Cyril Shirley Belshaw was born on 3 December 1921 in Waddington, New Zealand. He received an M.A. from Victoria College, New Zealand and a Ph.D. in 1949 from the London School of Economics. Before coming to the University of British Columbia in 1953, he was a research fellow at the Australian National University. Belshaw arrived at UBC in 1953 and joined the Department of Anthropology, Criminology and Sociology. In 1959 Belshaw was appointed as acting head of that department, serving as official head from 1968 to 1974. He remained on staff as a professor until his retirement in 1987. The suspicious death of his wife Betty Joy Belshaw in Switzerland in 1979 saw Belshaw go on trial for her murder, but he was acquitted. Professor Betty Joy Belshaw taught at the Department of English. Belshaw also served as president of the Faculty Association in 1960, and in 1961 he was appointed director of the UN Regional Training Centre at UBC. He was also involved with the Senate Committee on Long-Range Objectives. In addition, he served as a consultant to the UN Bureau of Social Affairs and as editor of Current Anthropology. Outside the University, Belshaw actively participated in numerous national and international academic initiatives such as the Social Science Research Council, UNESCO, and the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association (among others). Following his time at UBC, Belshaw continued to write and maintained publishing through Webzines of Vancouver.