The family moved to Southampton around 1890 and Tregillus obtained a position in the sales department of Spillers, a major flour milling company.

[3] Tregillus later started up his own flour milling and brokerage business, operating from his home in Freemantle, a suburb to the west of Southampton.

He built a large two-story brick house with outbuildings that he called "Roscarrock", the name of the place in Cornwall where his family had originated.

[3] Tregillus began to import horses from British Columbia for sale to new settlers, and bred hackneys for his personal use.

[5] In 1910 Tregillus was elected vice-president of the UFA, and that year led a delegation of farmers to Vancouver to explore the possibility of shipping grain via the west coast, which promised to be an economically viable route once the Panama Canal opened (in 1914).

[1] On 16 December 1910 over 800 farmer delegates, mostly from the prairies, marched up Parliament Hill to meet premier Wilfrid Laurier in the "Siege of Ottawa".

The convention endorsed a motion by Edward Michener to have the board of the UFA consult the government over the decision.

[7] He suggested that friends of the premier had land in Strathcona and would benefit from the college being there, and this was the real reason for choosing that location.

[1] Tregillus claimed the siege of Ottawa had "awakened the people of this great Dominion ... to their possibilities and their duty".

"[8] Tregillus was in favor of bringing women into the farmers' movement, thinking that their innate purity and maternal instinct would improve the ethics of the society, promote mutual aid and benefit the UFA "socially".

[9] Many farmers were believers in direct legislation, where laws would be created through a process of initiative, referendum and recall.

Soon after the UFA's 1910 convention a direct legislation league was formed in Alberta, and Tregillus was made president.

[10] Tregillus wrote in the Grain Growers' Guide on 13 July 1910, "I have no further sympathy with 'party politics' and will in future only support those candidates who will pledge themselves to the following: Direct Legislation, the Initiative, Referendum and the right of Recall.

[11] Tregillus came to support the idea of forming a political party to represent the farmers, but no progress had been made at the time of his death.

[1] On their return, he raised CAN$1 million to build a modern brick, tile and sewer pipe factory that used high-quality clay from the north edge of his property.

[13] The Tregillus Clay Products Company began operation in 1912, and eventually produced 150,000 wire-cut tapestry bricks daily.

[1] The AFCEC had its offices on the third floor of the Lougheed Building in Calgary, which also housed the headquarters of Tregillus Clay Products and Tregillus-Thompson Directory Publishers.

"[1] In 1912 Tregillis donated 160 acres (65 ha) of land for a new University of Calgary, to be run as a private enterprise, and gave a $50,000 endowment to the institution.