he article series about the history of the buildings on our campus continues! For this article, I have stepped out of the chronological order and decided to focus on the J.R. Brodie Science Centre. As with the other articles, this article focuses on the history of the Brodie Building and the person it is named after. The aim of this series of articles is to help everyone understand how our campus has evolved over the years and to learn about the people – whether controversial or not – that made it happen.
After the completion of the A.E. McKenzie Building and J.R.C Evans Theatre in 1960, Brandon University continued their construction boom with a steam plant, dining hall, two residences, a music building, a gymnasium, and the Education Building. The Centennial Auditorium was also built not long after in 1969. In the 1970s, though, Brandon University added two massive buildings to campus, the J.R. Brodie Science Centre and McMaster Hall. Supposedly, more was spent on construction in Brandon in 1971 than in all of Saskatchewan, mostly due to Brandon University’s new buildings.
The J.R. Brodie Science Centre’s construction began with a sod-turning ceremony on May 26, 1970. Queen Elizabeth II visited the construction site on July 12, 1970, and a stone was placed to celebrate her visit. The building officially opened to students and staff on May 8, 1972.
John Robert Brodie – who the Brodie Building was named after – was born in Quebec on July 3, 1879. He was an avid hockey player and supposedly was a member of the Montreal Stanley Cup and World Championship winning teams of 1901-1902 alongside Lester Patrick. In 1902, Brodie moved to Brandon and owned a grain brokerage business in the city in the early 1900s. He also bought a silver mine in Cobalt, Ontario in 1903 and founded The Great West Coal Company in 1912 in Winnipeg. With this company, Brodie owned many of the mines in Saskatchewan and some in other provinces. He would charge 8% commission to sell coal, which essentially meant he was charging his own company to sell their own coal. He also attempted to control the market by selling coal to his competitors.
One mine in particular that Brodie’s company might have owned has recently caused some issues. The Black Diamond coal mine near Edmonton was converted into a park. In 2023, a black tar-like substance was reportedly oozing out of the ground near the park, which posed a health risk to people. There were many mines in the area, and the city even used the site as a landfill at one point, so the toxic substance was not necessarily from the coal mine. Furthermore, there is a possibility that another Great West Coal Company existed and owned the Black Diamond mine. However, if Brodie’s company was the one that owned the mine, the topic of climate change was not as prevalent as it is today when the mine was in operation. While deemed irresponsible by today’s standards, the lack of care for the environment was not condemning, or even unusual, back in Brodie’s time. I am not saying that destroying the environment was good at any point in history, but it was not always viewed so negatively by society.
While living in Brandon, Brodie married Mabelle (Mabel) Agnes Gillespie on June 12, 1907. He also had another wife, Edna, that he married closer to the end of his life, although I could not find any records of her maiden name. With Mabelle he had a son named John Malcolm Brodie who was born in Brandon in 1920 and went on to manage The Great West Coal Company. Throughout his life, John R. Brodie enjoyed hunting, fishing, forestry, and geology, as well as hockey. He left Brandon in 1920 and died in Pheonix, Arizona in 1962. He gave Brandon University $250,000 to build the science centre we know today as the J.R. Brodie Science Centre, or Brodie Building.
Now, as the science centre was completed over half a century ago, Brandon University has recently recognized the dated technology and setup of the building. In 2015, Professor Bernadette Ardelli brought up the issue of the need for renovations on the building, and in 2018 an assessment was conducted and supposedly brought forth to the BU Board of Governors in March 2019. However, it wasn’t until March of last year, 2024, that any further news of the building’s renovation was revealed. There is now a plan to renovate the Brodie Building and add a six-storey research annex building at an estimated cost of 55 to 77 million dollars, although there has been no additional information on this plan, nor has a timeline been released yet.
With the possibilities of the science centre’s renovations, the question of whether to keep Brodie’s name for the building is important. Changing the building gives us an opportunity to change its name. While Brodie was not an outright controversial figure, and his generous donation was the reason for the science centre’s creation in the first place, his business schemes were not always good. Furthermore, the lack of care for how his company left mine sites, although not unusual at the time, is certainly criticized today. In fact, some people in Saskatchewan consider him a “shadowy figure,” especially since so little is known about him for all his successes. I will leave it up to you all. Should we continue to honour Brodie and keep his name on the science centre building after the possible renovations? Or is it time for a fresh start?
Sources: Manitoba Historical Society, The Brandon Sun, Brandon University, Public History on the Prairies, S.J. McKee Archives, Doug Gent’s History Pages, CBC News.