A Tribute to Kenneth Weir McKay
Any overview of Elgin County's municipal history would not be complete without a tribute to Kenneth Weir McKay. Mr. McKay distinguished himself both as County Clerk and a leading figure in Canadian public administration during his 57-year tenure at the County. He was born in 1862, the son of William McKay and Susan Sells. His uncle, John McKay, was the County's first Clerk and his father, William, the second. When his father died suddenly in 1882, K.W. McKay, at the time an aspiring medical student in Toronto, returned to Elgin County and was appointed Clerk on December 15, 1882.
McKay immediately developed an abiding interest in municipal government that extended far beyond Elgin County. In 1892, he purchased a magazine based in Arnprior, Ontario, called Municipal Miscellany and moved it to St. Thomas, renaming the publication Municipal World. Sometimes termed the ‘Bible of municipal legislators’, it is still a leading magazine of municipal affairs and is still published in Elgin County (at Union). The “Question Drawer” section of the magazine was a basic source of guidance for small municipalities which had legal or procedural questions.
Between his work on the Municipal World and his ‘day job’, K.W. McKay was recognized as an expert on municipal law and municipal government. In 1900, he assisted in the revision of the Ontario Assessment Act. Between 1924 and 1927, he was the only municipal official to serve on the Middleton Commission for the revision of the Ontario Statutes. According to his obituary, he was often called as a municipal consultant to Toronto and to many townships and counties around the province. Throughout his many years as County Clerk, McKay was praised for keeping Elgin on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis, particularly important during the 1930s when many other municipalities had to declare bankruptcy.
In 1927, Elgin County Council hosted a banquet to honour K.W. McKay’s 45 years of service. The St. Thomas Times-Journal, in its coverage of the affair, quoted John Stalker, Reeve of Aldborough Township, who “said that it was not until last summer, during a visit to the Canadian West, that he had learned just how widely-known Mr. McKay had become. He was with a group of typical Westerners at Edmonton, and upon learning that he was from Ontario one asked him what part of the Province he came from. When Mr. Stalker replied Elgin, the man exclaimed: ‘Oh, Elgin county! That’s where that man McKay is the clerk. He has the reputation of being the best posted municipal man in the Dominion of Canada.’”
McKay was a charter member of the Ontario Municipal Association, the Ontario Good Roads Association, and the Elgin Municipal Association. He was the first President of the Ontario Good Roads Association when it was founded in 1894, and served as President of the Ontario Municipal Association.
During the First World War, K.W. McKay was a leader in the community. In 1914, he was named to the National Service Commission, which was chaired by R.B. Bennett. In 1915, he was appointed to a special commission to cooperate with the Military Hospitals Commission to assist in the hospitalization and re-establishment of wounded Canadian soldiers. McKay was Treasurer of the Patriotic Association for St. Thomas and Elgin during the war, and a member of the Victory Loan Committee. He was also active in Red Cross Society work during this time. In 1916, K.W. McKay was named by the Dominion Government as Director of National Services for No. 1 Military Division.
Mr. McKay's service to the community continued after the war. He was a staunch supporter of the Red Cross Society and a founder of the St. Thomas and Elgin Children’s Aid Society. He arranged for financial assistance from Elgin County to help the City of St. Thomas construct the Memorial Hospital during the 1920s. McKay also served on the Alma College Board of Management. In the 1930s, he donated some of his land at Selldon to the Ontario Government for the purpose of reforestation. Also during this time he gave free accommodation to the Red Cross Society in the Municipal World Building.
K.W. McKay was also a founding member of the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute in 1891. He contributed a chapter, “Development of the County of Elgin”, to the Institute’s Historical Sketches of the County of Elgin, published in 1895. He wrote a book called The Courthouses of a Century, which was published by the Historical and Scientific Institute in 1901, in which he provided intimate details regarding the original Elgin County Courthouse prior to it being partially destroyed by fire in 1898. McKay also contributed a chapter on the development of municipal government in Ontario to a multi-volume work called Canada and Its Provinces, which appeared in 1914, arguably the first true "national" history ever written in Canada.
In its obituary of October 4, 1941, the St. Thomas Times-Journal commented:
“Mr. McKay had great pride in his pioneer ancestry. On his mother’s side he belonged to the Sells family and the well-preserved pioneer home at Selldon, Payne’s Mills, is Mr. McKay’s memorial to her and her people. He maintained that old home and its lovely shaded surroundings as a sort of ancestral shrine and it was there that he spent some of his happiest hours in late years.”
During the 1920s and 1930s, McKay hosted an annual Sells family reunion at Selldon. He also enjoyed entertaining groups such as the Kiwanis Club and the County Council.
He retired on December 1, 1939. Elgin County ByLaw No. 1328, passed on November 23, 1939, made K.W. McKay “Clerk Emeritus”, effective December 1, 1939.
Kenneth Weir McKay died on October 3, 1941. The St. Thomas Times-Journal was filled with tributes from people such as Premier Mitchell Hepburn and former premiers Howard Ferguson and George Henry. Mr. McKay may have unwittingly given himself his finest tribute when he spoke at a banquet honouring his 45th Anniversary as County Clerk. “’My object in life has always been to help the other fellow and I have had my greatest reward and pleasure from doing that, …”.
"A Tribute to Kenneth Weir McKay – Clerk Emeritus of the County of Elgin" reprinted from Documenting Our Roots: A Sesquicentennial History of the County of Elgin, 1852-2002.
Published by the Elgin County Library, 2002