The first Business Chamber in North America was started in New York City in 1768. For Winnipeg, this began 100 years later when J.A. Ashdown purchased $1,000 in stock and opened his tin shop.
After many attempts, Winnipeg businessmen successfully presented a bill incorporating the Winnipeg Board of Trade on March 3rd, 1873. It was 6 months later that Winnipeg was incorporated, on November 8, 1873, thus making the Board slightly older than our City. From the start, business and commerce were the foundation of Winnipeg. It was on January 14, 1880 that the Winnipeg Board of Trade held its first Annual General Meeting with its first President, the Honorable A.G.B. Bannatyne.
By 1908, the Board of Trade outgrew its space in the old Winnipeg City Hall and moved to the newly constructed Grain Exchange Building at 164 Princess Street. You can still see the façade of this building at Red River College’s Downtown Campus. By 1920, membership in the Winnipeg Board of Trade reached 1560 individuals, but then began to dip, reaching less than half a few years later. Travers Sweatman, 1925 Board of Trade President had this to say about the slip:
“Winnipeg lacks leadership. It is in that state of its development when those old stalwarts who took part in its greatest development which culminated in 1912, have either retired to a well-earned rest or settled in some other part of the world.... During the last 10 years, it has been impossible for the younger men to come forward and take their places; thus Winnipeg has been passing through a critical period in her history when she very much lacked the leadership, and in this connection I would like to say that one of the difficulties of the Winnipeg Board of Trade has been to obtain the support of the younger businessmen of the city, the bulk of whom are to be found in the various Service Clubs.”
In response to this, Paul Guyot DuVal (1893-1970), a Winnipeg soldier, lawyer and a prominent judge in the city, with help from Leoni St. Clairze “Leo” Warde (1888-1971), co-founded the Young Men’s Section of the Winnipeg Board of Trade in 1923. The objective of the Young Men’s Section was to fulfill Travers Sweatmen’s desire to assist young men in Winnipeg to take on new leadership roles. This section evolved into what we now know as Junior Chamber International Winnipeg, whose members are often referred to as “Jaycees”. JCI Winnipeg is officially the first JCI Chapter in the world to be created outside the United States.
As young businessmen became involved, membership rose to over 1400 by 1929. Winnipeg’s innovation and determination brought us the Board of Trade, with its Young Men’s Section and eventually our first Canadian JCI Chapter, as many more were created across the nation. It has been recorded that the process for creating the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1925, began at Winnipeg’s Board of Trade meetings.
Having just celebrated 91 years as a Manitoba Chapter, Winnipeg is proud to be joining JCI Chapters from around the world to celebrate 100 years of creating social responsibility in young people.
