William Aberhart, known as "Bible Bill" for his radio sermons about the Bible, was a Canadian politician and the seventh premier of Alberta from 1935 to his death in 1943.
38 Facts About William Aberhart
2.
William Aberhart was the founder and first leader of the Alberta Social Credit Party, which believed the Great Depression was caused by ordinary people not having enough to spend.
3.
Therefore, Aberhart argued that the government should give each Albertan $25 per month to spend to stimulate the economy, by providing needed purchasing power to allow needy customers to buy from waiting businesses.
4.
William Aberhart's government did successfully establish the Alberta Treasury Branches, a government-owned financial institution to provide an alternative to existing banks, which continues to operate as a Crown corporation of the Alberta government.
5.
In 1896, William Aberhart attended three months of model school in Mitchell.
6.
On July 29,1902, William Aberhart married Jessie Flatt, whom he had met in 1901 at a football game.
7.
William Aberhart fast won a reputation as a strict disciplinarian: he addressed his students by number rather than name and was liberal in his use of the strap.
8.
William Aberhart's family followed later, after he purchased a two-storey wooden house and Khona finished her academic year in Brantford.
9.
William Aberhart was to become principal of Mount Royal School, but it was not yet complete at the time of his arrival, so he became the principal of Alexandra Public School immediately on his arrival.
10.
Elliott and Miller write that William Aberhart took a less rigid approach to discipline at Crescent Heights than he had in Ontario, though Schultz says that as principal he was "authoritarian in manner and a strict disciplinarian".
11.
William Aberhart's standing with his staff was more mixed: he had a habit of "talking down" to them, dominated the school to the point that teachers were left with little initiative, and, as Elliott and Miller put it, "never entered the staff room except to issue an order".
12.
William Aberhart cared for his students and provided extensive extra tutoring, especially for students in whom he saw a genuine interest in learning the material.
13.
When some students wanted the school to purchase a movie projector not provided for in the school's budget, William Aberhart organized a company into which students could buy for ten cents per share; the company put on movies for which it charged admission, and at the end of its first year of operation it declared a dividend of 25 cents per share.
14.
William Aberhart's views were heavily influenced by a correspondence course he took offered by American Dispensationalist Cyrus Scofield; Elliott and Miller speculate that such a course would have appealed to Aberhart by reducing "difficult theological problems to a matter of memorizing questions and answers".
15.
William Aberhart had aspired to take ministerial training at the Presbyterian Knox College Divinity School, but the church in Brantford was reluctant to take on the support of both him and his family in the four-year training period.
16.
William Aberhart became fascinated with prophetical teaching in the Bible and studied a correspondence course by Cyrus Scofield.
17.
William Aberhart had been introduced to this system while attending a men's Bible Class at Zion Presbyterian, taught by William Nichol, an elderly physician.
18.
In 1910, William Aberhart accepted a position as principal of Alexandra School in Calgary, Alberta.
19.
William Aberhart then moved on to teach successively at the Wesley and Trinity Methodist Churches.
20.
In 1929, a section of church members who disagreed with his beliefs about the need for a baptism of the Holy Spirit separate from conversion, decided to return to the old building, prompting William Aberhart to found Bible Institute Baptist Church.
21.
William Aberhart became interested in politics during the Great Depression in Canada, a time which was especially harsh on Albertan and Saskatchewan farmers.
22.
From 1932 to 1935, William Aberhart lobbied for the governing political party, the United Farmers of Alberta, to adopt these theories, but it never did.
23.
William Aberhart was the obvious choice, as he had been the party's founder and guiding force.
24.
William Aberhart initially said he did not want the job, but was finally prevailed to accept it.
25.
The Social Credit MLA for Okotoks-High River, William Morrison, resigned to give Aberhart a chance to get a seat, per standard practice in the Westminster system when a leader or cabinet minister does not have a seat.
26.
William Aberhart served as premier and as his own minister of education and, starting in 1937, Attorney General.
27.
William Aberhart's government did not implement much of the Social Credit policies promised in the party's election platform, because of the province's very poor financial position in the depths of the Depression.
28.
However, there was no constitutional barrier to Alberta producing its own currency, which William Aberhart's government did to a limited degree with its prosperity certificates.
29.
William Aberhart did threaten the power of private banks with his government's extension of the UFA government's foreclosure moratorium and mandatory debt adjustment.
30.
William Aberhart instituted a variety of relief programs to help people out of poverty, as well as public works programs and a debt relief program that froze some debt collections and mortgage foreclosures.
31.
William Aberhart thus became the first Canadian politician to be threatened with recall from office.
32.
In keeping with his evangelical views, William Aberhart added a heavy dose of social conservatism to Major Douglas's ideas.
33.
William Aberhart's government was re-elected in the 1940 election with a somewhat reduced mandate, with William Aberhart being elected to a Calgary seat.
34.
ATB has become William Aberhart's legacy, operating as an orthodox financial institution and Crown corporation.
35.
William Aberhart died unexpectedly on May 23,1943, during a visit to his adult daughters in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Burnaby as his widow intended to move to Vancouver to be close to her children.
36.
William Aberhart was succeeded as the Premier of Alberta by his lifelong disciple, Ernest C Manning, who gradually moved away from Douglas' monetary theories.
37.
Historian Harold J Schultz's 1964 "Portrait of a Premier: William Aberhart" was published in the Canadian Historical Review.
38.
Bruce Allen Powe in 1983 published a novel entitled The William Aberhart Summer based on the events of 1935 when William Aberhart swept into power.