Will Tregillus: an Alberta booster a century ago.

Smith, Donald B.

In 1912 Calgary reached the peak of its first big economic boom. From 1901 to 1911 the city's population grew ten-fold, from 4,000 to over 44,000. (1) Prairie freight rates declined, the price of wheat rose, and cattle were in great demand. The "Foothills City" on the CPR's main line became the largest city between Winnipeg and Vancouver. Boosters believed that both Calgary's and Alberta's future were unlimited. And of those boosters, few in Calgary exceeded William Tregillus, a English immigrant, who believed implicitly in the unlimited potential of his new home.

Blest with ability, capital, and a good education, Tregillus fitted easily into the immigrant society of southern Alberta, the last area of the Canadian prairies to experience the full impact of non-Aboriginal settlement. Upon his arrival in 1902 he established a large ranch near Calgary, a city with a strong British heritage. According to the census of 1911 over 70 per cent of the population was of British descent. (2) In Calgary an Anglo-Canadian business and professional elite dominated, but social boundaries remained fluid and remarkably open. (3)

In terms of his background, Tregillus differed from many of his fellow western Canadian promoters. Urban historian Alan F.J. Artibise analyzed the rhetoric of progress immediately before World War I. (4) Commenting on western Canada, Artibise noted, "the vast majority of boosters were Anglo-Saxon Protestants of relatively humble origins who had come from the small towns and cities of the Maritimes and Ontario." (5) In contrast, Tregillus, was a well-spoken, upper middle class immigrant who came from England, not Eastern or Central Canada. (6)

In Calgary, the risk-receptive Will Tregillus established in 1912 the Tregillus Clay Products Company, the largest brick plant in southern Alberta. In that same year he prepared the Tregillus-Thompson Directory for 1913. On the western outskirts of Calgary stood his large ranch. There he raised horses, and then switched to dairy cattle to supply milk and cream for the Canadian Pacific Railway trains passing through the area. (7)

The opportunities in the new province astonished him. In Alberta he was free from old England's formality and conventions. In 1910 he wrote in The Grain Growers' Guide, the western farmers' newspaper:

   Who can dictate to the farmer in any
   particular? He knows that he is not
   expected to maintain any view or confess
   any creed that is not in accord with his
   deepest convictions; nor to yield to the
   opinion, prejudices or jealousies of any
   man or set of men, save only as his conscience
   may lead him." (8)

His faith in the Canadian West knew no bounds: "The recital of some of the not uncommon successes one hears in the Western country--although told in perfect truth and soberness--seem romantic to those who live in the older countries where possibilities are most restricted."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In 1912 a Calgary newspaper referred to Tregillus as a "millionaire," one of Calgary's sixteen. He ranked in the league of Senator James Lougheed, owner of the Calgary building that bore his name, as well as other valuable properties in the city. He stood with Pat Burns, the celebrated meat packer and rancher, and T.J.S. Skinner, the real estate giant who had just built a huge mansion in Mount Royal, Calgary's most exclusive suburb. (9) With his gift in 1912 of a huge land grant for a proposed new university, the well-educated Englishman with a practical training became one of Alberta's most influential citizens.

Born near Plymouth, England, in 1858, (10) Will left Britain in August 1902. Two of his brothers who had departed from England for western Canada twenty years earlier had just visited the family in England. Their success in the new country attracted him. Western Canada offered this ambitious Englishman, now in his early forties, the chance of a new beginning. Will convinced his wife Lillian to emigrate. Some years later he commented on the word "opportunity." He described it as "a passing event," which "if we fail to grasp it ... may pass beyond our reach." (11)

The new immigrant's education constituted his greatest asset. Tregillus had attended grammar schools in Devonshire and later Taunton College in neighbouring Somerset before becoming a miller like his father. In 1880, he married Lillian Chapman and they had a family of two boys and two girls. He first leased a mill in Devon. About 1890 he relocated to Southampton. For a time he worked in downtown Southampton in the sales department of Spillers, one of England's largest flour milling firms. (12) Later he operated his own milling and brokerage business from his home. He enjoyed the sales side of his business and proved successful at it. Around 1900, Southampton and its suburbs had a population of approximately 100,000, twenty or so times Calgary's population at the time.

A memoir later prepared by Will's younger son Cyril (13) recalled the family's comfortable middle class life in England. They lived in the residential suburb of Freemantle, one mile west of Southampton. Will had a telephone installed in their large residence where he had his office. A telephone was then an innovation for a private home. (14) Will loved riding. Regularly he rode with the Chilworth and Stoneham harriers, a club that hunted over the land owned by Squire Fleming, a member of an old local family that owned two manors. Will loved horses and occasionally visited Ireland to buy three or four hunters at horse fairs. (15) Yet, despite his economic security and social status, life in an English suburb of a medium-sized English city left him unfulfilled.

In light of his later political career in Alberta Will, surprisingly, participated sparingly in politics in England. He spent two years as a member of the local Shirley and Freemantle Council until the suburb and Southampton amalgamated in 1895. (16) Apart from that brief period of public service he apparently had no prior political experience before his election as the president of the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) in January 1912, after three years as vice-president.

In southern Alberta, Tregillus embraced the cause of the western Canadian farmer. A particular concern was to reverse the eastward shipment of Alberta grain from the head of Lake Superior, westward to Vancouver. He urged the development of Pacific Coast grain handling facilities as the shorter land route would lower costs. In 1910, three years before the Panama Canal's completion, Tregillus and the delegation of farmers he led to Vancouver, received a warm welcome. (17)

A strong advocate of farmers' rights the UFA vice-president forcefully explained his politics in The Grain Growers' Guide on July 13, 1910: "I have no further sympathy with 'party politics' and will in future only support those candidates who will pledge themselves to the following: Direct Legislation, the Initiative, Referendum and the right of Recall." As UFA president he made more than fifty trips in 1914 alone to small towns throughout the province, usually by train but many times by undeveloped, and sometimes near impassible, roads. (18)

The public-spirited Calgarian assumed many civic obligations. A strong believer in public education he sat on the West Calgary School Board. In 1912 the farmer turned manufacturer ran for alderman on Calgary's City Council on a platform that enlisted the support of "every man, rich or poor, no matter what his color, creed or politics." (19) After his successful election he served on several occasions as acting mayor. (20) In addition the Alberta Horticultural Society elected him as their vice-president. (21) A man of many talents he also served as an early president of the Calgary choral society. (22)

Tregillus's openness and positive attitude best explain his political success in Alberta. He had no superiority complex, the curse of a number of middle and upper class English immigrants to Canada. In contrast to the average western Canadian farmer, who as late as 1930 only had grade five to eight education, (23) he had attended college. But he adopted no airs about his superior education. In December 1910, the UFA selected him as one of their four representatives to join the Canadian Council of Agriculture's delegation to the House of Commons in Ottawa. With 800 other Canadian farmers he marched through downtown Ottawa to Parliament Hill to present rural Canada's case for economic and social justice. (24) Tregillus knew the difficulties that farmers faced in maintaining their lifestyle in a country that was undergoing large-scale urbanization and industrialization. But, although they did meet with Wilfrid Laurier, the prime minister promised little in respect to tariff reduction. Disenchanted, Tregillus wrote, "Sir Wilfrid Laurier does not seem to have grasped the nationalism of the movement ... I am keenly disappointed with his reply." (25)

Their neighbour George Edworthy remembered the Tregillus family as "cultured, charming people." (26) Later The Grain Growers Guide recalled the UFA president in this way: "His genial disposition, his tolerance of the opinion of others, and his unassuming modesty won him friends in large numbers." (27) Yet, "no man is a hero to his valet," as the old saying goes, applies here. His four offspring did not recall their father's geniality, and easy approach to life. At home a different style prevailed. There the word of their very Victorian father was law. They referred to him as "the governor." (28)

Tregillus's son Cyril recalled the small community of about 5,000 to which the family arrived in the fall of 1902. "Calgary was a typical cow town then. The sidewalks were wood with hitching posts in front with rails joining them." (29) But the city at the junction of the Bow and the Elbow quickly expanded. Without any overriding plan, new residential areas expanded in all directions. By 1912, at the height of the city's phenomenal boom just before the outbreak of World War I, development spread out toward the Tregillus ranch. (30)

Will first leased a quarter section of land just west of the city, south of the Bow River, located along the river. He then expanded his general farm operation, buying from the CPR three adjacent quarter sections of unbroken prairie, next to the quarter section he rented. The tract occupied the districts now known as Wildwood, Westgate, and Rosscarrock. Later he extended his holdings by buying two more quarter sections to the west from the Hudson's Bay Company. (31)

For several years he also leased 2,500 acres of land on the north bank of the Bow River, in what became known as Bowness. (32) Cyril Tregillus later recalled: "It was a choice property with several hundred acres of river bottom including an island, and hillside rising with two flood plains providing pasture and meadow." Will next bought another 300 acres adjoining the leased land. He now owned outright over 1,000 acres. (33)

On the eastern portion of their farm the Tregilluses built a spacious two-storey brick house, with a stable and barns. They named their new home "Roscarrock" after the Cornish place of origin of distant Tregillus ancestors. (34) The family welcomed visitors from the surrounding ranching country and from Calgary. The home had its own library and the huge living room doubled as a ballroom. (35)

Will's ranch provided basic training to a number of young Englishmen who came out to Alberta to become farmers and ranchers. At any time there might be half-a-dozen trainees at Roscarrock, as well as the experienced hands. (36) In addition to his ranch and farm operation Tregillus became interested in dairy cattle and founded Calgary's first pasteurized bottled milk business. For several years he supplied milk and cream to the CPR trains. He next transformed Roscarrock into a centre for the breeding of thoroughbred Holstein cattle to supply dairy herds throughout Alberta. (37)

Blest by economic success, Will Tregillus took his family on a Grand Tour of Europe in 1911. His letters reveal the depth of his cultural and intellectual interests. He loved Rome, "with its "paintings, sculpture, mosaics, columns and ruins of historic importance." With great enthusiasm this most unusual Albertan described "Don Pasquale" in Rome's Opera House, as "one of the richest musical treats of our lives." In Venice, he sought out Titian's masterpiece, "The Ascension." Once he arrived in northern Europe his practical side emerged. In Denmark, he wrote about the skilled Danish farmers, "unquestionably masters in the art of dairying." (38) On the sea voyage back to Canada from England Tregillus met James Cameron, agricultural editor of the Glasgow Herald. The Scottish journalist later recalled: "... on board he was one of the most charming of companions--optimistic, humorous, broad in outlook, happy in reminiscences, and for ever seeking the good of others." (39)

After his return, Tregillus made the biggest financial gamble of his career. He built a modern $1 million brick plant to employ a total of 250 men on completion, 500 after six months of operation, and 1,000 in the near distant future. (40) The plant stood just east of today's Sarcee Trail, immediately south of the Bow River.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Always the optimist Will Tregillus kept his eyes on the rainbow. The rapidly growing city and the surrounding district desperately needed building materials. Tregillus was confident that he could meet the demand, not just of bricks, but also of high quality tiles and sewer pipes. He knew the northern edge of his property contained high-grade clay deposits. Most of the sandstone quarries had worn out so bricks had now replaced sandstone. He could supply Calgary and Alberta with bricks.

At the pinnacle of his financial success Tregillus used his wealth to provide for higher education. In 1912 he told the annual UFA convention: "Knowledge is power, gives light, independence, and freedom; while lack of knowledge--ignorance--is weakness, darkness, dependence, and bondage." (41) Will Tregillus, that same year, donated a large tract of his prime ranchland as a site for a university. The Preliminary Announcement of the University of Calgary described the future campus in these terms:

   The site donated for the University, consisting of one hundred and
   sixty acres four and a half miles west of the Calgary Post Office,
   is truly a magnificent one, and it may be doubted whether any other
   college in Canada has its equal. At an eminence of 550 ft. above
   the central portion of the city, or an altitude of about 4,000
   ft.--on a level with the crater of Mount Vesuvius--the view in
   every direction is one not easily surpassed. To the west the
   snowcapped peaks of the Rockies are in plain sight. To the east the
   eye has a splendid range of vision over the city and the valley of
   the Bow River, while in all directions is a commanding view of the
   country round about." (42)

The benefactor explained to his minister, Rev. J.C. Sycamore of First Baptist Church, why he made the gift. As Rev. Sycamore later recalled, Tregillus "said that his land had advanced in price since he bought it. The coming of so many people to Calgary had helped toward this. Therefore, he said, it was the duty of others, to do something for these people." (43)

In addition to providing prime real estate, worth an estimated $150,000 in late 1912, (44) Will Tregillus promised a cash donation of $50,000. (45) Then, he went further, donating what was in his case, something even more precious than land or money: his own time. He became the first secretary of what the organizers hoped would become, "the outstanding private University of Western Canada." (46)

Self-interest also contributed to his decision. Tregillus and other city boosters believed in the importance of a privately-financed university for more than just philanthropic motivations. They understood that a university would drive up land values, increase trade, and generally help the town to grow. Secondly, they saw the obvious need of scientific and technical experts to exploit fully the province's natural resources: its forests, minerals, and agriculture.

The University of Calgary's Board secretary carefully supervised the preparation of The Preliminary Announcement of the University of Calgary. (47) Published in July 1912, it conveyed unlimited confidence in the future of both Alberta and Calgary. The document stated: "The Department of Agriculture estimates the good agricultural land of Alberta to be 100,000,000 acres, of which only two per cent is tilled. The Department of the Interior estimates the coal area to be 77,000 square miles. Calgary is the commercial centre of 30,000,000 acres of rich farming, grazing, timber and coal lands, the development of which has only begun." (48)

With all his considerable business acumen, Will Tregillus had one serious shortcoming. Unlike the older residents in Alberta he had missed the economically difficult decade of the 1890s. (49) His blind spot was that he knew only Calgary's boom years in the early twentieth century. On account of this he vastly overestimated the value of his Roscarrock property, needed as security to obtain investment money for his brick plant. With great enthusiasm he wrote Thomas Crerar, the Manitoba farm leader, on November 1, 1912 that soon the value of his home farm, "will be over one million in the spring as the University building will be commenced then & the site is to the West of this property, so that it stands between the University & the city." (50)

May 5, 1913, perhaps more than any other day, marked the summit of Will Tregillus's prominence in Calgary. The new Hudson's Bay Company store, the Canada Life Building, and the new CPR Palliser Hotel, all used his face brick in construction. (51) That day the News-Telegram's front page carried a drawing of him, riding one of his beloved hackneys in front of the Tregillus Clay Products plant. The paper praised his contributions to the city, including his role as "the organizer and head of Tregillus Clay Products Company, one of the city's greatest industries."

His former life in Britain seemed so remote now. Just six weeks earlier he had written his brother Sydney in England, who after their father's death had decided to join him in Calgary. "I am looking forward to your coming & trust you will enjoy the move as much as I do. Honestly I don't know how I should feel now to have to go back to the old life ..." (52)

Tregillus did not foresee the economic crash of early 1913. His Calgary University, which had begun its first classes in the newly opened Carnegie Library (now known as the Central Memorial Park Library) in October 1912, only lasted two and a half years. John Marshall Tory, the founding president of the existing University of Alberta in Edmonton, opposed the initiative. One central principle guided his actions: Alberta needed one strong university. (53)

In early 1912 Tory lobbied furiously among the members of the legislature to defeat the proposed bill, one that would allow Calgary University to grant degrees. He told the politicians that the province could support only one university capable of first-rate research and teaching. The bill failed, partially because of Tory's arguments, but more importantly on account of Calgary's limited rural support. Many rural legislators believed that primary schools, not university education, needed the new province's attention. The Alberta legislature continued to refuse to confer degree-granting powers, and turned down another request to do so in early March 1913. (54)

After the real estate bust of early 1913 the University of Calgary's chances of survival diminished further. Will Tregillus, a die-hard booster, still believed the institution would survive and prosper. But the province's refusal to allow it to grant degrees, coupled with the collapse of the real estate boom in early 1913, doomed the effort.

Despite the warning signs that the economy had made a turn for the worst Tregillus remained optimistic. In mid-March 1913, he stated at a railways and industries meeting of city council, "that there was never a better time for a man or the city to buy land for investment than at the present time. There were bargains that would never be seen again, for the money tightness was only a passing phase." (55) A week later he wrote to brother Sydney about the market for his bricks: "We hope to be in good shape to catch this season's demand & if the money market loosens up, the building will break all records. Calgary is destined to become a great city & we shall always have a big demand as far as we need it." (56)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The diehard Calgary booster still believed unreservedly in the city's future. In arguing for the establishment of a union stockyard in Calgary, he wrote: "It has been stated by experts that Calgary can, in the course of time, become a greater livestock centre than Chicago." (57)

The economic crash brought Will down with it. He had overreached. Despite his brave front the depression of 1913 reduced the value of his farm to a fraction of its former value. With the end of the building boom, his plant could not sell its bricks. By late 1913, son Cyril later recalled his father in his flagship headquarters, the newly constructed Lougheed Building in downtown Calgary; "Father was busy with many affairs. He had a suite of offices in Calgary and spent most his time there ... He was a worried man, and was having a difficult time keeping his ship afloat." (58)

On February 13, 1914 the News-Telegram reported that Tregillus could not pay a bill of $4,550 (59)--small change compared to the payment of $165, 311 that the Bank of Quebec requested the following year. (60) Tregillus-Thompson published only the city directory for 1913 before its office closed. Pressed to the wall, Will resigned from the Board of Governors of the University of Calgary in late July 1914. (61) The Tregillus empire quickly shrank in the months to follow. On August 11, 1914, he explained his financial plight to Thomas Crerar: "Things have gone roughly with me & I am up against it, the war has made it very hard indeed. We were getting some good paying orders & laying out for the busiest time we have had, when all orders except a few insignificant ones have been withdrawn or delayed." (62)

Will Tregillus died on November 12, 1914 as an indirect result of a freak accident on a visit to Winnipeg. As The Grain Growers' Guide reported, while at a meeting of the Grain Growers' Grain Company his chair slipped off the edge of the platform and he suffered an injury as a result of the fall. Apparently "he paid little attention to it at the time, and later in the evening delivered one of the best speeches of his life." (63) On the journey back to Calgary, however, complications set in. He was not in good health, as The Albertan said in its obituary notice: "All this work and his other multitudinous duties are believed to have sapped his vitality." (64) Shortly after his return to Roscarrock, the fifty-six-year-old Will Tregillis died from typhoid fever. (65)

The City of Calgary dropped its flag at City Hall to half-mast. (66) Letters of condolence arrived at Roscarrock from across western Canada. Out of respect for the deceased, City Hall closed the afternoon of his funeral, held at First Baptist Church. Seldom, the NewsTelegram commented, "are so many floral tributes seen at a funeral as were in evidence in the church. There were banks of wreaths." Six City of Calgary mounted policemen escorted his body to Union cemetery after the service. (67) In an editorial statement The Albertan described Tregillus as "an enthusiastic Western Canadian, a man of intelligence and enterprise." (68)

Obviously much of what Will Tregillus sought to accomplish had came to naught, pulled down by the economic collapse of 1913. The bubble burst and the tide of western Canada's fortunes reversed itself. Like so many other Alberta boosters, Will Tregillus had made no contingency for a major depression. Unfamiliar with the West's boom-bust cycles, the English immigrant gained a fortune in one single decade, only to see it vanish in the final two years of his life.

Historical memory is very selective as regards the victors and the vanquished. Today the Tregillus name graces no building, walkway, or square, at any of Calgary's post-secondary institutions. A city street in Thorncliffe in North West Calgary bears his name, but it is only two blocks long, in an area geographically distant from his ranch house, Roscarrock. The City of Calgary named a subdivision "Rosscarrock" near where his ranch house stood, but erroneously added an extra "s" to the designation.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

NOTES

I am most grateful to Doug Francis, Dept. of History, University of Calgary, for his excellent comments on two early drafts of this essay. The author included a biographical sketch of W.J. Tregillus as a tenant in the Lougheed office building in Calgary, see chapter six in his Calgary's Grand Story The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005, 97-114.

(1) Hugh A. Dempsey, Calgary: Spirit of the West (Calgary: Fifth House, 1994), 81-88.

(2) "Table VII. Ethnic Origins of Calgary's Population, 1901-1961," in Max Foran, Calgary An Illustrated History (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1978), Table VII, 178 Bryan R Melnyk, Calgary Builds, (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1985), 22.

(3) Howard and Tamara Palmer, Alberta. A New History (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1991): 138. Also useful for an understanding of pre-World War I Calgary and Alberta is Lewis G. Thomas's essay, "Alberta 1905-1980," in The New Provinces: Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905-1980, eds. Howard Palmer and Donald Smith (Vancouver: Tantalus Research Limited, 1980), 23-41.

(4) Alan F.J.. Artibise, "Boosterism and the Development of Prairie Cities, 1871-1913," in Town and City: Aspects of Western Canadian Urban Development, ed. Alan F.J. Artibise (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1981); reprinted in R. Douglas Francis and Howard Palmer, The Prairie West. Historical Readings, (2nd edition, Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1992), 515-43.

(5) Ibid., 518.

(6) Little has actually been written biographically about prairie boosters. One of the few academics to write on this topic is western Canadian historian Max Foran. See his, "The Boosters in Boosterism: Some Calgary Examples," Urban History Review, 8 (October 1979): 72-82; and, "Fred Lowes. Booster Extraordinaire," Alberta History, 37,2 (Spring 1989): 11-20. A close reading of the most recent volumes of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography reveals several additional examples. Foran's biography of William Tregillus, for instance, appears in volume 14: 1911-1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 1006-08.

(7) A discussion of the life of Will Tregillus in Alberta appears in chapter six, "W.J. Tregillus: The Prime Tenant," in Donald B. Smith, Calgary's Grand Story The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005), 97-114.

(8) W.T. Tregillus, "Agriculture as a Profession," The Grain Grower' Guide, December 21, 1910, 12.

(9) "Calgary has at Least Sixteen Millionaires, of Whom Fifteen Made Their Fortunes in This City," Calgary News-Telegram, July 15, 1912.

(10) Some sources list 1859 as the date of his birth, but Max Foran in his sketch of W.J. Tregillus in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14: 1911-1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1998): 1008, establishes that it was May 2, 1858, citing the Devon Record Office, West Devon Area (Plymouth, Eng.), 167/14 (Charles Parish Church, Plymouth, RBMB), 167/14.

(11) W.J. Tregillus quoted in "Farmers Foregather Here to Consider matters of Vital Importance to Them," Calgary News-Telegram, January 22, 1913.

(12) Norman F. Priestley and Edward B. Swindlehurst, Furrows, Faith and Fellowship. (Edmonton: Co-op Press Ltd. 1967, 37), "Loughtor Mills," Milling, July 6, 1907, 48.

(13) Tregillus, "Reminiscences."

(14) Ibid., 10.

(15) Ibid., 5-7.

(16) Kelly's Directory of Southampton, 1894 (London: Kelly and Co., 1894): 10, 18. The history of Freemantle and neighbouring Shirley appears in: Philippa Newnham, "The Southampton District of Shirley," in Shirley from Domesday to D Day, ed. John Guilmant (Southampton: Community History Unit, 1997), 19-28.

(17) Anon., "William John Tregillus 1858-1914," William J. Tregillus Papers, M6286., pp. 1-2, Glenbow Archives.

(18) "W.J. Tregillus, Head United Farmers, Dead," The Albertan, November 13, 1914.

(19) "Will Municipal Elections Next Year be Run on a New Reform Ticket?" Calgary News-Telegram, July 22, 1912.

(20) "Ald. Tregillus to be Made Acting Mayor," News-Telegram, July 17, 1913; "Property owners object to CNR Crossing Street," Ibid. January 2, 1914.

(21) Summaries of Will Tregillus's life include: Anon., "William John Tregillus 1858-1914," Biographical Information, Calgary, 1982, M6286, Glenbow Archives; Max Foran, "William John Tregillus," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14: 1911-1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 1006-08; Priestley and Swindlehurst, Furrows, 36-38; Archibald Oswald MacRae, History of the Province of AIbenta, (n.p.: The Western Canada Co., 1912) 1000-01; "W.J. Tregillus, Head United Farmers, Dead," The Albertan, November 13, 1914. Probably the best source of all is Cyril Tregilius, "Reminiscences." Family member Robert Tregillus kindly showed the document to me and a copy has been placed in the Glenbow Library. I am most grateful to my friend, Gillian Hawes, of South Brent, Devon, for driving me to see the Tregillus home and mill at Loughtor Mills, near Plymouth.

(22) Tregillus, "Reminiscences," 34

(23) C.A. Dawson and Eva R Younge, Pioneering in the Prairie Provinces: The Social Side of the Settlement Process (Toronto: Macmillan, 1940): 31-32; quoted in Dick Harrison, Unnamed Country The Struggle for a Canadian Prairie Fiction (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1977), 38.

(24) "Farmers at Ottawa," The Grain Growers' Guide, December 21, 1910; R.D. Colquette, The First Fifty Years. A History of the United Grain Growers Limited (Winnipeg: The Public Press, 1957): 140-41.

(25) W.J. Tregillus quoted in "Many Delegates Disappointed. Sir Wilfrid Didn't Say Enough," Ottawa Citizen, quoted in Nathan S. Elliott, "'We Have Asked for Bread, and You Gave Me a Stone.' Western Farmers and the Siege of Ottawa." (M.A. thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 2004), 98

(26) George Edworthy, "Wildwood," typed manuscript, p. 7. Glenbow Archives.

(27) Editobal, "The Death of Mr. Tregillus," The Grain Growers' Guide, November 18, 1914.

(28) Tregillus, "Reminiscences," 4, 7.

(29) Ibid., 21.

(30) Fred Kennedy, "When Subdivision Stakes Sprouted Over Vast Areas," Calgary Herald, January 21, 1933.

(31) Ibid., 28. Cyril is slightly incorrect on the purchase of the three quarter-sections of CPR land. The 480 acres were transferred by the CPR on October 10, 1902, only after a few weeks after the Tregillus's arrival in Calgary. See Glenbow Archives CPR database, vol. 91, contract number 21325. My thanks to John Hawitt for this information.

(32) Accounts by various Calgary authors, Communities of Calgary From Scattered Towns to a Major City (Calgary: Century Calgary Publications, 1975), 13.

(33) Tregillus, "Reminiscences," 36.

(34) For information on the name Roscarrock see A.L Rowse, "Nicolas Roscarrock and his Lives of the Saints," The Little Land of Cornwall (Gloucester, England: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1986): 145-77. "Roscarrock" is the spelling W.J. Tregillus used. See his letter to Sydney, dated March 24, 1913, William J. Tregillus Fonds, M8316, Glenbow Archives. In error the City of Calgary has added a second "s" and refers to the district named after the Tregillus home, "Rosscarrock."

(35) Georgina Thomson, "Colorful Rosscarrock," Calgary Herald, May 31, 1958,

(36) "Tregillus," M6286, Glenbow Archives

(37) Anon "Tregillus"; MacRae, Alberta, 1001.

(38) On Will's 1911 European tour see The Albertan, June 3, 13, 15, 21, 28; July 6, 1911.

(39) James Cameron, ",The Late Alderman Tregillus. Glasgow, December 11, 1914," Calgary News-Telegram, December 28, 1914.

(40) In May the cost was estimated at $500,000, see "Another New Industry," Calgary News-Telegram, May 1, 1912. Six months later, it had doubled, see: "Tregillus Clay Products Company About Ready to Commence Operations," Calgary News-Telegram, October 21, 1912.

(41) W.J. Tregillus quoted in UFA, film BR, Minutes and Reports of Annual Convention, 1912, p. 9, Glenbow Archives.

(42) Preliminary Announcement of the University of Calgary, July 1912, 7. University Archives, University of Calgary.

(43) "Funeral of Aid Tregillus is impressive," The Albertan, November 17, 1914.

(44) "O.S. Chapin, E.A. Dagg, D, Hope, "Why W.J. Tregillus Deserves Well at the Hands of the Electors of Calgary," Calgary NewsTelegram, December 7, 1912.

(45) "Calgary University is Now in Working Order," Calgary NewsTelegram, September 23, 1912; Preliminary Announcement, 13

(46) Preliminary Announcement, 6.

(47) Preliminary Announcement of the University of Calgary July 1912, 12. A copy is in the University Archives, University of Calgary

(48) Preliminary Announcement, 12

(49) Donald Smith and Henry Klassen, "Onward! Calgary in the 1890s," in Donald Smith, ed Centennial City Calgary 1894-1994 (Calgary: University of Calgary, 1994): 1-14.

(50) William J. Tregillus to "Mr Crearer" [Thomas Crerar], dated November 1, 1912. Thomas Crerar Fonds, Queen's University Archives.

(51) "Tregillus" Special Advertising Department, Henderson's Calgary Directory, 1912, 94-95.

(52) Will Tregillus to Sydney Tregillus, dated Roscarrock, Calgary, March 24, 1913, William J Tregilius Fonds, M8316, Glenbow Archives

(53) Henry Marshall Tory, "Autobiography 1907-1915," Library and Archives Canada, MG 30, series D115, vol. 27, pp. 29-32. The particular clash Tory describes concerns his proposal to have the provincial agricultural college as a faculty at the University of Alberta, a position that Tregillus opposed. He wanted a separate agricultural college.

(54) Norman Leslie McLeod, "Calgary College, 1912-1915." (Ph.D thesis, University of Calgary, 1970), 132.

(55) "No reason for Gloom in West Over Outlook," News-Telegram, March 15, 1913.

(56) Will Tregillus to Sydney Tregillus, dated Roscarrock, Calgary, March 24, 1913, William J. Tregillus Fonds, M8316, Glenbow Archives.

(57) W.J. Tregillus, "Construction of Calgary Stock Yards with Adequate Accommodations Solves the Problem of Lasting Prosperity," The Albertan, The 100.000 manufacturing, building and wholesale book edition of the Morning Albertan, 1914, 105. For information on the stockyards question see, Max Foran, "Blurred Vision: The Calgary Union Stockyard Issue, 1913-1914," Urban History Review, 32,2 (Spring 2004): 33-44.

(58) Tregillus, "Reminiscences," 47-6.

(59) "Suit Entered Against Aid. W.J. Tregillus," Calgary News Telegram, February 13, 1914.

(60) "$165,311.00 Writ Against the W.J. Tregillus Estate," Ibid., September 23, 1915.

(61) "'Varsity Official Resigns," Ibid., July 30, 1914.

(62) W.J. Tregillus to "Mr. T. A. Crerar," dated August 11, 1914, Thomas Crerar Fonds, Queen's University Archives.

(63) "Death of W.J. Tregillus," The Grain Growers' Guide, November 18, 1914.

(64) "W.J. Tregillus, Head United Farmers, Dead," The Albertan, November 13, 1914.

(65) Ibid.

(66) "Flag at Half Mast," Calgary News-Telegram, November 13, 1914.

(67) "Funeral of Aid. Tregillus is Impressive," Ibid., November 17, 1914.

(68) "Death of W.J. Tregillus," The Albertan, November 13, 1914.