John Edward Brownlee (August 27, 1883 – July 15, 1961) was the fifth premier of Alberta, serving from 1925 until 1934. Born in Port Ryerse, Ontario, he studied history and political science at the University of Toronto's Victoria College before moving west to Calgary to become a lawyer. His clients included the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA); through his connection with that lobby group, he was involved in founding the United Grain Growers (UGG).
After the UFA entered electoral politics and won the 1921 election, new premier Herbert Greenfield asked Brownlee to serve as his attorney-general. Brownlee agreed and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in a by-election in the riding of Ponoka. As attorney-general, he was an important member of Greenfield's government. He was closely involved in its most important activities, including efforts to better the lot of farmers living in Alberta's drought-ridden south, divest itself of money-losing railways, and win jurisdiction over natural resources from the federal government. When a group of UFA backbenchers grew frustrated with Greenfield's weak leadership, they asked Brownlee to replace him. Brownlee eventually agreed, and became premier in 1925.
Brownlee enjoyed early success as premier: he handily won the 1926 election, signed an agreement with the federal government transferring control over Alberta's natural resources to its provincial government, sold the struggling government railways to the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railway companies, and ran a series of balanced budgets. Things became more difficult with the advent of the Great Depression. Brownlee was unable to restore the province to prosperity in the face of a global economic crisis, and reluctantly ran budget deficits. Political radicalism increased, and Brownlee found his orthodox approach to political economy under attack.
In 1934, Vivian MacMillan, a family friend, accused Brownlee of seduction. Her father sued Brownlee under Alberta's Seduction Act. He denied any sexual relationship, but a jury found in MacMillan's favour. The judge disregarded the jury's verdict, but the trial's lurid testimony and the stigma resulting from the jury's finding caused Brownlee to resign as premier.
He ran for re-election in Ponoka in the 1935 provincial election but was unsuccessful, as William Aberhart's Social Credit League was elected to a massive majority in the Legislature that year. Once out of politics, Brownlee resumed the practice of law and joined the management of the UGG, serving as its president and general manager from 1948 until shortly before his death in 1961.
John Edward Brownlee was born August 27, 1883, in Port Ryerse, Ontario, to William "Bill" James Brownlee (1856–1934) and Christina Brownlee (née Shaw; c. 1860–1941). He was named for his maternal grandfather, miller John Shaw, and paternal grandfather, carpenter Edward James Brownlee. Christina Brownlee was a former school mistress and William James Brownlee was the operator of the Port Ryerse general store. John Brownlee had one sister, Maude, born September 12, 1888. The Brownlees lived in the general store building, and it was here that John spent the happiest times of his childhood: he much preferred his parents' books, their political discussions with neighbours, and the details of their business to life outside the store. One anecdote has the village children, displeased with his serious temperament, throwing him into Lake Erie. By the age of seven, John was assisting at the store with such tasks as mixing butter from the different dairies with which his father dealt to produce a standardized blend.
By the end of the 1880s, Port Ryerse was dying out. The advent of railways was making tiny lake ports obsolete, and in Port Ryerse's case this obsolescence was hastened by the town mill burning down in August 1890. Against this backdrop, the family moved to Bradshaw, in Lambton County. There, John began school and attended Sunday school at the village's Methodist church. He was the only pupil at his tiny school not from a farm; he later claimed that this exposure to farmers gave him an early understanding of their concerns. He also became involved with his church's young people's club, which put on speaking programs. He was by nature shy, serious, and introverted, which made these programs a challenge at first; however, he found that he was able to succeed at them through focus and discipline.
In September 1897, Brownlee began high school. The closest high school was in Sarnia, too distant for a daily commute, so at the age of fourteen Brownlee boarded away from his family, seeing them only during holidays and occasional weekends. He was a good student—described by his instructors as "diligent", if not brilliant—but was not a social success, being too studious for many of his peers. He wrote his departmental examinations in July 1900 and graduated shortly thereafter.
After graduating high school, Brownlee travelled with his father on a sales trip through northern Ontario, and otherwise assisted with the operation of the family business. His family expected him to become a teacher and, in September 1901, just after his eighteenth birthday, he enrolled at Sarnia Model School. There, Brownlee completed a fifteen-week program that included such subjects as school management, pedagogy, school law, reading instruction, and hygiene. He graduated December 12, 1901, second in his twenty-person class, and within a month was one of two teachers at Bradshaw's school.
He fast gained a reputation as a competent instructor: his old work ethic served him well, and his seriousness, cool blue-grey eyes, and six foot four frame combined to give him an impressive presence. His $400 per year salary did not satisfy his ambition, and in the spring of 1904, after two and a half years on the job, he decided that he wanted a university education. His teaching salary was not sufficient to finance this, so he spent the summer of 1904 selling a one volume encyclopaedia in the newly settled areas around Rapid City, Manitoba. Besides providing him with the income he required—he was a patient, effective salesman and later boasted that he was never thrown off of a farm—the job gave the now 21-year-old Brownlee his first glimpse of Western Canada. Returning to Ontario at the summer's end, he enrolled at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
In Toronto, Brownlee pursued an honours program with specializations in history and political science. Besides these chosen subjects, he was required to study mathematics, biology, English literature, composition, Latin, and two additional languages—despite having some knowledge of French, he chose German and Hebrew. He continued his trend of diligent scholarship, and earned As in all subjects his first year except for Latin, German, and mathematics, in which he received Bs. The trend continued, and in his third year he was among the top five in his class in all subjects except economics, in which he was eighth. As he became more involved in extracurricular pursuits, these grades fell; after his fourth and final year, he graduated with III Class Honours, leaving him out of the top tier of students. His professors included historian George Wrong, whom Brownlee held in high esteem.
Brownlee was involved in a wide array of extracurricular pursuits. Chief among these were the Union Literary Society (dubbed "the Lit"), Acta Victoriana (the college's literary journal), and "the Bob" (a satirical revue). The first of these allowed him to hone his skills at formal debate; he earned a reputation as "one of the more effective although not the most dramatic of speakers". In his involvement with the journal, he developed his business skills: in his second year he was named assistant business manager, and he was promoted to business manager in his fourth year. His financial management of Acta Victoriana, along with that of the college glee club (for which he also served as business manager during his fourth year, organizing a ten-day tour of the Niagara region), earned him accolades. For the Bob, Brownlee temporarily abandoned his seriousness to write skits poking fun at the college and his classmates; these won good reviews, with the Acta Victoriana declaring the 1908 edition, which Brownlee headed, "one of the best ever". The summer following his third year, he attended the Conference of College Young Men's Associations at Niagara-on-the-Lake, where he attended Bible study classes and heard guest speakers encourage him to pursue a career in the clergy.