Vincent Wheeler Bladen

Vincent Wheeler Bladen

Vincent Wheeler Bladen, economist (b at Stoke-on-Trent, Eng 14 Aug 1900; d at Toronto 26 Nov 1981). Bladen came from Balliol to University of Toronto in 1921. Teacher, scholar, department head and dean, he was also an adviser to government, and his policy papers were responsible indirectly for the Canadian-American Autopact (1965). His writings treated the auto industry, university financing, Canadian economic affairs, industrial organization and "the literature of political economy," the topic for which generations of undergraduates remember him.

As chairman of political economy and then dean of arts, he presided over U of T's expansion in the 1950s and 1960s, taking a special interest in area studies and graduate work, where he favoured Canadian self-reliance. A man of immense energy, he founded the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, and found time to interest himself in cooking, horsemanship and the National Ballet of Canada.