Manitoba Heritage Council Commemorative Plaques

James Shaver Woodsworth
1874–1942

Parliamentarian and Methodist minister, J.S. Woodsworth was born at Etobicoke, Ontario, and raised in Portage la Prairie and Brandon. He was educated at Wesley College and the universities of Toronto and Oxford. Ordained in 1900, Woodsworth served his church in sorthwestern Manitoba missions and in Winnipeg. In 1907 he became the superintendent of Winnipeg's All People's Mission, where he worked on behalf of the immigrant poor until 1913.

Woodsworth was an exponent of the social gospel and pacifism, and championed trade unions and democratic socialism. He was arrested for his participation in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre, 1921–42, he was a founder and the first leader of the Co-operative Comonwealth Federation. Woodsworth lived at this location from time to time between 1909 and 1942.

More than any other Canadian, he transformed the nation, introducing the politics of collective concern for the individual in a society collectively organized.