Family mourns death of Bill Neville

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This article was published 30/03/2024 (547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Longtime political commentator, former Winnipeg city councillor and dedicated public intellectual William (Bill) Neville has died at the age of 83.

Neville, former husband of Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Anita Neville, leaves behind three daughters and four grandchildren. He died overnight Friday.

His daughters Sarah, Jessica and Elissa Neville said their father imparted on them his intellectual curiosity, love of language, quick-witted humour, and his deep love of all kinds of music. He was so proud of his family, including grandchildren Elijah, Aaron, Toby and Abby, and considered them his greatest accomplishment. They are all missing him dearly, his daughters said in an interview Saturday.

“He was always a particularly good counsel for us. If we needed help with a problem, his responses were always measured, and thoughtful, and calm,” eldest daughter Sarah Neville said.

“He always brought a perspective that was just a little bit unexpected, and helped you to think of things and see things in a different way.

“He was really a man of ideas,” she added.

Her mother, Anita Neville, described her former husband as a “true renaissance man.”

Bill Neville grew up in Winnipeg, studied at the University of Manitoba, and went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He became a university professor and went on to head U of M’s department of political studies, retiring in 2005. Before he chose that academic path, Neville entered the political sphere.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was an adviser to Sidney Spivak, then-provincial minister of industry and commerce in Duff Roblin’s Conservative government. While they were both working for Spivak, Neville met Lee Southern in 1969.

Southern described Neville as a true “public intellectual.” He became a prolific columnist for the Free Press in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. He continued to write and serve as a political contributor to local news outlets into the early 2000s, becoming a thought leader and influencer of public opinion through his well-researched prose.

“Many of his columns had to do with supporting civic values and civic institutions,” said Southern. “And I think that’s a vanishing dimension in the public discourse now. We see lots of criticisms of these institutions, but they’re part of our free democracy,” Southern said.

“He explained well how those things worked and how we should appreciate them, because we take them for granted.”

He served as a Winnipeg city councillor for the Tuxedo ward through the late 1970s and ’80s.

Neville was part of a political culture that seriously valued forethought and moderation, said his friend Allen Mills.

“He expressed that in a kind of political perspective in his columns that allowed people to make sense of their politics in an intelligent way. And that’s a huge contribution, and it’s something that journalism, at its best, does.”

Mills, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg, first met Neville when they were both booked in as commentators for a televised politics program. They were supposed to present opposing viewpoints, but it didn’t really work.

As Mills remembers, Neville was much too considerate. He held strong opinions, but he wasn’t well-suited to polarizing debates that pit people against each other.

“He was an important part, for a period of about 15 to 20 years, talking about national and local politics in an intelligent, compassionate way,” Mills said.

He didn’t believe politics was just about calculated moves to win power or lobby for pet causes.

“It was about thinking about big ideas and why they should matter in public life,” said his former colleague, U of M political sciences professor emeritus Paul Thomas.

Although he was once considered a “red Tory” because of his progressive views, in his later years, Neville considered it a badge of honour, a signal of his skill as a fair political commentator, that his friends and colleagues didn’t know who he voted for.

Following his death, his daughters have been receiving an outpouring of messages from people who were helped or influenced in some way by Neville.

“He had a very wide reach,” Sarah said.

A service will be held Tuesday, April 2 at 2 p.m. at the Caboto Centre on Wilkes Avenue.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca