(3 Sept. 1862-4 March 1953), dairying expert. (J.A. Ruddick, Dr Ruddick, John A. Ruddick) Born in Oxford County, Ont. Parents: Lawrence Ruddick and his wife Marion Moir. Educated locally. Young Ruddick took charge in 1882 of one of the cheese factories of the well-known Glengarrian D.M. Macpherson, the “Cheese King.” In an address Ruddick gave in January 1931 to the annual Convention, held in that year at Cornwall, of the Dairymen’s Association of Eastern Ontario, he said “I always welcome an opportunity to revisit this part of Ontario, for it was in this district that several of the earliest years of my connection with the dairying industry were spent. It was just 49 years ago, on an April evening, that I stepped off a train at Summerstown Station on my way to Huntingdon County, via Dundee, to make cheese in one of the late D.M. Macpherson’s numerous factories. Before the end of the season, I was promoted to the position of superintendent of the combination and thus became a resident of Glengarry at Lancaster. In the seven years during which I held that position, I got to know every corner of Glengarry and much of the surrounding counties, and made a wide acquaintance among the hospitable inhabitants of the district. So it is something like returning home to come back to this part of the country.”

     As Macpherson’s superintendent, he is said to have been responsible for sixty factories (Morgan). It was reported in late 1889 that D.M. Macpherson had shipped to London, England, 10 huge cheeses made for him by John A. Ruddick in one of the factories of Macpherson’s Allan Grove Combination. The ten cheeses weighed in all 8680 pounds while the largest weighed 1103 pounds. (Cornwall Freeholder 15 Nov. 1889, cited in Down the Lane column Standard Freeholder 18 Nov. 1944) Ruddick must have left GC and Macpherson’s employ about the end of 1889. He was, however, the chairman of a cheesemakers’ convention at Lancaster as the spring of 1890 approached. (Glengarrian 21 March 1890) It was during his GC years that Ruddick was married in Sept. 1886 to Harriet Emily Congdon of Fort Covington, N.Y.

     He was travelling instructor for the Eastern Ontario Dairymen’s Association 1889-1891, and was on staff of the Dominion Dairy Commissioner 1891-1894. It was during this time that he made, at Perth, Ont., in 1892, the famous 22,000-pound cheese called “The Canadian Mite” which was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. This giant was afterwards sold in London, Eng., and was found to be in excellent condition despite six months under a glass roof at Chicago. Ruddick was superintendent of the Dairy School, Kingston, 1894-1998, dairy commissioner of New Zealand, 1898-1900 (see also J.A. Kinsella for a Glengarrian who followed him in this position), chief of the Dairy Division of the Dept. of Agriculture, Ottawa, 1900-1904, and Dominion dairy commissioner 1905-1932. Ruddick is said to have been, during WWI, the sole purchasing agent in Canada for hay and other farm products for the British Army. In 1924 he was given an LL.D. by Queen’s University. At the time of publication of the 1936-1937 Canadian Who’s Who he was living in Winnipeg. His death, at the age of 90, was in Ottawa.

     In an autobiographical article of 1931 in which he reminisced on the half-century he had spent in the dairying business, Ruddick criticized Macpherson as well as praising him, and noted that Macpherson had had a bad effect in encouraging the erection of “poor, make-shift” cheese factory buildings in the area that he most influenced. Correctly or incorrectly, something patronizing and spiteful was seen by some in Ruddick’s action in getting Macpherson a government job as Dominion butter inspector after the latter’s bankruptcy. (Ross) Ruddick was the author and co-author of many publications issued by the Canada Dept. of Agriculture. These publications dealt primarily with the dairying industry and with another area of his expertise, cold storage. Normally, they give practical instructions on how to do things, but he ventured into history in one of these publications, his An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Dairying Industry in Canada (1911). Ruddick also wrote extensively for the agricultural press. But as a writer, he is best remembered as one of the 5 authors (and the first named on the title page) who contributed to The Dairy Industry in Canada (1937). Still a much respected standard work, and hard to obtain in the second-hand market, this volume was edited by the legendary Canadian economic historian Harold Innis, and was published jointly by Ryerson Press of Toronto, Yale University Press and Oxford University Press, which were acting jointly on behalf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

     Well known in his prime, Ruddick seems to have faded into obscurity. Despite the prominence he once had, he is missing from the Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

QAR March 1953 * Morgan (1912) * The Canadian Who’s Who, Vol. II: 1936-1937 * address of 1931: Annual Reports of the Dairymen’s Association of Eastern Ontario, copies in Archives of Ontario, RG16, Series A, A-1, Box 38 * Chicago 1893 78 * The Canadian Mite: Innis 67; Morgan; cf. Dumbrille, B, 28 * J.A. Ruddick, “Fifty Years of Dairying,” The Family Herald and Weekly Star, 28 Jan. 1931 (with portraits of Ruddick and D.M. Macpherson) * Rutley 24-26 * Fraser (1959) 235, 300 (associate in civil service of son of Auditor-General Fraser) * Ross, Lancaster, 197, 262 * quoted on New Zealand dairy industry in The New Zealand Official Year-Book 1900 (Wellington, N.Z., 1900) 362-363 * pubs. by Ruddick listed in Ella S.G. Minter, Publications of the Canada Department of Agriculture 1867-1959 (Ottawa, 1963) * ”Dairying in the Antipodes,” extended report of his address to dairymen, Brockville, based on his recent tour of Australia and N. Z., Cornwall Freeholder 7 June 1923 * retires, Cornwall Standard 20 Aug. 1931, CF 27 Jan. 1932