STANLEY RACKHAM

      Stanley Rackham was born in London, England, on September 4, 1877.  Although not of a farming background, as a youth he was not robust, and it was thought that an outdoor life might suit him, therefore a career in agriculture became his pursuit.  He attended Agricultural College in England, completing the course and receiving his diploma in 1898.  As well, he was granted Free Life Memberships in the Highland Agricultural Society and the Royal Agricultural Society of England.

     He first came to Canada in 1899 and worked for a time in a lumber mill in Manitoba.  He returned to England to seek employment in the field of agriculture, but he was rejected for a position in South Africa because he was "too youthful-looking".  He immigrated to Canada with the Barr Colonists in 1903 and took up a homestead ~ S.E.1 12-50-28 West of the 3rd Meridian - in the Lloydminster district in April of that year.  His friend, Bernard Smith took up an adjoining homestead and the two conducted their farming enterprise in complete partnership, under the name "Rackham and Smith", until Mr. Smith's return to England in 1922.

     Stanley Rackham immediately became involved in the agricultural activities of the community.  He was a Charter Member of the Lloydminster Agricultural Society formed in 1905 and remained involved with that organization all his life.

     One of the gifts that Stanley Rackham possessed was a flair for recording, in a colorful way, the day-to-day events of that era and so we have a vivid chronicle of the events of the early settlement of the Lloydminster area.

     Mr. Rackham was Councillor for the R. M. Britannia in 1909.  He was a Charter Member of the Lloydminster Co-op, which was first formed for the marketing of livestock, and he served on its Board from 1914 to 1937.  He was President of the Co-op from 1914 to 1919.  He also served on the Lloydminster School Board.  He was an active member of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers, the Saskatchewan Field Husbandry Association, the Canadian Seed Growers Association.  He judged grain crops in Saskatchewan for the Agricultural Societies.

     Stanley Rackham married in 1912; his wife was Miss Agnes Wheeler, an Englishwoman whom he had met on board ship during one of his trans-Atlantic trips.  The couple raised a family of six: Kathleen, Tom, Peggy, Ursula, Josephine and Ronald.  A keen interest in all aspects of agriculture and involvement in community endeavour  were instilled in the children from an early age.

      Mr. Rackham attended the Founding Convention of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool in Regina in 1925 and served as a delegate for District 16 for a number of years.  He played an active part in the early venture of Lloydminster into the oil industry, and he was a Director on the Board of the Local Discovery Well, which was the first gas well in the Lloydminster district.

      Stanley Rackham was continually involved in the production of pedigreed seed and registered purebred livestock - registered Aberdeen Angus cattle and Thoroughbred horses.  He was a frequent exhibitor, appearing in competition often in the Lloydminster Fair, a tradition his family carried on after him.

      Stanley Rackham passed away in 1937.  His homestead land has passed to his son Ronald, who still lived there in 2003.  Stanley Rackham’s original log shack is still standing on the homestead.