BX December 12, 1967
C. Gordon Cockshutt Dies in Hospital Here
C. Gordon Cockshutt, 73, one of Brantford’s leading industrialists and a past president and chairman of the board of Cockshutt Farm Equipment of Canada Limited, died in the Brantford General Hospital today.
Born in Brantford, he was the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Frank Cockshutt. He lived at 76 Nelson Street and at his farm Lynnore on the Grand River.
Mr. Cockshutt was educated at Brantford Collegiate Institute and went from high school to work at Slingsby Manufacturing Company, the textile firm his father headed.
Awarded Military Cross
He left Slingsby in 1914 to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force and served in France during the First World War. He was promoted to captain and awarded the Military Cross.
After the war he persuaded the Canadian Woolen and Knit Goods Association to start exports to Romania and Germany and was made president of the association.
He was appointed president of the family firm, Cockshutt Farm Equipment of Canada Limited in 1934 when it was still known as Cockshutt Plow Company Limited. He held the position of president 26 years before retiring and was chairman of the board for 16 years.
As president of Cockshutt he guided the firm during one of its greatest periods of diversification and growth. Harvester combines were produced in Brantford for the first time.
He was also responsible for the Cockshutt Moulded Aircraft plant which produced fuselages for Canada’s Mosquito bombers.
Mr. Cockshutt served as executive of about 30 firms and associations, including, as president, Brantford Coach and Body Limited, Brantford Oven and Rack Company Limited and Slingsby Manufacturing Limited.
He served as vice-president of Scarfe and Company Limited and Farm Equipment Institute of America.
On Several Boards
Mr. Cockshutt served on the board of directors of the Imperial Bank of Canada, the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, Harding Carpets Limited, Lake Erie and Northern Railway and Dominion Tar and Chemical Company Limited, Canada Permanent Trust Company, Gore Mutual Insurance Company, Dobbie Industries Limited, and Hardee Farms International Limited.
He was a governor of Lakefield College School, Lakefield and a trustee of the Widows’ Home in Brantford.
He was a past president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Grand River Valley Board of Trade which he helped establish, the Brantford Board of Trade and the Victorian Order of Nurses, Brantford Branch.
In 1962 he was made honorary life member of the Advisory Board of the Brantford Salvation Army Citadel, having served on the board since its inception.
Mr. Cockshutt was a member of Farringdon Independent church.
He leaves his wife, the former Kathleen Drummond Pease, One stepson, Harold D. Pease, of Kitchener and two step-daughters, Mrs. John G. Stratford of Brantford and Mrs. Peter H. Lyon of Brockville.
Mrs. Cockshutt was predecease by a second step-son, Lieutenant Edson L. Pease.
BX December 13, 1967 - Editorial
Few sons of Brantford have contributed more to the city’s progress industrially and in other ways than C. Gordon Cockshutt, and none was more widely known in the world of Canadian business. To the leadership of the family firm he brought long practical experience and a shrewd judgment that was much in demand also in the guidance of many other concerns on whose boards he served.
In a busy life he found time to aid a wide variety of community organizations in their formative years, and it was one measure of his stature and reputation that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce honored him with its presidency. Gordon Cockshutt’s qualities were best seen and appreciated out of the limelight he never sought, for he was a modest, even self-effacing man with a keen sense of service. His passing leaves much sadness among the many who knew and admired him.
