Article

Robert Pim Butchart

Published Online October 17, 2011

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Robert Pim Butchart, industrialist (b at Owen Sound, Canada W 30 Mar 1856; d at Victoria 27 Oct 1943). Educated in Owen Sound, he joined his father's hardware business. In 1888 he began the Owen Sound Portland Cement Co. He moved

Robert Pim Butchart

  Robert Pim Butchart, industrialist (b at Owen Sound, Canada W 30 Mar 1856; d at Victoria 27 Oct 1943). Educated in Owen Sound, he joined his father's hardware business. In 1888 he began the Owen Sound Portland Cement Co. He moved to BC in 1904, and at Tod Inlet, near Victoria, established the first Portland cement plant in BC. He eventually had interests in several cement mills in Canada, including mills at Calgary and Montréal, and in the US. During WWI he directed the Shipbuilding Dept of the IMPERIAL MUNITIONS BOARD in BC. In 1884 he married Jennie Foster Kennedy of Toronto. She turned the abandoned quarries surrounding her home into Butchart Gardens, now a famous tourist attraction.