Ernest Edward Winch (March 22, 1879 – January 11, 1957) was a British Columbia politician, trade unionist and socialist. He was a BC Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MLA in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly from 1933 until his death in 1957.Ernest Winch biography
accessed January 13, 2008 Born in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Winch's father was a master bricklayer. The younger Winch apprenticed in the trade. In 1899 he went to Australia briefly and returned again in 1903 but again went back to England. In 1909, he came to Canada with his young family.Peter Campbell: Roads to Revolution: Canadian Marxists and the Search for Socialism, 1910-1940 Third Annual Robert S. Kenny Prize Lecture, May 1, 2001
/ref> Winch began studying

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

in 1910 and joined the

Social Democratic Party of Canada The Social Democratic Party was a social democratic political party in Canada founded in 1911 by members of the right wing of the Socialist Party of Canada, many of whom had left the organisation in May 1907 to form the Social Democratic Party of ...

the next year becoming its provincial secretary by 1913. In July 1918, he became president of the Vancouver Trade and Labour Council, he endorsed the Vancouver General Strike on 1918 and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. He was an active member of various left wing parties including the

Socialist Party of Canada The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) was a political party that existed from 1904 to 1925, led by E. T. Kingsley. It published the socialist newspaper ''Western Clarion''. History Establishment The founding of the Socialist Party of Canada bega ...

and the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

. He refounded the Socialist Party of Canada (British Columbia) in 1932 and, with it, joined the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. In the 1933 provincial election he, his son

Harold Winch Harold Edward Winch (18 June 1907 – 1 February 1993) was a Canadian politician active with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP). Winch was leader of the British Columbia CCF from 19 ...

, and five others became the first CCF MLAs in the legislature. In 1938, his son became party leader. Winch was founder of The New Vista Society of Burnaby in 1943, a founder member of the Association for the Protection of Fur bearing Animals of British Columbia.

References

External links

Ernest Edward Winch
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage. Available f ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winch, Ernest 1879 births 1957 deaths Canadian socialists British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MLAs 20th-century Canadian politicians English emigrants to Canada People from Harlow