John Featherston Hilliker (23 July 1935-14 September 2021), died peacefully at home in Ottawa from complications of Parkinson's disease.
He was predeceased by an infant sister, Elizabeth Anne (1932), his father, Albert deForest Hilliker (1953), his mother, Ethel Featherston Hilliker (1984) and his cousin, Helen Cole (2017).
Born and raised in Kamloops, B.C., John graduated from Queen’s University (BA, 1958), Brown University (MA, 1962) and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (PhD, 1968). He joined the Canadian foreign service in 1958 and served as Consul in Jakarta, Indonesia. He left to pursue his doctoral studies and taught at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, before returning to the Department of External Affairs as historian in 1975. As head of the Historical Section from 1986 until his retirement in 2003, he became a leading authority on the history of Canada’s foreign relations. He was general editor of the series Documents on Canadian External Relations, architect of the Department’s official history project and senior author of its three published volumes, and contributor to numerous scholarly collections.
As Parkinson’s restricted his independence, John was sustained by his family of friends: Christopher Cook, the late Greg Donaghy and his wife Mary, Doug and Margaret MacDonald, Lolan Merklinger, Pat Steele, Elayne van Snellenberg and Mary Halloran.
