John William Stewart
| John William Stewart | |
|---|---|
| Jack Stewart | |
| Born | c. 1860 Nedd, Sutherland, Scotland |
| Died | 1938-09-24 Vancouver, British Columbia |
| Occupation | Railway contractor, businessman, military officer |
| Father | |
| Mother | |
| Partner | |
John William Stewart (born 4 December 1860 or 12 December 1862, Nedd, Sutherland, Scotland – 24 September 1938, Vancouver) was a Scottish-born Canadian railway contractor, businessman, military officer, and newspaper proprietor who supervised the double-tracking of the Canadian Pacific Railway main line between Port Arthur and Winnipeg, and rose to major-general commanding Canadian Railway Troops on the Western Front during the First World War.[1]
Early life and immigration
Stewart was born into a poor crofting family on the west coast of Scotland, in the village of Nedd, Sutherland. (Sources give his birth date as either 4 December 1860 or 12 December 1862.)[1] He immigrated to Canada in 1882, initially working in Ontario factories before making his way westward into railway construction.[1]
By 1885 he was engaged in surveying work at Granville (present-day Vancouver) for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in 1886 he supervised snow-shed construction at Rogers Pass in the Selkirk Mountains.[1] In the late 1880s he moved south to Montana, working for former CPR contractors on the Great Northern Railroad expansion into Idaho and toward Puget Sound.[1]
Career in railway contracting
In 1894 Stewart married Elizabeth Jane Moran in Helena, Montana; she was a sister-in-law of railway contractor Peter Larson, which deepened his ties to contracting networks.[2] Based in Spokane by the late 1890s, he worked for Foley Brothers, Larson and Company of St Paul, Minnesota, alongside Patrick Welch, who had married another Moran sister.[1]
Stewart supervised construction on several British Columbia lines: the Kaslo and Slocan Railway (1895), the Columbia and Western Railway (1900), the Nelson and Fort Sheppard Railway (1903–04), and a feeder line to Grand Forks built for J. J. Hill (1905).[1] From approximately 1901 to 1907 he oversaw double-tracking of the CPR main line between Port Arthur (present-day Thunder Bay) and Winnipeg, and also directed Grand Trunk Pacific Railway construction in northern Ontario.[1]
When three senior partners of Foley Brothers, Larson and Company died in 1907, Stewart joined Timothy Foley, Michael H. Foley, and Patrick Welch to form Foley, Welch, and Stewart (FWS), with offices in St Paul, Spokane, Prince Rupert, and Vancouver.[1][3] Before 1914, the firm held contracts for over 2,000 miles of track and employed nearly 50,000 men.[1]
FWS completed much of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway main line from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert, double-tracked the CPR main line west of Winnipeg, built Alberta branch lines, constructed the Connaught Tunnel (1913–16), built sections of the Canadian Northern Railway, and completed Halifax's marine terminal in 1919.[1][4]
In 1912, FWS entered railway ownership through the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), authorized by British Columbia Premier Richard McBride to connect the Grand Trunk Pacific main line at Prince George to Vancouver. Stewart served as PGE president from September 1912 until 1915–16.[1][5]
Following the First World War's financial disruption, the PGE came under scrutiny. In late 1916, newly elected Liberal Agriculture and Railways Minister John Oliver uncovered a $5.7 million overpayment to the contractors.[1] A legislative select committee investigated; Stewart was in Europe on war service during the inquiry, while others involved fled to Seattle. Government writs were issued in May 1917, and under a settlement reached in early 1918 the province received company assets valued at approximately $22.5 million plus $1.1 million in additional compensation.[1][6][7][8]
Lumber and other ventures
In 1911 Stewart and Welch became silent partners with lumberman Julius Harold Bloedel in Bloedel, Stewart, and Welch (BSW).[9] The company acquired British Columbia timberlands and began operations at Myrtle Point. During the 1920s, BSW expanded to Union Bay, Menzies Bay, and Alberni, adding processing facilities. By 1928, Stewart had purchased many of Welch's shares and served as vice-president, making BSW a dominant Vancouver Island logging and processing enterprise.[1]
Stewart and Welch also invested in Western Explosives Limited (1908–13), operating a dynamite plant and black-powder factory on Bowen Island, and owned Vancouver real estate and Fraser Valley mining properties.[1]
Military service
Stewart's military involvement began in 1910 when he sponsored the 72nd Regiment (Seaforth Highlanders), and he became honorary colonel in 1914.[1] In 1916 he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel to organize the 239th Infantry Battalion. Arriving in France as brigadier-general in March 1917, he reorganized Canadian railway-operating units into the 1st through 10th battalions of Canadian Railway Troops, commanding more than 15,000 men along the Western Front and undertaking missions to Egypt (1917) and Palestine (1918).[1][10]
Rising to major-general, Stewart received four mentions in dispatches and was decorated with the DSO, CMG, and CB. He departed for England on 25 January 1919 and returned to Canada in March of that year.[1]
Post-war contracting
Returning to civilian life, Stewart resumed work with Welch through Bloedel, Stewart, and Welch and established a new firm, Stewart and Welch (1919), with Vancouver and Calgary offices, which built CPR and PGE lines. He also organized J. W. Stewart and Company (with Vancouver and Winnipeg offices) for Canadian Northern Railway prairie work.[11]
From 1921, in partnership with the Winnipeg-based Northern Construction Company, he built portions of Ballantyne Pier (1922–23), a pulp plant in Newfoundland (1923), the CPR tunnel under Vancouver, and the Second Narrows Bridge over Burrard Inlet (completed 1925). The partnership also undertook work on the Welland Canal and marine terminals in Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Cape Tormentine, and Borden-Carleton.[1]
In 1928 Stewart travelled to New Zealand and later secured a railway contract in Iran. He maintained his association with Northern Construction until his death.[1]
Stewart and former wartime aide Lieutenant-Colonel Angus MacDonnell formed Stewart and MacDonnell Limited in London, winning a $17 million contract to construct a deep-water port and connecting railway at Takoradi in Ghana's Gold Coast colony. MacDonnell managed the site from 1921 while Stewart liaised from London. Cost overruns led the Colonial Office to terminate the contract in 1924.[1]
Vancouver Sun and public life
To support FWS during the PGE scandal, Stewart gained control of the Vancouver Sun in 1917, aligning it with the provincial Liberal Party while maintaining his own Conservative connections. He placed his secretary, Robert James Cromie, in charge; upon Stewart's return from Europe, Cromie acquired the paper under circumstances that were never fully explained.[1] By the late 1930s, Stewart directed London and Western Trusts Company Limited.[1]
In civilian life, Stewart was a committed member of Vancouver's Scottish community. A Presbyterian and 32nd-degree mason, he occupied a mansion in Shaughnessy Heights which he named Ardvar, after a village adjacent to his birthplace in Sutherland. Around 1911 he purchased a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost touring car and in 1912–13 bought some 135,000 acres in Scotland, making himself landlord of Assynt parish including the village of Nedd. He began selling off lots to tenants in 1923 and sold the remainder in 1936 for approximately £60,000.[1]
The Stewart family hosted the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and Prince George during their 1927 Canadian visit. As Vancouver's ranking military officer in the 1920s and 1930s, Stewart participated in military ceremonies, including the Seaforth Highlanders' 25th anniversary (1935) and a troop review for King George VI's coronation (1937).[1]
Death
Stewart died of a heart attack in Vancouver on 24 September 1938. He received a full military funeral attended by the city's civic and business elite.[1][12][13]
The Vancouver Daily Province described him posthumously as "one of the [city's] few real titans." His obituaries emphasized patriotic commitment to Canada and the immigrant self-made-man narrative, while largely passing over less flattering episodes such as the PGE scandal and the failed Gold Coast contract.[1]
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 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 Jamie Morton."Jamie Morton, "Stewart, John William," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16."[website].Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16 (University of Toronto/Université Laval).2024.University of Toronto/Université Laval.Link.(Rights: copyrighted | Access: open)
- ↑ Ancestry.com."Montana, U.S., county marriages, 1865–1987."[record].J. W. Stewart and Eliza Moran, 31 Jan. 1894.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ E. T. Foley."Seventy years: the Foley saga."[book].1945.Los Angeles.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ "Canadian Railway and Marine World."[newspaper].Canadian Railway and Marine World.1911.Issues 1911–1938.Toronto.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ British Columbia Legislative Assembly."Sessional papers, 1917 (proceedings and evidence re Pacific Great Eastern Railway Company)."[record].B.C. Legislative Assembly, Sessional Papers.1917.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ British Columbia Legislative Assembly."Sessional papers, 1924 (report re Pacific Great Eastern Railway)."[record].B.C. Legislative Assembly, Sessional Papers.1924.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ Bruce Ramsey."PGE: railway to the north."[book].1962.Vancouver.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ P. J. Stephenson."The Pacific Great Eastern Railway and British Columbia."[book].2012.PhD thesis, University of British Columbia.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ Donald MacKay."Empire of wood: the MacMillan Bloedel story."[book].1982.Vancouver and Seattle.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ G. W. L. Nicholson."Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919: official history of the Canadian army in the First World War."[book].1962.Ottawa.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ G. W. Taylor."The railway contractors: the story of John W. Stewart, his enterprises and associates."[book].1988.Victoria.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ "Vancouver Daily Province, 24–28 September 1938."[newspaper].Vancouver Daily Province.1938-09-24.Issues 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 September 1938.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)
- ↑ "Vancouver Sun, 24–28 September 1938."[newspaper].Vancouver Sun.1938-09-24.Issues 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 September 1938.(Rights: unknown | Access: open)