Tag Archives: Archbishop’s Western Canada Fund

Harold’s Friend Travels to Tame the West

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From "The Church on the Prairie" (1910)

From “The Church on the Prairie” (1910)

The story goes that Walter was a minister who came from St. Aidan’s Church in West Herrington, England to Canada. I haven’t found anything to confirm that yet; what I have found is that Walter was born in Brighton in 1884 and lived in Croydon. His father was a boot-maker, Walter was his only son and an only brother to three sisters. He sailed to Canada in Sept, 1910 soon after the two original Anglican mission groups were raised for Western Canada. At that time, Walter wasn’t a clergyman; he was a layman and listed himself as a student on the ship’s register.

Harold at 18 1913

Harold in the Winter of 1913

I think the Gillespie’s were his family away from home in this new country. As he travelled West to his Mission House in Southern Alberta, Walter regularly sent the Harold and his brothers letters and picture postcards full of brotherly concern and encouragement.

In one card, he was glad to hear that Harold had returned to school after the harvest to continue his studies; he reminisced about the fun they had had skating the previous winter and hoped they could do it again someday, he mentioned his best suit had gone missing and that he was travelling on a stubborn horse.

Big Chief Mountain near Cardston

In another, he tells Harold he’s keen to hear of his mother’s travels but won’t be able to meet up with her on her return journey from British Columbia, he is simply too far away from the railway. He promises to write again next month. The photo on one card shows a dusty, one-street frontier town and on another, a flat-topped mountain.

Both postcards came from Cardston, Alberta.

Mainstreet Cardston

 

 

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It’s fascinating to read some of the handbooks these missionaries were given to prepare them for their life in the West. They pulled no punches — it was going to be a tough job.

It is even more fascinating when you discover an actual photo.

After months of searching through archives and local histories online, I find Walter T H Cripps in a digital collection from the Glenbow Museum Archives.

Image No: NA-1687-43 Title: Anglican clergymen in southern Alberta. Date: [ca. 1914] Remarks: Back Row: Extreme left: Canon S.H. Middleton. Front Row: (hand to eyes), Mr. Cripps. [Used in conjunction with script of talk on Anglican missions in Western Canada.

Reproduced with permission Glenbow Archives. Image No: NA-1687-43
Title: Anglican clergymen in southern Alberta. Date: [ca. 1914]
Remarks: Back Row: Extreme left: Canon S.H. Middleton. Middle row, second: Rev Canon Mowat, Front Row: (hand to eyes), Mr. Cripps. [Used in conjunction with script of talk on Anglican missions in Western Canada.

 There he is in the front row. This friend of grandfather’s, this man who will change the course of our family history.
He sits cross-legged on the grass, looking inquisitive, perhaps a little uncertain, one elbow propped on his knee, his hand shading his eyes so he can meet the camera’s lens. All the other clergymen squint into the sun, their lips pursed, brows wrinkled; serious and somewhat pained. The men are positioned at the front corner of a rough timber building. In the background, there is a wide dirt road; one commercial building peeks over the shoulder of a young clergyman, two telephone poles rise up and out of the frame. Everything is still so new.
There is no indication if this was a special occasion or a regular quarterly get-together. It may have been taken for fund-raising purposes (it was later included in a lantern show to raise funds).
Whatever the reason for the photo, Walter was remembered by someone in the community. They identified him in the photo, recorded it in the archives, what extraordinary luck.

 

 

The Grace Race

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The main purpose of the Methodist/Presbyterian survey was to understand the religious lay of this newly settled land and to find opportunities for growing the flock. What their survey found was that it was a very crowded field.

Services and Denominations

Emily Murphy was the young wife of an Anglican minister newly situated in the Swan River Valley. She was the author of Janey Canuck in the West (1910). She wrote about her time in Swan River  (renamed Poplar Bluff in the book) and in it made a sly poke at the overabundance of clergy and religious students in the small town.

The clergy in Poplar Bluff are numerous enough to preach the Gospel to every creature. There are five, not counting the students from theological colleges who are here for the summer. The population is about three hundred. Still, this cannot be helped, for our mission boards must really make an endeavour to spend the money contributed by the very generous people “back East.

Why so many ministers? Was the west really that wild? Or was it more like the Americans trying to beat the Russians to the moon.

It seems there was a Grace Race going on.

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As settlers spread out across the West, hundreds of men doing God’s work followed. History lessons when I was young didn’t say much about missionaries on the prairies beyond cliches like — they came to work among the Indians — a euphemism used to avoid uncomfortable truths of assimilation through missions and residential schools. While a trail-blazing few pushed on ahead of settlement in the hopes of ‘civilizing’ and saving the souls of the indigenous people, the majority of clergymen came later to maintain civilization and concentrate on the souls of the homesteaders. Nearly three million people arrived in Canada between 1900 and 1914 (almost half of them moved through to the Prairies) so there were a lot of potential souls. Churches of all denominations had their eyes on the New West. Urgent appeals flooded back East and to England for help.
The Church on the PrairieIn 1907 an appeal arrived for the Archbishop of Canterbury from Saskatchewan. They desperately needed fifty laymen in the diocese. Twenty-one men were found suitable and sent out with the promise of more to come. Two bishops on a tour of investigation in 1909 found the Church of England still struggling to maintain their “moral and spiritual influence”.

In February the next year, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York made a public appeal for donations and for offers of overseas service to Canada. They also started The Archbishops’ Western Canadian Fund. Donations would be used to build and maintain central clergy-houses across the west and Mission volunteers would serve in isolated outposts in the surrounding areas. Two groups of men were dispatched in the spring. More clergy and laymen followed as quickly as they could be examined and prepared.
One young man to promptly answer the Archbishops’ call was Walter Thomas Henry Cripps.

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Janey Canuck in The West

Janey Canuck was published in 1910,  the same year Walter T H Cripps landed in Canada and made his way to the Swan River Valley. Walter was a theological student and he’d come to take his place ministering in the West. He disembarked in Montreal in September, travelled to Manitoba and wintered in the Valley. He became friends with Harold and his family. He was to have a profound influence on Harold’s life.