Betty Oliphant was one of two British immigrants responsible for the foundation and worldwide success of the National Ballet of Canada. Besides becoming the company’s first ballet mistress and, for a time, associate artistic director, Oliphant’s chief contribution was as a teacher, starting the National Ballet School and making it into one of the best in the world. Many star dancers emerged from it during her time, but perhaps even more important was the general standard she achieved.

Nothing of this could have been guessed from the way her career began. Born Nancy Elizabeth Oliphant in London in 1918, she never knew her lawyer father, who practised in Scotland and died in a train accident when travelling to see his baby. At about 5 she started ballet because her doctor recommended exercise classes after she suffered from recurrent pneumonia.

Luckily her teacher, Miss Sheen, insisted on very hard work and had studied the old Moscow style from Laurent Novikoff (who partnered Pavlova and danced for Diaghilev). Later her mother insisted that she also learn stage dancing, tap and acrobatics, and her first professional engagement — at 14 — was in a restaurant cabaret in the Strand.

She did, however, develop her knowledge of ballet through classes with Marie Rambert, then with Tamara Karsavina who taught her that technique — which she mastered very young — was less valuable than artistry.

Also, having been advised by Antony Tudor (at that time Rambert’s assistant) that knowledge of theory and method were important, she studied the system of the maestro Enrico Cecchetti, which she found very logical; soon after, she became the youngest person to be appointed a fellow and examiner of the stage branch of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

She had by this time decided that her height and weight made her unsuited to a ballet dancer’s career; instead, she would teach and, at only 18, with capital from her father’s trust fund, she opened her own studio in Wigmore Street. During the Second World War, however, she arranged and performed in dances for Prince Littler’s pantomimes, also in an army show, besides driving an ambulance, until she married a Canadian soldier, Frank Grover, and had two daughters.

They moved to Canada in 1947, settling in Toronto, where she became known through arranging dances for a production of Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel. Thereafter she was asked to take over the classes of two teachers who moved away, and in 1948 opened her own school. Finding little contact among other teachers, she took the initiative in forming a Canadian Dance Teachers’ Association, although this seems effectively to have operated only in Toronto (there were other dance schools across the dominion, and Winnipeg already had its own ballet company, which in 1953 became the first to be granted a British royal charter).

When the British dancer and director Celia Franca was invited to Toronto in 1951 to form a National Ballet of Canada, Oliphant first met her on behalf of the association, and proved so helpful that she was appointed ballet mistress: basically responsible for company classes and some rehearsals. For eight years she combined this with running her own school in the late afternoons and evenings, and when funds were found to start a National Ballet School she let her school provide its nucleus, free of charge. By her own account Oliphant was often underpaid because she did not recognise her market value.

At her insistence academic subjects were also taught, so that pupils who did not enter ballet professionally would have other options, and those who did become dancers would have a richer career. The actual dance teaching was derived from Oliphant’s observations in many countries, as she wrote: “I have looked at teaching methods all over the world . . . I have experimented. I have changed what I felt was bad and sometimes I have changed back again. At last, I feel I know what ballet training is all about.”

The proof of the pudding is in the many first-rate dancers she produced, among them such stars as Veronica Tennant, Martine van Hamel (who shared the juniors’ gold medal at Varna with Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1966), Karen Kain, Frank Augustyn, Kevin Pugh and Rex Harrington, as well as future choreographers including James Kudelka and John Alleyne, now directors respectively of the National Ballet and Ballet British Columbia.

Oliphant’s autobiography, Miss O: My Life in Dance, which was published in 1996, makes clear that her private life was pretty uniformly unhappy, with several illnesses, two unsuccessful marriages and frequent family quarrels. Professionally, however, she could have few complaints.

The celebrated Erik Bruhn admired her work so much that when he became director of the Royal Swedish Ballet he sought her help in reorganising its school, and later Henning Kronstam similarly invited her assistance for the Royal Danish Ballet School.

A frequent jury member for international competitions, she continued that activity after her official retirement in 1989.

Her many awards included four honorary doctorates, and appointment as Officer (1973) and Companion (1985) of the Order of Canada. Perhaps she was most proud, however, that the National Ballet School’s theatre, opened in 1988, was named after her.

She is survived by her two daughters.

Betty Oliphant, CC, ballet teacher, was born on August 5, 1918. She died on July 12, 2004, aged 85.