Inducted: November 17, 2009
Roy Warwick combined careers as a successful lumber merchant and contractor with farming, and still found time for lengthy municipal service.
He was a member of a family recognized for innovative work in agriculture. Both his father, Thomas C. Warwick, and his brother, Ernest, have been inducted into the Kent Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Mr. Warwick was born in Chatham, the son of Thomas Warwick and the former Nellie Morrison. He received his education at Blenheim Public and Secondary Schools.
He started working for his father in the lumber and seed corn businesses; and a latent interest in farming eventually emerged. His farm buildings, constructed in the 1950's, housed a large Holstein herd, its excellence attracting the attention and interest of dairy farmers from far and near. He was a Director of the Ontario Holstein-Friesian Association.
Some of the most vivid memories of Roy Warwick are those of his son, Thomas Warwick, a Blenheim attorney. He recalls the sale of prize-winning bulls owned by his father, to Mexico; and, as a teen-ager, meeting with Mexican buyers when they came to purchase a bull, named "Mercury", for the then astounding price of $3,000.
A son's recollections are of showing the best of the herd of 200 at various fairs, including the Canadian National Exhibition, and of taking top prizes. Understandably, Thomas Warwick remembers, vividly, the work involved. Every year, they brought in approximately 30,000 bales of hay and straw, and filled four silos.
Roy Warwick had a large farm operation, involving some 600 pigs, vegetable crops, sugar beets, and both burley and black tobacco.
The Warwicks were entrepreneurs. Roy Warwick accompanied the first shipment of hogs to Cuba made by his brother, Ernest, a trail-blazing development in international farm trade. He amazed his neighbours one year by planting corn after the wheat harvest, corn that matured enough to be used for silage.
Many sturdy barns in the area, including those once used for his Holstein herd, were built by Roy Warwick. A bad fire resulted in the loss of all of his barns in the 1950s. When he rebuilt, the new structures had up-to-the-minute fire walls.
Mr. Warwick also had a lengthy and dedicated record of municipal service. He was Mayor of the Town of Blenheim in 1944 and 1945; he was Commissioner for the Blenheim P.U.C. from 1952 – 1966, and served as President of the Ontario Municipal Electric Association, as well as Vice-President of the Sarnia Hydro Electric Commission. Mr. Warwick was inducted into the Masonry in 1934, and was a long term member of the Kiwanis Club.
Roy Warwick married the former Eva Moore.
They had two sons: Thomas, a solicitor in Blenheim; and the late Robert Warwick. There are six grandchildren; the late Allen Warwick, Guelph; Bruce Warwick, Chatham; Mark Warwick, Tennessee; Kathy Brouwer, Blenheim; Karen Steinman, Lambeth; and Bradley Warwick, Blenheim.
He was, in the memory of his son, "a very generous person".