George Stirke Kilbourn (1866-1946)

George Stirke Kilbourn (1866-1946)

George Stirke Kilbourn (1866-1946) was a banker in Owen Sound, Ontario.

In 1895 George Stirke Kilbourn became a shareholder of the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company, of which Robert Butchart was the leading shareholder and active manager.

In 1895 George Stirke Kilbourn was appointed Secretary and Treasurer of the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company. He held those positions until 1909, when the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company was taken over by the Canada Cement Company.

George Stirke Kilbourn and Robert Butchart were friends and business associates. Both served on the Owen Sound Board of Trade in the 1880’s and both were shareholders and officers of the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company after George Kilbourn purchased shares in the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company in 1895.

In 1891 there became a family connection between them when George Kilbourn married 21 year old Margaret Paterson, the daughter of Robert Paterson and Anne Jane Patterson, who had become Jennie Foster Kennedy’s guardian following the death of Jennie’s mother, Martha Kennedy, in 1880.

George Stirke Kilbourn is featured in Chapter 3 of our Butchart Gardens History.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of our Butchart Gardens History:

“……In 1895 one of John and Maria’s sons, George Stirke Kilbourn (1866-1946) joined Robert Butchart as an investor and active player in the Owen Sound Portland Cement Company. The following year, in 1896, George’s brother, Francis Howard Kilbourn (1863-1948), and their father, John M. Kilbourn, also bought Owen Sound Portland Cement Company shares.

Like his father, George S. Kilbourn became one of Owen Sound’s business leaders. Through his father’s connections, George became a private banker, channeling British capital into Ontario mortgages and business loans. He also married into money. In 1891, he married 21 year old Margaret Paterson, the daughter of Robert Paterson and Anne Jane Paterson……”

George Stirke Kilbourn is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Owen Sound, Ontario

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