Last semester, I wrote a few articles that delved into the history of the Original Building, Clark Hall, and the Knowles-Douglas Student Union Centre here on campus. These articles were part of a series that focuses on the history of each building on campus, their impact, and the history of the person the buildings are named after. These articles are meant to help everyone understand how Brandon University got to where we are today – taking both the negatives and positives into consideration – and the possible issues with having some of the buildings on campus named after possibly controversial historical figures. This issue’s article, the third in the series, focuses on the fourth-oldest building on campus, and the first building in Brandon University’s mass construction phase: the A.E. McKenzie Building.
In the 1960s, Brandon University’s campus underwent a large expansion due to more government funding, major community support, and a good board of governors. This was considered a construction boom both for the school and the city. The first of this expansion was the new arts and library building, the A.E. McKenzie Building, followed closely by the J.R.C Evans Theatre. In the early 1990s, the library was expanded to create what is now considered the George T. Richardson Centre, connected to the A.E. McKenzie Building.
Albert E. McKenzie himself was a very controversial figure, at least when it comes to his actions and ideals. Born on August 1, 1870, in Wilcox Lake, Ontario to Francis Bethel McKenzie and Maria (Carley) McKenzie, McKenzie moved to Brandon with his family in 1882. Brandon had just become a city the same year, and his father established a seed and grain business. McKenzie married Laura Bell from Carman and they had two daughters, Marjorie and Kathleen.
When his father died in 1896, McKenzie took over the business at the age of 26, changing the company’s name to A.E. McKenzie & Company. He also sold garden and lawn seeds instead of grain seed. However, McKenzie was a master of marketing, and in 1900 he sent out a catalogue, jumping on the new trend of having gardens and lawns around every home. Because of this, company quickly became the largest of its kind in Canada, employing over 100 workers by 1905. The McKenzie Seeds Building was built in 1910 to house the company, and it was the first reinforced concrete building in Brandon and the city’s tallest building until Scotia Towers was completed in 1973. McKenzie continued to run the company until his death on September 25, 1964, when the company became a crown corporation until 1994 when it returned to private ownership.
Now, McKenzie was a major charitable member of Brandon’s community, as he was affiliated with the YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army, Community Chest, was a member of the Kiwanis Club, and was an officer of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce. He even refused to lay off workers during the Great Depression, ensuring his employees had jobs to feed their families. His most notable work, though, was his contribution to Brandon College. Throughout the Great Depression, McKenzie helped to keep the struggling college open and established the A.E. McKenzie Endowment Fund in 1939, giving 90% of his shares in the company – about one million dollars – to the provincial government on the condition that the profits from the company went to Brandon College. He later established the A.E. McKenzie Foundation that benefits Brandon University to this day. His daughter followed in his footsteps when it came to supporting Brandon College, as she taught at the college from 1927-1930, resigned to do post-graduate work, then returned in 1935 as Instructor of Public Speaking and Dean of Women in Clark Hall for a year.
However, for all his charitable contributions, A.E. McKenzie also had his flaws. He specifically employed women and immigrants to his business in the early 1900s because they were cheap labour and he could pay them less, giving him more money to construct the buildings for his company and invest in marketing. He would also watch staff come in and if they were even a minute late, he’d grab their timecard and dock them pay. According to former workers, he also kept a lot of mostly feral cats in the company’s buildings, an issue that many of the women working for the company opposed - but as I could find no concrete documentation to back up this claim, it remains a rumour. Two issues with the company that are certainly not rumours, as the documentation can be found in the S.J. McKee Archives, is the fact that the company lost two legal trials: one for mail fraud, and the other for selling seeds to a company in Berlin, Germany in 1938 – right before the events of World War II.
As I said, A.E. McKenzie had a very interesting, and sometimes conflicting, life. His charitable contributions are vast and extraordinary, especially because Brandon University and all of us might not be here today if it weren’t for the funding he provided the school. However, his mistreatment of staff and questionable practices are noteworthy as well. I suppose I’ll leave it up to you all to decide. Do we praise McKenzie for keeping the very school we go alive during financial difficulties, or are his controversial actions towards his staff and during the war years shameful? Or can we appreciate someone who helped our community during its most difficult times, despite their downfalls?
Sources: S.J. McKee Archives, The Brandon Sun, The Manitoba Historical Society.