The Railway King of Canada: Sir William MacKenzie, 1849-1923

by Rae B. Fleming

During the first two decades of this century, Sir William Mackenzie was one of Canada’s best known entrepreneurs. Spearheading some of the largest and most technologically advanced projects undertaken in Canada, he built a business empire that stretched from Montreal to British Columbia and to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil. It included gas, electric, telephone and transit utilities, railroads, hotels, and steamships as well as substantial coal mining, whaling, and timber interests. But when he died in 1923, his estate was virtually bankrupt as a result of the dramatic collapse of his Canadian Northern Railway during the First World War. In a business biography intended as much for general readers as for a scholarly audience, Fleming offers a revisionist perspective on Mackenzie. He dispels the simplistic approach of those historians and journalists who have depicted Mackenzie and his partner Sir Donald Mann as melodramatic crooks who could have stepped out of the pages of Huckleberry Finn.

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1991

Reviews

[Doug]

It’s hard to rate this book. The writing is good, the research is thorough (or at least as complete as it could be one supposes) and we learn a lot about events surrounding an important personage in Canadian history who has sunk into increasing obscurity. But we learn little about the character and personal life of William MacKenzie himself. Fleming apologizes for this at the very beginning as there is very little of the man’s own records available to the biographer. And that is a pity. The public record tends to paint Mackenzie as a rogue and a manipulator whose empire collapsed in the end with little sympathy from historians. Fleming tries to correct this impression and chide some other observers, but in the end we don’t know enough of the man’s character and motives to decide for ourselves.
I recently read a biography of Alexander Graham Bell (Reluctant Genius) and was a bit critical that Charlotte Gray put too much attention on his character and relationships and not enough on his business interests, but I now realize a good biography has to do both, bring the man and the times to life. Fleming missed the mark, but it may not have been his fault.