George C. Creelman’s life was dedicated to his two greatest passions: higher education and agriculture. As president of the Ontario Agricultural College (O.A.C.), Creelman helped to establish the place of agricultural science as a legitimate and practical discipline, and earned international renown for himself and his school.
In spite of his later contributions to agriculture, George Creelman was not born on a farm. The son of a music teacher, George was born in 1869 in Collingwood, Ontario. When George was nine years old, the Creelman family moved to a fruit farm in Grey County to make their way in agriculture.
George Creelman enrolled in the O.A.C. in Guelph, Ontario when he was sixteen. A playful spirit and penchant for practical jokes earned George a well-deserved reputation as a prankster during his college years. Nevertheless, he studied hard, and in 1888 George Creelman was part of the first graduating class to receive Bachelors of Agricultural Science from the O.A.C.
After graduation, George Creelman spent several years in Mississippi teaching biology and earning his Master’s degree. Upon his return to Ontario in 1899, George began a public career in service to Canadian agriculture. Creelman served as the federal livestock commissioner, the superintendent of Farmers’ Institutes for Ontario, and as a secretary of the Fruit Grower’s Association of Ontario before his appointment to the presidency of the O.A.C. in 1904.
George Creelman’s tenure witnessed a number of profound changes for the O.A.C. that saw it become a true farmer’s institution. Prior to his presidency, the children of Ontario farmers formed a minority of the college’s student body, “the bulk of the students being sons of more or less prominent families in Britain, sent out here to learn ‘farmin’, according to the Canadian Countryman. This changed during his time at the head of the O.A.C., and by the early twentieth century farm boys made up an increasing share of the students. This was accompanied by a shift in the college’s curriculum away from highly theoretical “book farming” and more towards the practical applications of the O.A.C. for Ontario farmers. Creelman was also a highly sought-after public speaker whose speeches and lectures across North America, Europe, and even the Far East brought the O.A.C. international renown.
The O.A.C. under Creelman’s leadership also became a home for many of Ontario’s farm girls. Earlier in his career, George Creelman helped to establish the model for the Ontario Women’s Institutes that would prove so successful in bringing education to rural women. The Macdonald Institute of Home Economics, which opened at the O.A.C. in 1904, was an immediate success and its residences were filled to capacity with Ontario farm girls eager to learn their role in the rural household of the early twentieth century.
George Creelman’s time as president of the O.A.C. came to an end in 1920. He was sent to London to serve as Ontario’s representative to Great Britain, however he lasted less than a year in this position owing to ill health. In 1921 George Creelman retired from public life to reside on his farm in Beamsville until his death in 1929.