The major impetus to stop painting came about due to her increasing commitment to university education as a Historian. In 1976 she had set out to earn a 4 year Bachelors Degree in History. As she was still painting and caring for her son Angus, who was 11 at the time, she would do only one course per year. As a result it took her until 1988 to complete her Bachelor’s degree! During this period she won very high marks for her studies and numerous scholarships.

By 1988, Angus was 23, and Enid decided the time was right to study full time for a Master’s degree in History. Despite some skepticism within the department about her level of commitment to this field, she consistently completed work at a very high standard. She was awarded this degree about eighteen months later.

She had no interest in teaching, much to the surprise of some of her professors, but she did have a great interest in historical research and writing. Discussion with her family, some of whom were academics, convinced her that she should get a PhD in History. Her main reason was to be taken seriously in the academic world of historical research. She then spent sometime thinking about some of the different topics and personalities from history, which she had come across in her previous years of study and picked upon a British diplomat, Sir William Mildmay, whose name had appeared in connection with a number of issues including investigation of scandals involving the British Navy Dockyards. Enid wrote her PhD thesis entitled “A British View of Some French Institutions in the Mid-Eighteenth Century from the papers and books of Sir William Mildmay” and submitted it to her professors in December 1995. She received her PhD from the University of Toronto on 11 June 1996, at the age of 65.

Her investigations had uncovered a wealth of unknown and poorly documented material, including personal letters from Mildmay to his patron uncle, that indicated Mildmay played a pivotal role in the 1750-1755 negotiations of the Anglo-French Commission just prior to the onset of the Seven Year’s War.

After gaining her PhD, Enid embarked on her career as a historian. She wrote a book about Mildmay’s life, “The Forgotten Commissioner; Sir William Mildmay and the Anglo-French Commission of 1750-1755”. This elegantly written book outlined the political and social factors that lead up to the failed negotiations, and the central role played by Sir William Mildmay as one of the British negotiators. The background for the book was the largely unreported collection of documents that Mildmay prepared for his British Government overseers, personal contacts and his uncle, Sir Benjamin Mildmay. These show that Mildmay was an accomplished linguist, fluent in French and a favorite guest of the aristocracy in the court of Louis V and Madame de Pompadour. He was also a relentless analyst, particularly in the area of war supply and logistical support. He wrote several chilling accounts to his English government employers prior to the completion of the negotiations, detailing the vulnerability of the French in areas of food and supply (which were likely to have been at the very least highly confidential, if not top secret). 

A significant portion of these documents turned out to be in the William Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the custodians of the library arranged to have the entire collection, including her notes, copied on to microfiche at their expense as a complete record of the existing documents. Their only request was that she donate a copy of her book to the library to add to their collection, and to provide an overview of the individual documents.

Her book was in the final stages of proofing by the Michigan State University Press in Lansing Michigan, when she died at St. Michaels Hospital, Toronto, at about 6.00pm on Thursday 20th December 2001.

“The Forgotten Commissioner; Sir William Mildmay and the Anglo-French Commission of 1750-1755” was published by Michigan State University Press in 2003, and is an invaluable reference for the negotiations and diplomatic events leading up to the Seven Years War between Britain and France. This global war (probably the first world war) changed the balance of power significantly between these two major powers of the day, and contributed to the formation of the United States of America and the change from New France to Canada.