There are only three times when a gentleman should be mentioned in the press according to ancient etiquette: when he is born, the day he marries and the announcement of his death. With rare exceptions--his kidnapping in 1982 being a prime instance--Jack Irving, the quietest of the late K.C. Irving's three media shy sons, ascribed to that adage rigorously.
The billionaire industrialist, who had been in failing health for several months, died in St. Joseph's Hospital on Wednesday July 21 in St. John, New Brunswick, the city where he was born, raised and which he called home for all of his 78 years. He is survived by his wife Suzanne, three children, six grandchildren and his older brothers James and Arthur, none of whom was willing to break the pattern to speak about him for his obituary. And why should they? The family owned newspaper, the Telegraph-Journal, conveyed the message in copious detail that Irving was a man who was "intelligent and confident, yet humble about the extent of his own accomplishment," and who embodied "strength of character, vision and integrity."
Nevertheless, the truth is pretty close to that encomium.
Donald Savoie
Elizabeth Parr-Johnston
Minister of Energy.
John Ernest (Jack) Irving was born Jan. 1, 1932, the youngest of industrialist K. C. Irving's three sons. The family empire dates back to
Colin Irving (March 14, 1899-) Mother was Harriet MacNarin, from nearby Galloway. They met while she was working in the Irving family store in Buctouche, married in the late 1920s and quickly had three sons, James ((1929), Arthur (1931) and John E. (1932) who eventually all settled into executive spots in the Irving organization.
From his father's lumber business, he branched out in the 1920s as a Model-T Ford salesman in his home town of Buctouche, N.B. and then became the agent for an oil company so that he could sell customers a vehicle and the fuel to keep it running. Financed with a $2,000 bank loan, he went into competition with the oil company and formed the Irving Oil Company in 1924, which eventually morphed into service stations, bus lines, highway franchises, oil tankers and refineries, all of which required his petroleum products. After his fa
By 1960 Irving had built a business empire in oil, lumber, transportation, mining and smelting interests in eastern Canada, stretching as far west as Montreal, that employed nearly 13,000 people and which was valued at $400,000.
"No one has yet found a wholly logical explanation for Irving's phenomenal success," the late journalist Ralph Allen wrote in a series of articles in Maclean's in 1964.
The Irving name was everywhere in New Brunswick, front and centre in the bold red white and blue diamond emblem on gas stations throughout the province and behind the scenes but nonetheless in control of most broadcast and print media in the province. The 1970 report of the Special Senate Committee into ownership and control of the mass media described the Irving empire as "about as flagrant an example of abusing the public interest as you're likely to find in Canada."
Born on Jan. 1, 1932, Irving learned about business at an early age. When he was eight, he joined his brothers to form the Jim, Art and Jack Farm, raising chickens in their backyard and selling eggs.
They began with a dozen chickens. Six years later, they had more than 1,500.
He attended Rothesay Collegiate, a private boys' school near Saint John, where he was nicknamed "Gassy." He played guard for the basketball team, captained the rugby team and was a chess champion. According to the school yearbook, his destiny was listed as "$25 million."
His father raised him and his two brothers to be teetotallers and all three underwent a "stern and unrelenting apprenticeship" in different branches of the family businesses, according to a 1959 article in the Atlantic Advocate.
In 1952, at his father's request, he joined his family's businesses where he worked alongside his brother Arthur at Irving Oil. He began managing construction and engineering projects, including retail outlets, bulk plants, and other major infrastructure.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, about 100 service stations branding the now-famous Irving name were built each year. Working with his brothers, Jack helped build upon the legacy of their father to expand and develop the Irving Group of companies into a worldwide corporation.
"He was the builder," said Pat Darrah, a close friend of more than 50 years and executive director of the Saint John Construction Association. "Every service station, every bulk plant, and every warehouse of Irving Oil you see in the four Atlantic provinces and Quebec, that was done under his tutelage."
He was also a director of all of Irving's varied businesses, which include lumber and oil, and became a member of the Order of Canada for his lengthy list of achievements.
He was one of the richest men in the country. The accumulated wealth of the three Irving brothers was pegged at $7.3 billion, according to a Canadian Business magazine ranking in 2009.
Outside of business, he established a reputation as a philanthropist who supported education, the arts and the restoration of heritage properties.
"His transportation and construction companies employed thousands of New Brunswickers, and while he may have been the quietest of the three Irving brothers, he was a figure on the international stage that will be fondly remembered here in New Brunswick," Premier Shawn Graham said in an interview, calling him a "gentle giant" of business.
Frustrated by what he considered the excessive demands of provincial and federal tax collectors, he and his wife Harriet, moved out of the province that had nurtured their financial success and moved to The Bahamas, a tax haven in the Caribbean, late in 1971. "I am no longer residing in New Brunswick," he said tersely in a statement issued early the following year before settling permanently in Bermuda. "My sons, J.K. Irving, A. L.Irving and J. E. Irving, are carrying on the various businesses. As far as anything else goes, I do not choose to discuss the matter further." Mrs. Irving died on the semi-tropical island in May, 1976. He followed suit on Dec. 13, 1992. At the time of his death he was reputed to be worth $7 billion, a huge estate that he managed to keep virtually intact.
Following their father's death in 1992, ownership and responsibility for the Irving companies was divided as follows:
J.K. - ownership and responsibility for J.D. Irving, the conglomerate which has interests in forestry, pulp and paper, tissue, newsprint, building supplies, frozen food, transportation, shipping lines, and ship building.
Arthur - ownership and responsibility for Irving Oil, its retail stores, oil refinery, oil tankers and distribution terminals and facilities.
Jack - ownership and responsibility for construction, engineering, and steel fabrication companies.
John. E. Irving
Kidnapping.
On a Friday evening in 1982, the year he turned 50, Irving arrived at his home in St. John with his wife Suzanne and daughter Anne. Suddenly a strange man shoved a .45-calibre revolver in his face and ordered the stunned Irvings into the house. He tied up the two women, then forced Irving into a car, drove to a nearby van, where he bound, gagged and blindfolded his hostage, and then covered him with an old blanket. For the next 10 hours the kidnapper drove around St. John, stopping every so often at a phone booth as he tried to negotiate payment of a $600,000 ransom. Meanwhile, more than 40 police and a squad of RCMP were tracking the calls and scouring the city for leads. About 7 a.m. Saturday morning they tracked the vehicle to a parking lot, overpowered the kidnapper and released Irving--without forfeiting any money. The hapless kidnapper, Stephen Gerald Childs, 22, was arrested, pleaded guilty at trial to kidnapping and extortion