Frank Fairchild Wesbrook, the first president of the University of British Columbia, was born in Brant County, Ontario, on July 12, 1868. In 1887, he graduated from the University of Manitoba, and the following year received a master's degree from the same institution. Wesbrook received his M.D. from McGill University in 1890. Subsequently, he spent a year at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. In 1892, he was elected John Walker student in pathology at Cambridge. He was appointed Professor of Bacteriology at the University of Minnesota in 1895, and in 1906 he became the first full-time Dean of Medicine there. While at the University of Minnesota, his chief field of work was in bacteriology relating to public health. In 1913, he accepted the post of President of the nascent UBC. He guided the University through the first difficult years, hiring staff and striving to make the University successful. Unfortunately, the boom that had lasted for a decade in B.C. collapsed with the outbreak of war in 1914. As a result, work on the new campus "begun at Point Grey to replace the Fairview campus used by UBC's predecessor McGill University College of B.C." was suspended for several years.
Consequently, when the University of British Columbia began operations in 1915, it had to do so in Fairview's less than adequate facilities. As well as his University activities, President Wesbrook was commanding officer of the Officers' Training Corps at UBC. He helped establish the Vancouver Institute, toured the Province examining its resources, and was active in the Patriotic Fund Drive in the Autumn of 1915. Unfortunately, failing health forced him to take a long break from his duties in early 1918. He died on October 20, 1918.