David Blythe Hanna
| David Blythe Hanna | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1858-12-20 Thornliebank, Glasgow, Scotland |
| Died | 1938-12-01 Toronto, Ontario |
| Occupation | Railway manager, accountant, office holder |
| Father | |
| Mother | |
| Partner | |
David Blythe Hanna (20 December 1858 – 1 December 1938 (aged 79)) was a Scottish-born Canadian railway manager who served as chief operating officer of the Canadian Northern Railway for two decades and became the first president of Canadian National Railways.
Early life and emigration
Hanna was born on 20 December 1858 in Thornliebank, near Glasgow, Scotland, the son of William Hanna, a foreman in a textile-printing mill, and Janet Blair.[1] He entered railway work young, joining the Glasgow, Barrhead and Kilmarnock Joint Railway as a junior clerk at the age of thirteen. From 1875 until 1882 he served the Caledonian Railway, before emigrating to Canada after responding to a recruitment advertisement placed by the Grand Trunk Railway.[1]
Early Canadian career
On arriving in Canada, Hanna took a posting in the Grand Trunk Railway's auditor's office in Montreal. He subsequently moved to Detroit to audit the accounts of the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad, and then accepted an office position with that company in New York. When the line was absorbed into the New York Central Railroad system in 1886, Hanna relocated to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, where he served as chief accountant and later treasurer of the Manitoba and North Western Railway.[1] On 3 April 1889 he married Margaret L. Garland in Portage la Prairie.[2] The couple had one son and two daughters.
When the Manitoba and North Western entered receivership in 1893, Hanna moved to Winnipeg, continuing to work for the railway while also auditing accounts for other firms.[1]
Canadian Northern Railway
In 1896 Hanna became superintendent and general manager of the Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company, an enterprise promoted by William Mackenzie and Donald Mann. In December 1898 that company merged with the Winnipeg Great Northern to form the Canadian Northern Railway, with Frederic Thomas Nicholls as nominal president — federal regulations at the time prevented contractors such as Mackenzie and Mann from holding directorial office, so Hanna remained superintendent.[1]
By 1901 the railway had assembled a network of Manitoba and Ontario charters linking prairie lines with Great Lakes port facilities at Port Arthur, connecting what would become Thunder Bay to the national rail system the company was assembling.[1] After Mackenzie and Mann incorporated their construction firm in 1902 and assumed directorships, the railway's leadership settled into four key figures: Mackenzie as president overseeing financing; Mann as first vice-president directing construction; Zebulon Aiton Lash as chief solicitor handling legal affairs; and Hanna as third vice-president and chief operating officer. Though his designation ranked him below second vice-president Roderick John Mackenzie (William's eldest son), Hanna exercised considerably greater executive authority in practice.[1]
Over the following two decades the Canadian Northern expanded rapidly, building extensive prairie networks largely north of the Canadian Pacific Railway's main track. Government-guaranteed bonds and debentures financed much of the construction, and the railway kept costs down by refurbishing discarded rolling stock from more prosperous lines for branch service. Frequent breakdowns and derailments tested Hanna's operational management, but the railway earned a popular reputation as "the Farmers' Friend" through comparatively low freight rates.[1]
Hanna supported both the westward expansion toward the Pacific after 1901 and the eastward Atlantic extension after 1911. He later rejected claims that the railway's financial difficulties stemmed from high construction and operating costs in British Columbia and the Ontario-Quebec corridor, attributing them instead to wartime inflation of materials, labour, and equipment costs, and to disruptions in world money markets during World War I.[1]
Canadian National Railways
The federal government purchased the Canadian Northern Railway in 1917 and retained Hanna's services. In September 1918 he was named chairman of the new board, and in November of that year the Canadian Northern's operations were merged with the National Transcontinental and Intercolonial railways to form what became Canadian National Railways.[1] Hanna was appointed the CNR's first president, bringing established managerial and financial experience to the task of integrating lines with very different operational, political, and financial traditions. He found the patronage practices entrenched on the former Intercolonial particularly frustrating.[1]
His presidency proved to be a transitional one. When the federal government nationalized the entire Grand Trunk Railway system by 1922 and folded it into the CNR, it was thought impractical to ask Grand Trunk managers to serve under a president identified with their long-standing rival. Hanna's association with the Conservative Party may also have played a role in the decision by the newly elected Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King to request Hanna's resignation along with that of fellow directors. His railway career ended in July 1922.[1]
Later life
Beyond his railway work, Hanna served on the boards of numerous companies connected with Mackenzie and Mann, including the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, the London and Canadian Loan and Agency Company, the Western Assurance Company, Western Canada Flour Mills, and the British Empire Trust Company.[1]
In 1927 he became the first chairman of Ontario's Liquor Control Board, departing in 1928 after the organization was established.[1]
Hanna's memoirs, co-written with Arthur Hawkes, were published in 1924 under the title Trains of Recollection Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, having first appeared serially in the Toronto Daily Star.[3] The town of Hanna in Alberta bears his name.
Death
Hanna's health deteriorated in the autumn of 1938. The death on 30 November 1938 of banker Sir John Aird, his oldest friend, was described by his son as "a tremendous shock to him." Hanna died the following day, on 1 December 1938, in Toronto.[4]
Lake Superior Branch
As manager of the combined Canadian Northern and Canadian Government Railways from December 1918, Hanna oversaw the rebuilding of the former Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line from Fort William, whose timber bridges and trestles were replaced with steel and concrete or with rock and gravel fill from the Dona Pit.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 T. D. Regehr."T. D. Regehr, "Hanna, David Blythe," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16."[website].Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16 (University of Toronto/Université Laval).2014.University of Toronto/Université Laval.Link.(Rights: copyrighted | Access: open)
- ↑ Manitoba, Dept. of Tourism, Culture, Heritage, Sport and Consumer Protection, Vital Statistics Agency (Winnipeg), no. 1889-001005.
- ↑ David Blythe Hanna, Trains of recollection drawn from fifty years of railway service in Scotland and Canada, ed. Arthur Hawkes (Toronto, 1924).
- ↑ Globe and Mail, 2 Dec. 1938.
- ↑ John Todd, "The Grand Trunk Pacific's Lake Superior Branch", Canadian Rail no. 296 (Canadian Railroad Historical Association), September 1976. Archived.
- ↑ T. D. Regehr."The Canadian Northern Railway, pioneer road of the northern prairies, 1895–1918."[book].1976.Toronto.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ Robert Dorman (comp.)."A statutory history of the steam and electric railways of Canada, 1836–1937, with other data relevant to operation of Department of Transport."[book].1938.Ottawa.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ G. R. Stevens."Canadian National Railways."[book].1960–1962.2 vols. (Toronto and Vancouver), vol. 2.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)