technical training. In a study of post-secondary trends in Brant County from 1784 to 1933, Walter Szmigielski argues that this emphasis on practical utility reflects a uniquely American influence on education in Brant County.1 One might debate the view of British and American education he assumes, but it would be difficult to deny Szmigielski’s claim that Brant County adopted a view of education that emphasized vocational opportunities. This is evident, not only in the kinds of educational institutions that operated in Brant County, but in histories of Brantford and Brant County, which show little interest in higher education. The most advanced education that merits comment in F. Douglas Reville’s classic history of Brantford, written in 1920, is industrial classes and technical training.
Historically, the institution in Brantford that most resembled a university was the “Young Ladies’ College” (officially, the Ladies’ College and Music Conservatory). Founded by the Presbyterian Church in 1874, it was established at a sumptuous three-and-a-half-acre property that was owned by the Honourable E.B. Wood before he left Brantford to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Manitoba. The college was well-known, attracting well-heeled students from across the country. It incorporated a Preparatory Department for women under fourteen, and a Collegiate Department that granted teacher and university-level certificates. It was notable also for the quality of instruction and a highly regarded music conservatory. Alexander Graham Bell attended the musical performances. The conservatory continued to operate after the college closed in 1900, and was affiliated with the University of Western Ontario in 1911, but its operations dwindled gradually and ceased in the early 1930s.
The curriculum at the Ladies’ College emphasized the classics, the fine arts, and “elevated” sensibilities: “Through the prominence given to English, the Classics and History, it aimed to cultivate a taste for the reading of a pure and elevating literature which in after years, shall continue to be a source of pleasure and profit.”2 It is not difficult to imagine a sequence of steps that could have turned the college into a university (or a college of a university), but this never came to pass. Instead, the Ladies’ College flourished as a centre of women’s learning and art and music for a quarter century, and then closed its doors. Afterward, the most advanced education available to women (and men) in Brantford was found at the local high school, the Brantford Collegiate Institute.
Brantford’s next endeavour in post-secondary education was a satellite campus of Mohawk College, which opened in 1970. It took applied career training to a higher level but still reflected the city’s focus on vocational education. The quest for a university, which represented a step in a new direction, came later. In a Brantford context, it is tempting to search for the person who came up with the bold idea that the city should have a university. But the truth is more complicated. Over the course of more than twenty years there was a whole cast of Brantfordophiles — citizens, mayors, would-be mayors, councillors, government officials, business leaders, professors, and educators — who pushed Brantford in this direction. Many others opposed their proposals, which went against the grain of history, and they themselves proposed conflicting plans that sometimes came to naught. Their differences notwithstanding, their joint efforts ultimately culminated in the moves that brought Laurier to Brantford.
Lobbying for university education began in 1975. At a time when the local economy was beginning its slide downhill and the downtown was already in a state of shambles, a group of concerned citizens established a Council on Continuing Education. The membership included prominent local figures, among them Mary Stedman, the head of the eminent Stedman family, and Mike Hancock who was destined to become the Brantford mayor.3 Stedman remembers that many outside the group were skeptical of “high falutin’” ideas about higher education. Not so their members, who worried about Brantford’s low level of educational attainment, a feature of the city that distinguished it from its more successful counterparts in Canada. Endorsing education as the ultimate solution to Brantford’s many problems; the Council organized a literacy project and initiated discussions with McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario, which taught courses in the city. More courses were offered, but continuing students had to transfer to their home campuses in Hamilton and London. Neither university sustained their operations. The Council’s most enduring success was not local university courses, but an annual lecture series that featured prominent intellectual figures, among them Margaret Atwood, Linus Pauling, W.O. Mitchell, and David Suzuki.4
Mary Stedman has been a major supporter of the development of post-secondary education in Brantford. She, her family, and the Stedman Foundation have been generous supporters of Laurier Brantford.
Mike Hancock, in the mayor’s office, sits with three student politicians who played a prominent role in the Students’ Union in Brantford: Zachary Mealia, Amanda Flanagan, and Melissa Burke. Mayor Hancock and Mayor Friel were strong supporters of post-secondary initiatives downtown.
The concerns about the future that had motivated the work of the Council on Continuing Education were magnified as Brantford suffered through the collapse of White Farm and Massey Ferguson. As the economy and the downtown spiralled downward, a number of prominent figures promoted higher education as a solution to Brantford’s problems. 5 The most significant initiative was orchestrated by Robert “Bob” Nixon when he served as provincial treasurer. He and his father, Harry Nixon, were a Brant County political dynasty, having represented the region in the provincial government for seventy-two consecutive years. His daughter, Jane Stewart, was part of the dynasty, representing Brant in the federal government. At the apex of her career, she served as a minister in the federal cabinet and was touted as a candidate for prime minister before she was mired in a scandal about the operation of Human Resources Development Canada, an agency in her portfolio. Popular sentiment in Brantford saw her as the victim of a backfired attempt to clean up issues that others had ignored.
The Nixon family had deep roots in Brant County. Their farm, located outside St. George, raised Holstein cattle, a milking breed that played a key role in the development of agriculture in the region. It was St. George and then Brantford that served as the home of the Holstein Association of Canada, which oversaw the propagation of the breed. When Bob Nixon retired, he moved into a small heritage home on the family farm, where he took up painting, producing canvases that won him some acclaim. After his daughter gave up her political career in federal politics, she lived in a different house on the farm, and began commuting to New York City, where she works for an international labour organization associated with the United Nations.
During a long career as an elected politician, Nixon established himself as an influential member of the Liberal Party of Ontario, but found it difficult to interest the provincial government in Brant County. He sighed and rolled his eyes when he told me so. In 1985, after he was re-elected and became the treasurer in a Liberal government, he was determined to do something for Brantford, which was in a state of financial turmoil. In 1987–88 he sent one of his treasury managers, David Trick, to a series of meetings with a local committee interested in bringing a university to Brantford.6 Mohawk College and McMaster University were included in the discussions. Trick was struck by all the empty buildings downtown and suggested that they house the new post-secondary endeavour.
The stage seemed set for a university initiative in downtown Brantford. An influential cabinet minister backed the idea, the local committee was eager to support it, and the downtown was discussed as a possible location. But the possibility was never realized and the trajectory of the discussions moved in a different direction under the influence of Mohawk and McMaster. McMaster was not interested in an independent university in Brantford or a satellite campus. Mohawk viewed the situation as an opportunity to expand but argued that a downtown campus would, like George Brown in Toronto, be landlocked and unable to expand. Others accepted the argument
