Richard Bedford Bennett, referred to affectionately by family as Dick, was born on July 3rd 1870 in Hopewell Hill, New Brunswick. He was the son of a once prosperous shipbuilding family, who despite their decline into poverty at the time of Bennett’s birth, greatly valued education. Bennett, therefore, was an exceptional student in the community. He graduated high school at the age of 15 and soon after became a teacher and principal by the age of 18. Following his graduation from Dalhousie University will a degree in law in 1893, he was offered a position at the Calgary law firm of Conservative senator James A. Lougheed.
Bennett and his childhood friend Max Aitkin, who would later become Lord Beaverbrook, also jointly pursued many other successful ventures, including stock purchases, land speculation and the buying and merging of small companies. When Alberta became a province in 1905, Bennett became its first Conservative Party leader. He would also become the 11th prime minister of Canada in 1930, but would unfortunately have the misfortune to do so in the midst of one of the greatest economic disasters in history. While he is now remembered for the circumstances of his years in office, Bennett was key in the development of several important Canadian organizations today, such as the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation and the Bank of Canada. Though they were eventually disbanded, this plate was given to Bennett in 1939 by one such of these projects, The Bennett Young Canada Club.