James Carruthers

James Carruthers
Born	1853-08-13 Toronto, Ontario
Died	1924-09-19 Montreal, Quebec
Occupation	Grain merchant; financier; shipping executive
Father	Andrew Carruthers
Mother	Janet Carruthers
Partner	Louisa Coleman

James Carruthers ((1853-08-13)13 August 1853 – 19 September 1924(1924-09-19) (aged 71)) was a Canadian grain merchant and financier, known as "Canada's Wheat King" for his dominant role in the country's grain export trade during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Early life and career

Carruthers was born on 13 August 1853 in Toronto, the son of Andrew Carruthers and Janet Carruthers, Scottish immigrants from the Dumfries region. He began his career in the grain trade in the early 1870s working for T. C. Chisholm's Toronto firm. In 1875 he joined the Montreal and Toronto merchant house of Crane and Baird, managing their Toronto office, and became a partner in 1879. He departed in 1885 to establish grain brokerage Norris and Carruthers with James Sylvester Norris, with offices in both Montreal and Toronto.

Grain trade

Following the dissolution of the Norris and Carruthers partnership in late 1893, Carruthers founded James Carruthers and Company, which grew to become Canada's largest grain exporting firm. His success coincided with the opening of the western Canadian wheat economy: the link established by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883 between Winnipeg and Port Arthur allowed prairie grain to reach eastern markets, and Carruthers built an extensive network across Canadian and northern United States chambers of commerce and grain exchanges to capitalize on the resulting wheat export boom of the 1900s and 1910s. By the early 1910s he was widely referred to as "Canada's Wheat King."

George Andrew Carruthers, his son, managed the company's Winnipeg office and later enlisted for military service. Two other sons, Edgar and William, predeceased their father — Edgar died around 1907 and William in 1915.

Shipping and finance

In 1913 Carruthers became president of Canada Steamship Lines, stepping down in 1919 following disagreements over dividend policy versus the accumulation of reserves. He also served as first vice-president of the Sovereign Bank of Canada (1902) and as a director of the Dominion Bank from 1907 to 1923, and held investments in mining, insurance, trust companies, and fish refrigeration operations at Prince Rupert. Between 1906 and 1908, Carruthers and Sir Hugh Montagu Allan purchased land for the Montreal Jockey Club's racetrack.

Personal life and death

On 9 February 1875 Carruthers married Louisa Coleman in Toronto. He maintained residences on Jarvis Street in Toronto and, later, in Montreal hotels including the Ritz-Carlton. He was a supporter of protective tariffs and opposed Sir Wilfrid Laurier's 1911 reciprocity proposals, though he later moderated his views on western farmers' demands. During the First World War, he contributed supplies and military materiel to the war effort.

Carruthers died on 19 September 1924 in Montreal.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography