page_title: William Watson Ogilvie
section_title: Ogilvie Flour Mills
hierarchical_section_title: William Watson Ogilvie / Ogilvie Flour Mills
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the original description provided by BAnQ has been retained. Additional descriptive text may be added by Wikimedians with the wiki description = parameter, but please do not modify the other fields.English: We see the Ogilvie flour mills on the banks of the Lachine Canal in Montreal. Français&#160;: Nous voyons les moulins de la farine Ogilvie sur les berges du canal de Lachine à Montréal.
context_page_description: Captain William Watson Ogilvie, commanded a division of the Royal Montreal Cavalry during the Fenian Raids. He and his two brothers, Alexander and John, are remembered for their pioneering work in the Canadian milling trade and as pioneers and believers in the success of the Canadian West.
context_section_description: His brother expanded the family's flour mills and renamed the firm A. W. Ogilvie & Co., of Montreal. William joined his brothers, Alex and John, as a partner in May 1860. In 1868 William, accompanied by his brother Alexander Walker Ogilvie, travelled to Hungary to inspect the latest milling processes and adopted them into their own mills to produce a superior grade of flour. By 1872, the company was expanding into Ontario. When Alex entered politics, William succeeded him running the firm from Montreal. The Ogilvies shipped their first load of wheat from Manitoba in 1877 and for the next decade dominated the grain trade of western Canada, which was experiencing an agricultural boom. They built a mill at Winnipeg in 1882.
  They made an agreement with William Cornelius Van Horne and formed a monopoly with the Canadian Pacific Railway in exporting grain from Manitoba. By 1884 alone, this brought them a profit of $50,000. Manitoban producers complained, but the Ogilvies monopoly continued with the growth of the Canadian West. A worker at their Montreal mill recalled William Ogilvie: "He was a fine figure of a man, tall, with a keen face and impressive sideburns, the very cut of a cavalry officer. He led his millers a merry life – always hiring, discharging and re-hiring them." Ogilvie assumed total control of the company after his brother John died in 1888. By the turn of the century he had made the firm the largest milling company in the dominion with a worldwide reputation for producing high-quality flour.
  Ogilvie was the president of the Montreal Board of Trade in 1893 and 1894, and a member of its council for six years. He was also a director of the Bank of Montreal, the Montreal Transportation Company, the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, and a founding director of the Royal Trust Company. A generous philanthropist, he supported numerous charities and institutions across Canada including McGill University and the Winnipeg General Hospital. In politics, he was a member of the Conservative party. He campaigned for his brother Alexander Walker's appointment to the Senate in 1881, noting in a letter to Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald the past loyalty of the Ogilvie family to the party. He made substantial contributions at election time and favoured Macdonald's National Policy.
caption: Ogilvie Flour Mills on the Lachine Canal in 1948.
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