. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal for his contributions to the history of Canada even though he had refused to allow his name to stand for election to the Royal Society.[1]
He received an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Genoa,Italy.[4]
