George Frederick Curtis was born in England in 1906. He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1927 and was named a Rhodes Scholar. He earned a BA in Jurisprudence in 1930 and a BCL at Oxford in 1931. Curtis came to the University of British Columbia in 1945 from Halifax, where he had practiced law and taught at the Dalhousie Law School. He became the founding dean of UBC's Faculty of Law. He continued to serve in this capacity until stepping down in 1971. Curtis faced considerable challenges as the Faculty began with a total budget of $10,000 and two army huts that provided offices, a reading room and lecture space.
During his career, Curtis made significant contributions to legal education, scholarship and practice in the provincial, national and international arenas. In recognition of these contributions, Curtis received many honours and awards. The Universities of Dalhousie, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and UBC (1982) granted him honorary degrees. He was named a member of the Order of the Coif in 1964, and in 1986 the Law Society honoured him as the first recipient of the Law Society Award 1986. He received the R.J. Hnatyshan Award for Law by the Canadian Bar Association in 1995. That same year, Curtis was inducted into the Order of British Columbia at a convocation held in Vancouver's Law Courts on October 13 to mark the 50th anniversary of the UBC Law School's founding. In 2003 he received the Queen's Jubilee Medal. He was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in the fall of that year. Dean Emeritus George F. Curtis passed away on October 23, 2005, at age 99.