Leonard Albert Miller: Public Servant

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

Between 1934 and 1949, a British-appointed Commission of Government
administered Newfoundland in place of the elective responsible system of
government that has been in place in Newfoundland since 1855. The
commission reorganized the civil service and made merit the sole basis
for promotion; it sought out and encouraged young Newfoundlanders with
professional training to join the civil service. One recruit was Leonard
Albert Miller, who served as Director of Medical Services during
Commission of Government and Deputy Minister of Health from 1949 until
his retirement in 1971.

Much of the book, however, consists of brief thematic chapters on
various aspects of public health policy in Newfoundland between the late
1920s and the late 1960s. Martin documents, for example, Miller’s
recruiting of foreign physicians for the cottage hospital system in
rural Newfoundland, his role in the establishment of medicare in
Newfoundland and in the founding of a medical school at Memorial
University, and his constructive relationship with the medical
profession and government officials in general and the Newfoundland
Medical Association in particular.

This welcome addition to the literature on public policy in
Newfoundland provides insights into the small group of powerful civil
servants who helped to shape public policy in both Confederation and
post-Confederation Newfoundland.