Hindley, Henry, 1906-1988 : Henry Hindley, freelance consultant and public servant, was born in India in 1906. A graduate from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts Honours and a Masters of Arts in Mechanical Sciences, he also attended the Dundee School of Economics where he received his post-graduate diploma.
Hindley began his career as an engineer in 1935 with the London firm of management consultants, Urwick, Orr & Partners. From 1940 to 1946, he served as Director of Manpower Planning for the British Air Ministry. He then served successively between 1946 and 1950 as: Director-General with the British Air Commission in Washington, D.C.; Chairman of the Northern Divisional Board, National Coal Board in Newcastle-on-the-Tyne, England; and as Chairman of the Raw Cotton Commission in Liverpool.
After five years as a Business Consultant, Hindley emigrated to Canada in 1955. He was a Director and Secretary-Treasurer with Anglo-Barrington Mines Ltd. in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He then came to Ottawa in 1960, as a member of the research staff of the Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organization. He was on the project team for broadcasting, and wrote the first drafts of reports on Information Services and on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In 1962, Hindley joined the Bureau of Government Organization in the Privy Council Office. After two years, he served with the Department of the Secretary of State, and in 1966, was named Assistant Under-Secretary with the responsibility for the formulation of cultural policy, including broadcasting. He had a major role in the drafting of the Broadcasting Act of 1968, which created the broadcast regulatory agency, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and laid out the mandate of the CBC.
In 1969, Hindley transferred to the Department of Communications, where he became Executive Director of the Telecommission studies and the principal author of Instant World, the final report. He was then Special Policy Advisor to the Deputy Minister, drafting author of the Green Paper in 1973, and the Grey Paper in 1975 on Communications policy, and the instructing officer for new telecommunications legislation.
Although Hindley retired from the federal government in 1975, he was continuously employed as a freelance consultant with a series of government contracts, primarily concerning broadcasting, cable television, etc. for the Department of Communications. He also worked with other government departments and agencies, and for such studies as the Applebaum-Hébert Commission. Hindley died in 1988 in Ottawa.
