Did you know that the Prime Minister of Canada in the 1930’s once lived and worked in Chatham? Richard Belford Bennett was born in 1870 at Hopewell Hill, New Brunswick. He was not a Miramichier, but had many important ties to this area. While still a young man he taught school at the Douglastown School. This is the present-day Rankin House. Bennett then left the Miramichi to study law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When he graduated, he returned to Chatham. In 1893, he joined the Tweedie and Bennett Law Firm. Their offices were on the second floor of the present-day Digdon’s Shoe Store in downtown Chatham. Tweedie would later become Premier of New Brunswick.
As well as law, Bennett was also interested in politics. In 1896, he was elected to the first Chatham Town Council. He got elected partly because of the help of a seventeen-year-old boy, Max Aitken. Aitken would later become famous as Lord Beaverbrook. The two would be close friends for the rest of their lives.
Bennett decided to move West to Calgary in 1897. He never returned to New Brunswick to live. Sometimes, he would come back to visit his mother. He never married. Over the years, he made as much as 3.5 million dollars. Some of this money came from his law practice. He also was part owner of the Canada Cement Company and the Calgary Power Company. But most of his money came from the E. B. Eddy Match Company of Hull, Quebec. Bennett had been a good friend of Jennie Shirreff of Chatham when he lived here. The Shirreff family was an important Chatham family for many years. Jennie Shirreff married E.B. Eddy in 1906. She outlived her husband by some fifteen years. When she died, she left most of the Eddy Company to R. B. Bennet, her old friend. The company made millions of dollars.
For many years, Bennett continued to be active in politics. In 1911, he was elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa. By 1927, he was the leader of the Conservative Party. He became Prime Minister of Canada in 1930. However, he was not a very strong leader. Most of his problems were because of the Great Depression. There were a great many unemployed in Canada at that time. The people were poor and unhappy. Bennett lost badly in the 1935 Canadian election and retired to England in 1938. He died there in 1947, a lonely old man.
One of Bennett’s lasting ties to the Miramichi is the Viscount Bennett Scholarship. This is a sum of money given each year to a graduating high school student in the Chatham area. R. B. Bennett is not thought of as one of Canada’s better leaders. But much of the reason for this must go to the fact that he was Prime Minister at such a hard time.