Murdoch

In the spring of 1922, James Murdoch, a thirty-two-year-old Toronto lawyer, incorporated Noranda Mines Limited at the request of Humphrey Chadbourne, an American mining engineer. Earlier, Chadbourne had formed a syndicate with another mining engineer, Samuel C. Thomson, to search for the best mineral prospects in Northern Ontario. They hoped that Murdoch would help them find and develop a big, highly successful mine. Murdoch did that and much more: he created one of Canada’s most successful mining and industrial corporations.

Several months after the incorporation of Noranda, the Thomson-Chadbourne syndicate took an option on a mineral prospect that had been staked by Ed Horne, an experienced prospector. situated east of Kirkland Lake, Ontario, it was thirty miles into Quebec, near the shore of Lake Tremoy, subsequently called Lake Osisko. A year or so later, when it was established that the Horne property could be mined profitably, Noranda mines was expected to employ as many as 500 men. By the early 1990s, however, the company employed about 30,000 people in North and South America, Africa, Europe and elsewhere around the world! J.Y. Murdoch, more than any other single person, had created and established the bases for the amazing success of this company. As its first president, he was its guiding genius for thirty-five years.

Murdoch had graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, his hometown, only nine years before he was appointed president of Noranda, but, at the time of his appointment, he was already respected for his work as a mining lawyer.

Within a year of Murdoch’s appointment as head of Noranda, the value of the Horne property was becoming clearer but primarily as a copper mine, not the gold mine Horne had sought. By late 1926 a rail line had been built to the area. Several years later it became obvious that Noranda, with estimated ore reserves of more than 50 billion tons, could become one of the world’s great mines. By that time Murdoch and his colleagues had demonstrated that they had the financial and technical expertise and management ability to ensure that it would.

As president of Noranda, Murdoch was determined to develop a profitable group of related companies that would mine and refine minerals and process them into finished goods such as wire, cable, and other industrial products. He knew that to achieve this objective Noranda needed the strong financial backing which the Thomson-Chadbourne syndicate provided. The syndicate included 14 United States executives of great experience, wealth, and influence. One was a former president of the United States Steel Corporation, another was a senior executive of E.I. Dupont de Nemours, another was a former United States ambassador to France, still another was an outstanding New York lawyer. That men of such influence and wide experience relied on Murdoch and allowed him to develop a distinctively Canadian company, not merely a mining company controlled by United States investors, was a clear indication of the extent to which he had quickly earned their trust.

Murdoch also realized, however, that, if Noranda was to develop as a Canadian company, influential Canadians had to be persuaded to invest in it. Murdoch secured this necessary investment.

Before the Thomson-Chadbourne syndicate had been formed, Murdoch had gained the confidence of mining executives in Canada. Among these was Noah Timmins, President of Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines, one of Canada’s most successful mining corporations. Through conversations Murdoch had with Timmins, an agreement was reached in the mid-1920s whereby Hollinger would advance Noranda $3 million on a short-term basis to finance the construction of the buildings and to acquire the machinery and provide the working capital needed for Noranda’s early development as a mining and smelting company.

By the end of 1927, five years after Murdoch and members of the Thomson-Chadbourne syndicate had begun their partnership, the Horne mine was in production. The previous year a civil engineer had been engaged to develop a new town named, like the company itself, Noranda, a contraction of the words “Northern” and “Canada.” Murdoch was aware of the urgent need for a carefully planned community to overcome the difficulties encountered in Rouyn, the rough-and-tumble town which had grown up in the area surrounding the mine. Thus he arranged for the incorporation of Noranda and served as its first Mayor until 1929.

To carry forward his plan for Noranda, Murdoch decided to build an electrolytic copper refinery in Montreal East to process raw materials into finished products. An operating company, Canadian Copper Refiners Limited, was organized in 1929 and given the responsibility of processing the raw sulphide rock from Noranda’s properties in Rouyn township into marketable shapes of refined copper.

As a young lawyer, J.Y. Murdoch not only drafted the incorporation of Noranda Mines Ltd. butserved as its president from 1923-1956. Called Noranda Minerals today, the multinational, multi-product company owes a great deal of its huge international success to this visionary mining executive born in Toronto in 1890 [The Toronto Star].

In August 1930 Murdoch completed an agreement between Noranda Mines and Canada Wire and Cable Limited, Canada’s leading manufacturer of wire and cable. The agreement provided that Canada Wire would purchase its copper requirements from Canadian Copper Refiners. In turn, Noranda would purchase shares in Canada Wire. The proceeds from the purchase were to be used by Canada Wire to construct and operate a copper rod rolling mill and wire plant next to the Canadian Copper Refiners’ plant in Montreal East. This agreement was mutually beneficial. It gave Noranda a major purchaser for its copper and, at the same time, gave Canada Wire a base for the production of rod for its own operations as well as for domestic and export sales to other wire manufacturers. In due course Noranda acquired a controlling interest in Canada Wire and Cable which it sold many years later to a major French corporation.

In 1937 Murdoch secured an undertaking from mining officials of the Province of Quebec that the Quebec government would build an access road to an isolated region of the Gaspé, if the results of exploration by Noranda’s prospecting crews were sufficiently encouraging.This area had been explored for minerals as early as Champlain’s time in the early seventeenth century. By late 1939 Murdoch concluded that work should continue in the Gaspé but that it would have to be delayed until the necessary roads were built and World War II had ended.

By the outbreak of that war, Noranda was Canada’s second largest producer of copper. When the war ended, the company had produced, from its inception, over 1.6 billion pounds of copper and more than 4 million ounces of gold. The total value of this production was $258 million of which over $107 million had been paid in dividends to shareholders. Murdoch had led Noranda to prosperity!

During World War II Murdoch’s administrative and financial skills were constantly in demand in the wider public community as well as in Noranda. He served in senior positions in two wartime corporations and was president of the National War Services Funds Advisory Board. He also served as chairman of the National War Services Committee of the YMCA.

As soon as men and supplies became available at the end of the war, work was resumed on Noranda’s property in the Gaspé. In 1952 the mine was brought into production by Gaspé Copper Mines, a Noranda subsidiary. The development of this new mine had a major impact on the entire Gaspé peninsula. Cables carrying electricity were laid on the floor of the St. Lawrence River to supply electric power to the new mining operation. Significant improvements came to the Gaspé with the establishment of Noranda’s operations there. The mining community which developed there was named Murdochville to honour Murdoch.

J.Y. Murdoch’s management of the risks in the development of the Horne Mine, and the later Noranda mines and other ventures, brought outstanding financial benefits to those who had invested in Noranda. Murdoch, however, did more than merely make money for investors, important though that was. Through his insightful management of Noranda’s affairs, he made an outstanding contribution to the development of Canada’s mining and industrial capabilities. His significant contributions and powerful talents were widely recognized and honoured.

In recognition of his contribution to Canada’s war efforts from 1939-1945 he received the Order of the British Empire. Laval University in Quebec conferred on him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. When he died in 1962, Murdoch was a director of more than 30 companies, many within the Noranda group, still others in banking, insurance, paper, oil, railways and other industries.

Nearly 30 years after his death he was elected a charter member of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. His colleagues in the mining industry honoured him as a great mining executive and as a primary contributor to the development of Canada. Murdoch had described his native land as “a great and rich young nation whose frontiers beckon the man in whom the spirit of high adventure is strong.”