Templeman, Wilfred

Wilfred Templeman (1908-1990), educator, fisheries biologist, was born in Bonavista, Newfoundland on 22 February 1908, son of Sarah (Fisher) and Charles Templeman. He married Eileen McGrath. Templeman died in St. John's on 5 April 1990.

After teaching in Newfoundland for several years (1924-27), Templeman was selected as the senior Jubilee scholar at Memorial University College, St. John's (1928). He studied fisheries biology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, and obtained a PhD at the University of Toronto (1933). Before his return to Newfoundland in 1936, Templeman was employed as a researcher with the Fisheries Research Board of Canada (1930-33), and a lecturer at McGill University, Montreal.

Templeman was appointed head of the biology department at Memorial University College (1936), while continuing his marine research into lobster and capelin. He was appointed head of the Newfoundland Laboratory in 1944. Following Confederation (1949), Templeman became director of the federal Fisheries Biological Station, St. John's (1949-72). In the 1960s he chaired a standing committee on research and Statistics for the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF) and published the standard reference work, Marine Resources of Newfoundland (1966). In 1972, Templeman was named the first J.L. Paton Professor of Marine Biology and Fisheries at Memorial University (1972). He was a member of the Fisheries and Oceans Research Advisory Council (1981-85), as well as a commissioner on the Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing.

Templeman published more than 200 articles on North Atlantic fish species. He was one of the first fisheries biologists to highlight the impact of offshore technology on fish populations, noting in 1966 that the size of Newfoundland cod stocks and other fish species was diminishing. He also critiqued the ability of ICNAF to monitor fish stocks.

Templeman was the recipient of many honours, including an OBE (1948), selection as a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (1950), and an honorary D.Sc. degree from Memorial University. In 1982, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans research vessel was named in his honour.

Created - April 24, 2013

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