J. D. Perrin
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John Draper Perrin (1890 - 1967) Canadian mining entrepreneur and financier. Developed the San Antonio Gold Mine and the Town of Bissett, Manitoba. President of the San Antonio Gold Mines Limited from 1931 - 1962. Director of mining companies and of the Advisory Board of the Royal Trust Company. President of the Winnipeg Warriors (minor pro) Hockey Club. Accorded a full page biography during his lifetime in 'Who's Who in Canada', Perrin served as President of the Manitoba Club in 1954 -1955.
The San Antonio mine was the first dividend-paying metals mine in Canada between the Manitoba/Ontario border and the Rocky Mountains. The San Antonio company was one of the first corporations in Manitoba to achieve a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Important shareholders included Hollinger Mines and the Timmins family of Toronto. Perrin's holdings made him for over 30 years one of Canada's wealthiest individuals. He was interested in the use of aeroplanes in mining and is reputed to have been the first person in the world to hire an aircraft to reach a remote mining site, having done so as early as 1919. A reference to this adventure is recorded on the website of the Manitoba Historical Society. In the 1930s he was one of the organizers of Wings Ltd., an early air charter business.
Between 1954 and 1959 Perrin was President of the Winnipeg Warriors (minor pro) of the minor-professional Western Hockey League (minor pro). Playing in the then brand-new Winnipeg Arena, the Warriors in 1956 won the Edinburgh Cup, emblematic of the World's Minor Professional Hockey Championship.
In addition to his business and sports interests, Perrin was a leading citizen of Winnipeg during the era when it was the nation's third largest city, and of Western Canada. During the Second World War he was a member of the National War Finance Committee of the Department of Finance as the Chairman of the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loans, successfully raising what was at the time the enormous sum of over $100 million for the war effort. Mr. Perrin was also Chair of the Canadian Red Cross Prisoners of War Parcel Packaging Plant. He was later honoured as a Life Member of The Canadian Red Cross Society. In 1957 - 1959 as Chair of the Building Committee for Winnipeg's Children's Hospital, he led the successful fundraising efforts culminating in the opening of the new hospital facility. Perrin was also the major benefactor of the Lakeside Fresh Air Camp for underpriviledged children (near Gimli, Manitoba). Active in his own Winnipeg neighbourhood, Perrin co-founded, with Muriel Richardson (Mrs. James A. Richardson), the Crescentwood Homeowners Association which preserved an important historic urban residential area, and as Chairman of the Building Committee led the succesful fundraising efforts to build St. George's Crescentwood Anglican Church.
Born in August 26, 1890 at Medicine Hat in what was the North-Western Territory and then the Northwest Territories, Perrin was the eldest child of Sgt. William Perrin of Dublin, Ireland, an officer in the North West Mounted Police and Sarah Lytle Perrin of Raphoe, Ireland. Perrin married Ruth Taylor Litle on June 24, 1914 and together they had four children, J. D. (Jack) Perrin, Jr., Alix Elizabeth, Sally Ruth, and Marion Joan. J. D. Perrin died on September 19, 1967.
