(23 Aug. 1882-14 June 1964), agricultural expert. (W. C. McKillican, William C. McKillican, Will McKillican) Born on his parents’ farm home at Breadalbane, GC. Parents: William E. McKillican (d. 1929), and his wife Emma May Christie (d. 1926), who was from the Martintown area. He attended the local school at Breadalbane, Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute, and the Ontario Agricultural College, from which he graduated 1905. From 1905 to 1911 he worked for the Seed Branch of the federal Dept. of Agriculture in Calgary. He was superintendent of the Dominion Experimental Farm, Brandon, Man., from 1911 to 1924. Following this, he was dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Home Economics at the University of Manitoba from 1924 to 1933. And from 1934 till retirement in 1951, he was farm manager in Saskatchewan for the Colonization Finance Corporation of Canada, Ltd, being based at Indian Head, Sask. He visited Brazil in 1947 doing a survey for the Brazilian Millers Association on wheat-growing possibilities in southern Brazil. Retired, he and his wife lived in Ottawa. He died at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. (one child) Member of the United Church, and active church worker. Mason. He was married on 2 Sept. 1909, at Morden, Man., to Anna Mary Stewart (d. 1973).

     He was the author of a number of articles and bulletins (booklets) on the technical aspects of agriculture. He was interested in the history of agriculture, and gave a course on that subject at the University of Manitoba, and collected books of historical interest on agriculture. His report, of considerable historic interest, on his trip to the Peace River country in 1908 was published in the Manor Chatter in six instalments, in 1990 and 1991.

     He was a descendant of the Rev. William McKillican and was the brother of C. G. McKillican. See the entry for C. G. McKillican for other McKillican family connections.

     From a sketch of his father’s life in a few pages which W. C. McKillican prepared c. 1960, it appears that William E. McKillican and a certain Donald William McGillivray were at one stage responsible for Liberal strategy in the northeastern “corner” of GC.

Mackilligin 59, 64 * Campbell (1986), 272, 324-325 * Morgan (1912) 778 * Who’s Who in the Agricultural Institute of Canada (1948) 138 * private information * information from University of Manitoba Archives * Managra [publication, agricultural school, University of Manitoba], 18:1 (Nov. 1924), various data, fine full page portrait * 75th Anniversary 1906-1981 [commemorative vol., University of Manitoba Faculty of Agriculture], 7-8 * publications: see, e. g., Ella S. G. Minter, ed., Publications of the Canada Department of Agriculture 1867-1959 (Ottawa, 1963):index; and articles by him published in or listed in The Agricultural Gazette of Canada, 1914-1920 * “sketch…in a few pages”: typescript, present author’s collection, from papers of C. Herbert McKillican; D. W. McGillivray, JP, was the major organiser of the 1894 Kirk Hill Centenary celebrations, Witness 4 Sept. 1894 * student at OAC, Glengarry News 13 June 1902, 29 May 1903 * en route to and returning home from Brazil, visits his brother C. G. McKillican, at Maxville, GN 10 Jan. 1947, Standard Freeholder 7 March 1947