Burton Keirstead

1907-1973

Burton Seely Keirstead was born 17 November 1907 in Woodstock, New Brunswick. A year after Burton’s birth the family moved to Fredericton where his father accepted the chair in Economic Science and Philosophy at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). Keirstead was privately educated and started school on the seventh of October 1913 under the direction of Miss Nellie Taylor. After finishing second grade with Miss Taylor, he was enrolled at Smythe Street School in Fredericton. Keirstead graduated from Fredericton High School in 1924. The following autumn he, enrolled at the University of New Brunswick where he majored in Economics and English. While at UNB, Keirstead edited The Brunswickan and was President of the Debating Society.  In the Fall of 1928 he matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford and read Economics and in 1932 Keirstead achieved Second Class. Keirstead took up duties as the first head of the Economics and Political Science Department at the University of New Brunswick. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Keirstead moved to Halifax to Dalhousie University’s Institute of Public Affairs. It was here that he researched and wrote The Economic Effects of the War on the Maritime Provinces of Canada (1943). In 1942, Keirstead accepted an appointment to the Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University where he was Bronfman Professor from 1942-1946, William Dow Professor of Economics and Political Science from 1946-1954, and Chairman of the Department from 1947-1952. Keirstead accepted an appointment with the University of Toronto in 1954.  Ill health eventually forced him to take early retirement from the University of Toronto, which he left in June 1969 to return to Fredericton, NB. Keirstead not only wrote about economics, but he also wrote two detective stories: The Brownsville Murders (1933) in collaboration with D. Fredericton Campbell, and Murder in the Police Station (published in MacLean's, 1934).  Burton Keirstead died on 5 May 1973 in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Fredericton

Archival Material

• Burton Seely Keirstead fonds
  ⌄
  Location

  University of New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections

  Website/Catalogue Record

  View Archival Record

  Retrieval Number

  UA RG 81

  Date Range of Material

  [ca. 1900], 1907-1915, 1924-1970

  Extent

  4.6 m textual records
  48 photographs
  1 albums

  Scope and Content Note

  Fonds consists of material created by Burton Keirstead as an economist and professor and includes family-related material. Fonds consists of correspondence, drafts, and manuscripts of his writings, both academic and non-academic, and lecture notes prepared for the classes he taught in economics at University of New Brunswick, McGill University and University of Toronto. Keirstead was brought in as an expert researcher for social science research Committess and labour-related arbitration cases, and as an economic research specialist as part of the Newfoundland Commission. This fonds also includes material about Burton S. Keirstead's family life, which includes photographs, poetry written by his wife, Marjorie Stella Keirstead, and papers and correspondence relating to his father and mother (Wilfred Currier Keirstead and Gertrude Seely Keirstead).