In 2018, five agricultural leaders, including one from Wellington County, whose influences span more than 150 years, will be inducted into Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame.
The late William Beaty, William (Barry) Hill, Harvey Graham, the late Gordon Leitch and the late James J. Morrison have all been selected by the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame Association as worthy candidates based on their life-long commitments to Ontario’s agriculture.
The five will be invested at the Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony on June 10 at Country Heritage Park in Milton.
To qualify, inductees must have demonstrated visionary leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the advancement of agriculture in Ontario.
“Our board of directors had an incredibly difficult selection process this year,” said John Kikkert, president of the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame Association.
“The five inductees for 2018 were chosen from many worthy candidates, each of whom had made significant impacts to Ontario agriculture.
These inductees, however, were chosen on the basis of the lasting legacies that they made in their respective fields.”
James J. Morrison (1861 to 1936) was known as the “father of the Ontario farm movement.”
Morrison was born on a farm south of Arthur. In 1914, he helped create the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) on the grounds that farmers and rural Ontario needed to work together to achieve the goals of good business and living conditions.
By 1919, the UFO had 50,000 members and won the Ontario election. While in power, the UFO made leading contributions to social legislation including a Mother’s Allowance Act, a Minimum Wage Act for Women, increased workers compensation benefits, increased rural electrification and the creation of the Province of Ontario Savings Office to lower lending rates to farmers.
Morrison also helped to found the United Farmers’ Co-operative Company (now the Ontario Co-operative Association), and worked with the UFO to form the Ontario Chamber of Agriculture (now the Ontario Federation of Agriculture).
He was an outstanding and precedent-setting leader in rural Ontario, state officials.
He was nominated by the Wellington County Historical Society.
The 2018 induction ceremony will take place on June 10 at Country Heritage Park in Milton.
Details on how to purchase tickets are available on the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame’s website at www.oahf.on.ca.
Wellington County Museum and Archives photo ph9537b.
